The world had narrowed to the scent of blood—her blood. It was a metallic, coppery tang that overpowered the usual comforting notes of amber and teakwood that defined her, that defined his entire world. He had felt the jolt through their bond, a searing spike of agony and sudden, terrifying weakness that had sent him sprinting through the castle corridors, his heart a frantic, caged bird against his ribs.

He found her in a deserted antechamber off the Charms corridor, collapsed near the wall as if she had tried to brace herself against the stone. The air was still crackling with the malevolent residue of a Dark hex. Her robes were dark, but the stain spreading across her side was darker, a slick, wet blackness that seemed to drink the torchlight.

A fear colder than any he had ever known, colder than the Dark Lord’s gaze or the prospect of his own death, seized him. It was a primal, omega terror—the terror of a bonded mate watching their anchor, their protector, their entire reason for breathing, slip away. He dropped to his knees beside her, his long, pale fingers trembling as they hovered over the wound, afraid to touch, afraid to cause more pain.

Her face was ashen, her powerful presence diminished to a shallow, ragged breath. This was his alpha. The magnificent, impossible creature who had chosen him, who had looked past his scars and his sins and seen something worth claiming. He, who believed he deserved nothing, had been given everything, and now it was bleeding out onto the cold, stone floor.

His mind, usually a fortress of potions and counter-curses, was a white-hot blank of panic. The carefully constructed walls of his occlumency shattered under the sheer force of his despair. He fumbled for his wand, his movements clumsy, his throat tight with a sob he refused to allow past his lips. He pressed his hands over the wound, applying pressure, feeling the terrifying warmth of her life seeping through his fingers. The bond between them, usually a steady, thrumming cord of reassurance, was now a thin, frayed thread humming with her pain.

He leaned over her, his black hair curtaining their faces, his voice a broken, desperate whisper, stripped of all its customary sneer and laced with a raw, pleading devotion he had never shown another living soul.

“You cannot leave me. I have nothing without you.”