Chapter 6 - Percy

" No ," I say, as loudly and forcefully as I can, but I can tell that I barely wheeze the word out. My breath is coming harder and harder, like my lungs are shriveling up in my chest. My blood feels leaden, thick, and I can feel my heart struggling to push it through my body. If I close my eyes, I think I might be able to feel each cell inside my body folding under the weight of the venom, giving up the fight.

Pieces of me dying, one iota at a time.

Growing up, we'd all heard about vampires and why it was important to stay away from them. They're disgusting, evil, greasy and bite-happy. They didn't discriminate—children, women, the elderly—they would take from anyone, and once their poison made its way into your bloodstream, you were done.

And it wouldn't be a good death, either. As a shifter, it would be total agony, the slow rotting and pain of turning to jelly inside out as the venom worked its way through your body, finally, finally making it to your brain.

For humans, it usually takes minutes. Either they turned, which was rare, or they died, which was much more common.

According to Aris, he had been on some missions where they'd found dead humans with almost all their blood left, which meant that not only were the vampires hunting humans, but they weren't even doing it for blood. They were doing it for fun.

I wince as my lungs crush again, screaming for oxygen.

There's a part of me, distantly, that is happy. Content with this choice. After all, I'd wanted to take my own life when I realized I'd been dosed with the serum. The team had heard what would happen to those who cam in contact with it, and I knew I'd rather die than not be able to shift.

Memories flash to my mind—shifting into my wolf form, playing in the fields with my siblings, rolling and laughing in the bright sunlight in the flower fields outside my parents' farm. I remember shifting with Eva and running to town when we first came to Rosecreek. She was icy, but I never would have thought she had it in her to betray our team.

My mother, father, and sisters flash before my mind as I watch Maisie and Veronica talking. My vision starts to grow fuzzy, but I have to hold on and keep Maisie from doing this to her.

Veronica. The one woman I have ever loved. My mate.

I would never condemn her to a blood bond with me. Even if it saved my life. I grab my hand back from Maisie when she tries to take it from me, but I'm too weak.

Pain and panic fly over Veronica's face in waves. It's an unusual expression for her—normally, she is so in control, and knows exactly what to do next. I think of the first time I saw her in that ER and how composed she was about the wound on my arm.

I think what flustered her was the connection between us. My heart flutters at the memory. At least, dying now, I get to see Veronica one last time.

"Percy," Maisie says, her voice sounding like it's coming through water. "You are going to die !"

"No blood-bond," I choke out, " no ."

Maisie and Veronica keep talking, and I wonder if Maisie is trying to find a way to explain the blood bond to Veronica in a way that makes sense to her ultra-scientific brain. The only reason she's suggesting the blood-bond is because she couldn't possibly know that truth—that Veronica and I are mates.

I have never heard of it occurring between a shifter and a human before, and I think the only reason I could contain myself is because the potency was lower, her not being a shifter. Maisie doesn't know that we're mates, because if she did, she would never suggest a blood-bond.

Aris was beside himself when he was forced to blood-bond with his mate, and he was at least allowed to be near her. He kept her in his cabin with him. Bigby told me later, laughing over the absurdity of it, that Aris had slept by the lake to keep from making a move on Linnea.

The serum has ruined everything in my life. I can only assume that if our alpha struggled with the pull, I, spent by the serum and those years in the woods, wouldn't stand a chance against it. I don't know what it will feel like from Veronica's end, but I don't want her to come near me because she feels compelled to.

Coughing fits start to wrack violently through my body. Despite my contentedness with the death thing, my body isn't okay with it, and is doing everything to try and draw some oxygen into my lungs. When the coughing stops, I set my forehead against the cool tiles, seeing little spatters of blood on the white tile around me.

A blood-bond between us would intensify that connection. It would be a never-ending curse, a force that would drive me to Veronica or drive me crazy with the urge to follow her. I let out a deranged laugh at the idea that I might just lose my mind again, this time permanently, if I'm blood-bonded to my mate, but rejected by her.

Maisie and Veronica snap their gazes over to me. Coughing, apparently, was expected, but laughing is not.

"We have to do it, Percy," Maisie says, panicked, crouching in front of me, her eyes bouncing back and forth between mine like she's trying to find what consciousness I have left.

"No," I rasp. "I would rather die."

When my eyes travel up to the ceiling again, I see Veronica's expression on the way, and my heart twists at the pain and hurt there. I close my eyes. I can only hope that she will move on from this, that the mating bond between us will die with me, following me down, and that she'll be free to go on and live her life how she wants.

