It was hard for Ten to stay human when she was this worried about her mate.

She was sitting on Gunner’s bed, and he was all curled up in her lap sleeping as she rocked him. It was late and he’d been tired, but she was good at this part—getting him into a deep sleep.

She didn’t have a guess at how much he missed a mother figure. She only knew what she saw and experienced, and he was thirsty for affection like she was.

The apartment was chock-full of friends. Trigger sat next to the wood-burning stove, chewing on his thumbnail as he hugged Ava close, who was on his lap, watching the flames with her head against her mate’s chest. Colt and Karis were sitting on the floor up against the kitchen cabinets, staring into the open bedroom door. Outside, Harley was kicking his stall every minute or so, being his usual asshole self. Ava had brought Norman inside, and he was sleeping in a little pile of half-grown, fuzzy cuteness near her feet. And in the bedroom, through the open door, Cooper and Trina were sitting right next to Kurt’s bed. Cooper had his head bowed as though he was praying, and Trina was checking bandages.

Good. She should see how bad off Kurt was. It didn’t do anyone any good to hide the facts. Kurt was knocking on death’s door.

Just the thought gutted her. The crows Ten could handle, but the poisoned, broken bonds? Ten didn’t understand them.

When Cooper leaned forward and sank his teeth into Kurt’s arm, Ten sat up straight. What the fuck? He couldn’t lose any more blood!

She settled Gunner on his bed and tossed Trigger a warning glance. Be ready.

Ten made her way into the room to clock that old cougar for hurting her mate, but Cooper was leaning over Kurt now, forearm in his mouth, and Trina was pushing Kurt’s slack jaw so he sank his teeth into Cooper.

Ten froze in the doorway, shocked as Cooper lifted his arm and dripped blood into Kurt’s mouth.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Bonding us in the old ways,” he murmured. “He’s too far gone to do it himself.”

“Is he going to die?” Tenlee asked.

“Probably,” Trina answered. Tears were streaming down her face as she bit Kurt’s arm over Coopers teeth marks.

Ten slid down the wall by the door, hands over her mouth as her eyes burned with tears and her heart burned with agony. His breathing was so shallow his chest barely pressed against his bloody bandages, and his skin was white as a sheet.

Trina’s tears spilled onto his chest as she put her forearm in his mouth and waited for Cooper to shove Kurt’s jaw forward. They were making him an Alpha in the last minutes of his life.

Trina stood back and lifted her chin, clutched her bleeding arm to her chest. She stared at Ten with glowing, silver eyes. “Your turn, little squirrel.”

“I can’t.”

“You can and you will. You’re his.” She twitched her head to Kurt’s still form. “He needs as much strength as he can get. You love him? Bleed for him.”

Ten stood and pushed all thoughts of surrendering to the crows out of her mind. She would deal with that in two days. Right now, all that mattered was that Kurt’s chest kept lifting with his breath and his heart kept making that bum-bum, bum-bum sound.

She bit his torn arm and then placed her forearm into his mouth. She looked to Trina and nodded. “Do it.”

Trina snarled up her lip, but she looked proud, and then she shoved Kurt’s jaw and cut into Ten’s arm with his teeth.

His throat barely moved with the motion of him swallowing. Cooper bowed next to the bed and whispered, “Alpha.”

Trina did the same.

Ten knelt between them and squeezed his hand hard. “Come back to me, Alpha.”

But all she could hear was the faint sound of him breathing and the crackle of the wood-burning stove in the other room. When she looked behind her, the others were piled in the doorway, watching Kurt’s chest rise and fall.

They looked so sad.

She’d found her place here, but Ten’s moments of happiness were numbered now by the shallow rise and fall of Kurt’s chest. Each struggling breath counted down to the end of his life, and to hers. And suddenly everything she’d been through piled up like a heavy mountain resting upon her shoulders. Her mom, a squirrel, had died first. A cat got her. And her dad went next in a bad winter. All those animals that had been afraid of her. And all those years she’d felt completely confused and alone. Meeting the crows and realizing who she was didn’t matter as much as what she was. The discovery of the most alienating word in the whole world—Origin. And Momma Crow, the only one she’d ever trusted in Red Dead Mayhem… Ten’s teacher had become her betrayer. Ramsey and his constant disappointment in her. All those crows focused on keeping her quiet and docile so their Alpha could stay steady. An entire Clan had stepped on her, crushing her neck with their boots while they stayed happy. And then when she’d finally gotten brave enough to run, she’d landed here and slowly, slowly found her place. She’d got a taste of happiness. Of freedom. And Kurt had been a huge part of that. She couldn’t be whole without him now. He made her brave. He taught her about love. This…losing Kurt… was too much on the fragile life she’d built. Every good part of her would die with him.

Ten climbed into his bed and curled around him, staining the pillow with the tears that streamed from the corners of her eyes.

“You’re mine. Can’t you see? You’re mine, and you’re not meant to go. Not yet. It’s too much. Too hard. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and I want you to stay. I need you to.”

That’s when she felt the hands on her back. So many of them. Trina and Cooper, Ava and Trigger, Karis and Colt. Colt. Her best friend, even if he didn’t accept it. Her people were trying to keep her from breaking apart, too.

“Ten,” Trina whispered. “Look.”

Ten wiped her damp cheek on her shoulder, and lifted her head. Kurt looked dead already, pale, eyes closed, chest still, but on his throat, the gashes from the Alpha fight…well…they were closing up.

Ten gasped and sat up, then pulled at the bandages on Kurt’s chest.

“Here,” Colt murmured, handing her a knife with a deer-antler handle. With shaking hands, she pulled at the gauze and cut it away. Cut, cut, cut. She straddled him, watching in shock, as the wide-open gashes on his body fused together and healed into silver scars.

“Oh my gosh,” she murmured, “it’s working.” She still felt every bit of that heaviness in her chest from earlier, but he was healing.

Trina and Cooper looked pale as ghosts, but they were standing next to the bed with hope swimming in their eyes.

Kurt coughed and squinted one eye open. Suspiciously, he looked around the room, only his eyes moving. When his gaze landed back on Ten, in a sleep-filled voice, he asked, “Are we having sex?”

Ten laughed thickly and shook her head. “No, we aren’t having sex. It’s something even better.”

Kurt scrunched up his face. “What the fuck could be better than sex?”

“I meeeean…the man has a point,” Colt said from behind them.

And okay, Ten was straddling his hips. He was probably confused, but right now she didn’t care enough to get embarrassed. Kurt gripped her thighs and took a deep, easy breath. “What happened?”

She parted her lips to tell him he would live to see Gunner grow up, but she couldn’t get a word past her tightened throat. They’d done it.

Trig answered for her. “Your mate fixed your life, man. She wouldn’t quit on you.”

Ten’s face crumpled, and she looked over at Cooper and Trina, overwhelmed with racing thoughts and relief. “Thank you,” she rasped out. She couldn’t repay them now, but someday she would find a way.

Trina dropped her face in her hands, and her torso shook with her crying.

Cooper rubbed his daughter’s back, but his eyes were on Kurt. “Everything is gonna be okay,” he promised him.

And Ten believed him. Oh, she knew her fate. Knew where she was headed, but for the New Darby Clan and Two Claws Clan, everything would be okay. With or without her.

She was going to make sure of it.