Chapter 24: Bloodied Reunion
The quiet in the chamber had become its own kind of sound. It was the hum of Rowan’s exhaustion, the shallow, sleepy breaths of the pup against his neck, the faint tap of James’s boot against the door as he shifted his weight. Time lost meaning. It could have been minutes or an hour.
Rowan must have dozed, because the next thing he knew, James was on his feet, a low, warning growl rumbling in his throat.
The door swung inward before James could bar it.
Mark filled the space, backlit by the torches in the corridor. He was a sculpture of gore. Dark, fresh blood painted his arms to the elbow, soaked into his tunic, and matted in his hair. It wasn’t his. The metallic, coppery stench of it rolled into the room ahead of him, overwhelming the last traces of lavender and milk. His eyes scanned, predator-fast, and landed on Rowan.
Rowan had jolted upright at the noise, a frantic movement that made the pup whimper in protest. He scrambled back on the furs, his body instinctively curling around the baby, his heart hammering against his ribs. The man in the doorway wasn’t the one who had knelt beside him with trembling hands. This was the King, the storm given form.
Mark stepped inside and kicked the door shut with a finality that made the marble shiver. He didn’t look at James. His entire focus was a laser on Rowan.
“You’re up,” Mark said. His voice was raw, stripped thin.
“I… the baby needed…” Rowan stammered, his own voice a frail thing.
“You shouldn’t be moving.” It was a command. Mark crossed the room in three long strides, his boots leaving damp, reddish prints on the pale stone. He dropped to his knees at the edge of the dais, the movement less graceful than before, weighted with violence barely contained.
He didn’t reach for the pup. His hands, slick and tacky with blood, came toward Rowan’s face instead. Rowan flinched, squeezing his eyes shut.
The touch, when it came, was not gentle. It was an inspection. Calloused, bloody fingers tilted Rowan’s chin up, turned his head to the side, probing along his jaw, his neck, under the matted mess of his hair. Mark’s breath hitched, a sharp, ugly sound.
“Where is it? Where are you cut?” Mark’s words were clipped, frantic. His hands moved down, pushing aside the thin blanket wrapped around Rowan’s shoulders, his fingers skimming over Rowan’s collarbone, his arms, looking for wounds he hadn’t seen.
“I’m not,” Rowan managed, trying to shrink away from the intrusive, desperate search. “Mark, it’s not my blood, it’s–”
“It’s everywhere. It’s on you.” Mark’s control was fraying. He was looking but not seeing, his pupils blown wide with an adrenaline crash that was tipping into something else. He grabbed Rowan’s wrist, turning his arm over. “I saw him near you. The one James killed. His scent is on you.”
“He just grabbed me,” Rowan whispered, terror sparking anew at the memory of the scout’s filthy hands. “He didn’t cut me. I promise.”
Mark’s hands stilled on Rowan’s bare forearm. He stared at the unmarked skin. His own fingers left crimson smears across it. A full-body shudder went through him, violent enough that his armor gave a soft rattle.
The fury, the terrifying intensity, just… melted. It drained from his shoulders, his face, leaving behind a hollowed-out man whose hands began to tremble against Rowan’s skin.
“Ro,” he whispered, the single syllable breaking.
Then he leaned forward and crushed them both against the hard, blood-soaked plate of his chest. One arm banded around Rowan’s back, the other came up to cradle the back of the baby’s head, his huge hand engulfing the tiny skull. He buried his face in Rowan’s sweat-damp hair, and his breath came in ragged, wet pulls.
Rowan froze, the pup a warm barrier between them. He could feel the frantic hammer of Mark’s heart, a wild drum against his own. The smell of iron and sweat and pine was suffocating.
“Never again,” Mark grated into his hair, the words muffled, fervent, a vow ripped from a place of profound fear. “You will never be touched. You will never be afraid like this in a place that is supposed to be yours. I will burn the world first.”
He wasn’t just talking about the scout. He was talking about the neglect, the invisible years Rowan spent scrubbing floors, the vulnerability that came with being an omega in a world that valued strength above all. He knew. He’d always known.
Slowly, Rowan’s own rigidity seeped away. He let his forehead rest against the cold, bloody leather of Mark’s shoulder. The baby, snug between them, gave a soft, sleeping sigh.
Over Mark’s heaving shoulder, Rowan saw James. The beta met his gaze for a second, gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, and then silently slipped out the chamber door, pulling it closed behind him. Giving them this.
The silence returned, different again. Softer. Broken only by Mark’s uneven breathing as he struggled to put himself back together.
“You’re getting blood on him,” Rowan said quietly, his voice muffled against Mark’s shoulder.
Mark jerked back as if scalded, his eyes wide with a new horror. He looked down at the baby, at the faint, rusty smear now on the blanket. “Gods.” He tried to wipe his hands on his own ruined trousers, making it worse.
“It’s okay,” Rowan said. He didn’t know why he was the one saying it. He shifted, unwrapping the blanket just enough to show the pup’s clean, peaceful face. “See? He’s fine. He’s perfect.”
Mark stared at the baby’s features, his own face ashen beneath the grime. He reached out a single, less-bloody finger and touched the impossibly small curve of the baby’s ear. His hand was still shaking.
“He needs a name,” Mark said, the words rough.
“I know.”
“I was thinking…” Mark trailed off, his eyes locked on his son. “When I was out there. Clearing the last of them. All I could think was that I had to get back to this room. That this was the only place that mattered anymore.” He swallowed, his throat working. “Kai.”
Rowan tested it silently. Kai. It felt solid. A anchor in the storm.
“Kai,” he whispered aloud.
The baby—Kai—stirred at the sound, his little mouth working in a dream.
A faint, shattered sound escaped Mark. It was almost a laugh. He leaned his forehead against Rowan’s, closing his eyes. His exhaustion was a physical force now, pulling him down. “He knows it.”
Outside, the castle was settling into an uneasy quiet. The immediate threat was over. But in the room, the real work was just beginning—the work of learning how to be this, how to hold onto something this fragile without breaking it, or themselves.