I picture her back in New York City, dancing in her underwear in her short-term rental, making me strawberry shortcake pancakes, and documenting the whole thing on her Instagram.

When she spun around to me, serving them up and forcing me to wait until she dusted some powdered sugar over the top, I'd caught her by the wrist. This was near the end of our relationship, when I was thinking about leaving. More and more, I had started to convince myself that staying would only hurt her.

"If you could do anything," I said, looking up into her eyes, which were so open , so awake and happy, I could feel that moment searing into my brain forever. "What would it be?"

"Eat these pancakes," she said, laughing and trying to tug away.

"No," I'd said, catching her again, pulling her back, drunk on the sound of her giggles. "Like, with your life. If you could do anything with your life, what would it be? What do you see in your future?"

"Well," she had said, popping a syrupy strawberry in her mouth, a horrible distraction to a crucial question. "I've been a traveling nurse for a while, but it would be fun to do something with my love of cooking. There's something, but it's kind of silly."

"It's not. I'm sure of it."

"Well," she'd said, blowing out a breath. "What I really like is traveling somewhere, trying the food, then fiddling with the recipes until I find the perfect version for me. Then, I add it to a recipe box."

"Like, online?"

"No," she'd laughed, blushing and turning around. Opening a cabinet, she grabbed an old, metal box, plopping it on the counter in front of her. "This is my grandma's recipe box. When she gave it to me, she said the most important thing was to keep adding to it. That someday, when I have kids of my own, I can pass it on with a little bit of me, her, and everyone who came before us."

"Oh," I'd said, feeling my throat grow. "Do you—do you want kids?"

"Wow, Percy," she'd said, slapping my shoulder. "We have been dating for what—two months? Are you making some big plans?"

"Just wanted to know," I'd said, biting my lip to keep my eyes from watering.

"Well," she said, tracing the top of the lid first. "I would like to live my own life first, really explore my youth, you know—but, yeah. I mean, my childhood was better because my grandma was in it. I want to give that to a kid someday. Be the person they can count on, watch them become a good person in the world."

She was so beautiful, standing in the middle of the sun-filled kitchen, and, for a moment, I deluded myself into thinking that I could find a way to keep her. That I could stay with her. Buy a house with her. Move to the suburbs and taste her amazing cooking every day.

But I would never be able to give her kids, that was certain. I wasn't sure if a human could even carry a shifter baby.

"I don't know," she continued, as though I wasn't having a full-on crisis across from her. "I never got to finish my medical degree, because of that whole thing with the stalker. I guess that would be something I'd like to do at one point. It would be a lot of work, but I think it would be worth it.

The memory fades away as the women re-focus in front of me. My eyes drift to her—to Veronica, and I can see the determination clearly on her face. She would sacrifice herself, again and again, if it meant saving someone else. She didn't become a nurse because the pay was good—she did it because helping others is in her blood.

But I can't let her do that for me.

"I don't know," Maisie says, her arms wrapped around her voluptuous curves. She's looking back and forth between Veronica and me, clearly weighing the ethical implications. I shake my head at her—I've known her longer, and all I can do is pray that she holds an appropriate amount of weight.

I hear a cry when I close my eyes and try to open them again, but I can't. A hand, so warm and soft, grasps mine, and I know it's Veronica, her familiar fingers, that familiar squeeze. She's crying, the tears landing on my skin, peppering me, and I feel her sadness wash over me, down through my body.

That part of me that was okay with dying starts to recede. Instead, I feel the complicated emotions she has for me. At the forefront, there's a sort of adoration, devotion, love—that I haven't felt in a long, long time.

Then, I feel Veronica forcing my palm open and feel the searing, almost pleasant sting of a knife sliding over the tender skin there. A moment later, after Veronica lets out a little noise of pain, I feel her palm start to slide into mine again. I try to jerk away.

"No, no, no," I mutter, but I think it might come out as a garbled pile of noises. And I don't think Veronica and Maisie care about my protestations now.

When our palms are together, a warm feeling suffuses me. It's like sitting on the couch after a long day, relaxing in a warm bath. Lying in a field with your eyes closed to the sun, the smell of flowers around you, the promise of fresh lemonade just a few minutes away.

It's one of the most pleasurable experiences of my entire life. All the pain leaves my body, replaced with the pure feeling of contentedness. Liquid honey, filling my body.

"Percy?" Veronica asks, her voice a hoarse whisper, and I wonder if she feels it, too.

Then, I feel my consciousness slip away from me like a boat on smooth waves.