The air tasted wrong when she returned.
Her body convulsed, slammed with a force as if struck by lightning. Her lungs seized, chest split with an awful pain. Oxygen entered her, then left. She was breathing. Somehow, impossibly, her heart was pounding again, every beat agony and ecstasy at once.
Her eyes flew open to fluorescent light flickering overhead.
A ceiling. A single bulb. Cracked, stained, buzzing like a hornet, singing in its ripe, angry yellow. The smell hit next. The sterile antiseptic warped by the reek of copper and rot. A wet sound echoed somewhere nearby, rhythmic and wrong. Her head throbbed. Her hands twitched against thin, blood-smeared sheets. The sheets were dirty, the walls were dirty.
She was lying in a hospital bed, but this, this was old, this was different…Something was wrong. Voices rumbled in the hallway. Machines hummed. Lights buzzed. She blinked hard, forcing her limbs to move. Her vision swam, then sharpened.
Float was already awake.
The screen hovered beside her bed, silent and luminous. The interface she'd helped design, once cold and clinical, now throbbed with something almost alive. A list. Names. Seven names.
All of them were marked with hearts. All the bars were filled.
Each one was glowing red. Each one pulsing in time like a thousand tiny beacons. She didn't need to touch it to know. She could feel them. The rhythm. The weight. The want. It seared through her; the completed connection was like no other. Seven threads burning like molten steel through the dark, twisting gold.
She had a pack now. They were a mated pack of eight.
But she didn't fucking care.
They were all alive.
Her breath escaped her, the panic whispering free. Alive. There were tears in her eyes. A burn in her nose. They saved her life.
The door, or at least the cloth flap they'd fashioned to create some privacy, fluttered open. Her body jumped. The man who entered was the last person she'd expect to see.
Klaus, in clothes more fitting for activity, thick warrior armour reminiscent of wasteland gear. It was splattered with black, dried gore. His eyes glowed gold, bloodshot, locking upon her with an intensity that rooted her on the spot. But it was the black veins running up his throat that concerned her. The touch of it in his sclera.
Lonely.
Her mind reminded her quickly that the transformation was not solely because of rejection or hurt of a soulmate. The anchor had warned that all were at risk. That the bond had to be repeatedly maintained, reassured.
It did not matter whether or not they were mated. The virus was always there, and he was succumbing to it, as a weakening soul would. But he was still handsome, still had her staring, incapable of looking away. Emotions danced in his eyes, flew through him as if struck by lightning.
Her own body clenched as his scent flooded the room— dark chocolate, thick, hot and sticky.
Inside her, a low vibration stirred. A thrum that didn't belong to fear. Her Alpha stirred in her bones, not snarling, not retreating, but purring. What the hell? But his face looked different. Drawn. Haunted. Weak. Like something had been hollowed out from the inside out. He did not look like the king he was.
He looked aged.
"Quinn," he said, voice low and sanded-down. Something was wrong. "You're alive."
She did not remember deciding to move. But for one breath, she was still, and the next she was scrambling backwards like the bed was on fire. The world reeled. Her limbs tangled with the edge of a blanket, with the drip in her hand. Her shoulder thumped into the plaster wall, and she kept going, even as her knees burned from the friction.
Her back was pressed against the corner. It stopped her cold.
Her hands were on her neck before she could think again. Frantic, fluttering. Searching. One palm skimmed over skin that felt too warm, too raw, the other pressed to her chest, like she could feel her own heartbeat. She was shaking all over. Shaking and suffocating and terrified in the kind of way that left no space for reason.
There was a claim on her neck.
She expected as much.
But to feel it, to experience it in her human body. The emotions were running havoc in her. She wanted to scream, but her voice wouldn't cooperate. It tasted like there was too much blood in her mouth, even if she knew that there was none there. The gunshot in her chest. The bullet wound was like a crevice. But there was too much scarring.
Her fingers dug deeper. It had healed so quickly, so rapidly.
"I'm sorry." The voice whispered, too quiet to be anything but a razor across her nerves. "Please. Don't move too fast. You'll hurt yourself.
Klaus.
Klaus was there.
Of course, he was there.
But now, as the terror sharpened and turned to rage, she saw him kneeling in front of her, his hands raised like she was some kind of stupid wild animal he was trying not to startle. Which was fucking funny, because he was the one who did this to her. He was the one who killed her. He was also the one who saved her. She stared at him. Her heart was hammering like a war drum in her chest. He looked so sad.
Like he was the one who was hurting.
Like he should be comforted.
He did not know that she knew his truth. That she knew what had transpired. But he could feel her emotions, the wreck of it tearing through her. His hand reached out, hesitant, almost reverent.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, "but please. Please don't pull out the drip."
She stared at him, stunned by the quiet of his voice. Her wounds flared, stinging like something fresh, like something deep inside her was screaming for her to touch him. She gasped, hand to her heart, and then she saw it.
He flinched like he felt it too.
Her feelings were his.
Her pain was his.
Klaus bowed his head, eyes closing for a second, jaw tight. "We're connected. I know what you feel," he said softly, like that explained anything. Like that justified everything. "It's part of bonding with an already mated pack. When you're—"
"No." Her voice finally arrived, cracked and full of venom. There was so much she wanted to say, and also so much that she knew. "Don't."
He blinked at her. She almost wishes he wouldn't look so damn gentle. "Don't what?"
"Don't say it like that." Her throat ached. "Like it's something I should be grateful for. You—" She swallowed, fury rising like bile. She wanted to hit him. Or sob. Her own fucking soulmate. She did nothing to warrant all that fucking rage. "You killed me, Klaus. You fucking shot me. You fucking shot me in the chest without any remorse. All I did was protect your mates."
He didn't deny it. Just looked at her with something ugly and soft behind his eyes, like the truth scalded him. "I did."
"For what?" she dug, felt like a villain because she had to, she had to punish him. "For my fucking heart? So why am I still alive? So why am I here? Why the fuck did you save me?" Her voice dipped into a growl. "Why the fuck did you claim me?"
He seemed almost sick at her words, growing pale, too green. But the ink in his skin now disturbed her, the spiderweb of it, inked in his skin. How much of his soul had he lost? "I was wrong, we were all wrong, so wrong. Quinn," he choked out. "I have no excuse." His tears fell; it surprised her. It horrified her. "My mates have told me your story." His head fell. "I'm sorry."
"So what?" she snapped, her words were poison. "So what? Go back to your court. Go back to your cannibalistic men—"
"There's no court," he whispered. "There are no men. I'm not a king. Not anymore."
His word chilled her, and her head lifted, eyes meeting his. Another bomb dropped. Another exhale. The clues and the puzzle seemed to fit. She was not in the kingdom anymore. "What?"
"The kingdom is gone," he said, voice too smooth, too rigid. "We got everyone who was still sane, as many people as we could gather. And then we fled. But there are only a few of us. And those who survive have already been infected; the disease spreads quickly." Quinn's lips parted, her pulse raised. How long had she slept for? How much time had she wasted in bed? "I have to tell you now, please understand. It could be hours for anyone. You need to know."
No.
She was too damn late.
She was too late to tell them the truth.
"Infected?" Her thoughts swept to his words, brows furrowed. Her panic flared; he seemed to rise in response, concern all over his features. Then he fell to his knees again, as if unable to bring himself to get closer to her. "Everyone?"
"Yes," Klaus said, eyes filled with worry as it swept over her. "It must have mutated. We never imagined, never believed that it could act like a virus, that it wasn't a condition we simply had to cure—" Her eyes swept across the room to the panel of silver hanging on one side of the wall.
"Show me the mirror," she snapped.
Klaus paused. "Quinn—"
"Klaus, hand me the fucking mirror." She snatched it from him, eyes wide, staring at her skin. To the ink that travelled from her neck, spreading upwards like vines. Her lips parted. "Well, fuck me."
She was transforming too.
Read up to 7 chapters ahead on
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tinyeyecat
Inkitt Subscription: https://www.inkitt.com/tinyeyecat