Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 443: Blood.

Arion’s scream tore through the garden like something living.

It didn’t sound like a child throwing a tantrum. It sounded like skin pulled off a knee, like air ripped out of lungs, like the brain finally catching up to what the eyes had just seen and rejecting it with violence.

Killian remained upright.

The woman’s arm was still inside him, buried past the wrist, her forearm disappearing into the gap she’d created through armor seams and flesh. Killian’s abdomen had gone slick and dark. Blood ran down the front of his uniform in hot, fast sheets, soaking into fabric until it clung to him like wet cloth. His breath came in short, broken pulls, each inhale turning into a tremor, each exhale tasting metallic and wrong.

He tried to move his hands to her wrist.

His fingers slid.

There was too much blood. Too much heat. Too much shock.

But his body still did what it had been trained to do: become a barrier. Become a wall. ’Keep the child behind him alive.’

Arion staggered back, one hand pressed to his cheek. His fingers came away red. He stared at his own blood with the stunned focus of a child trying to decide if it was real, then his face crumpled, and the scream turned into sobbing that shook his whole torso.

The corrupted woman didn’t care.

She yanked Killian toward her instead of letting him fall, like she could use him as cover and still reach past him. Her claws flexed inside him. Killian’s whole body arched in a violent reflex—spine bowing, jaw locking so hard his teeth clicked.

He refused to scream, making a different sound. It came out as a strangled grunt, wet at the back of his throat.

The woman’s head tilted, eyes dirty gold, and she smiled wider.

Then she tried to reach again. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Her free hand snapped forward toward Arion like a hook...

And Killian, half impaled, used what was left of his strength to twist his hips and shoulders, dragging her arm with him, forcing her line off target by inches. It felt like tearing himself in half. It felt like his organs tried to leave with her.

But he did it.

Because inches were the difference between a scratch and a throat.

Killian saw Otto collide with the garden rather than enter it—field gear still on, boots biting into the turf, shoulders broad and rigid, and face set like stone. His eyes were icy, bright, and feral, filled with the kind of fear that could turn violent in an instant.

"Arion," Otto said, his voice low and unwavering.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t coax.

He grabbed his son by the shoulders and lifted him clean off the ground, one arm sliding under the child’s legs while the other locked across his back. Otto turned his own body automatically, shielding Arion’s face against his chest, as if he could erase what the boy had seen by removing his line of sight.

Arion clung to him with both arms, fingers twisted in Otto’s gear, shaking hard enough to make Otto’s stance widen and brace.

Otto’s gaze flicked once to Arion’s cheek, blood and shallow cuts, and his mouth tightened, jaw muscles jumping.

"Scratch," Otto said, his voice tight. "Only a scratch."

Arion cried harder anyway, because children didn’t care what wounds were ’only.’

Dax arrived a breath later.

He hit the garden like a storm front, white and purple and speedy, his scent slamming into the air with such force that even trained guards would’ve felt their instincts twitch. His eyes locked onto the corrupted woman, and the world narrowed to a single, lethal task.

He unleashed his pheromones in a focused, violent burst, displaying pure dominance as concussive pressure.

The woman’s body jolted like she’d been hit by a truck. Her feet skidded out from under her, and she flew sideways, slamming into the stone lip of the fountain with a crunch that carried even over Arion’s sobs.

Her arm ripped out of Killian’s abdomen as she went, bringing with it a flood of blood.

It spilled down Killian’s front in a hot sheet, darkening the grass beneath him, turning the spring green into something black and sticky.

Killian’s body finally accepted gravity.

His knees buckled.

He started to fold forward...

Dax caught him before he hit the ground.

Hands under his shoulders and back, hauling him close like he could physically keep his insides where they belonged. Killian’s blood smeared across Dax’s gloves and sleeves instantly, warm and slick.

Killian’s eyes were wide for a second, shock bright, and pupils blown.

Then they snapped clear again on stubborn instinct.

"Your Majesty," Killian rasped.

His voice sounded wet. Too thin. The words dragged out with the cost of a breath.

"Don’t speak," Dax said, his voice low and sharp, like an order could become a tourniquet.

Killian tried anyway. His mouth trembled once, just barely, and a breath hitched in him like he couldn’t find enough air to fill his lungs.

Behind them, the corrupted woman moved again.

Even with broken ribs, even with blood on her mouth, she tried to rise - hissing, claws scraping stone, dragging herself upright because hunger didn’t respect injury.

Dax didn’t look away from Killian. He didn’t have to. Rowan was already there.

A shadow with a rifle. He fired twice - cleanly, controlled.

One shot shattered the woman’s shoulder joint in a spray of bone and blood.

The second punched into the base of her skull.

Her head snapped back. Her body dropped like strings had been cut, twitching once, then going still.

And as if that had been permission, the garden erupted into response.

Soldiers rushed through the gates, carrying helmets, rifles, medical kits, and zip ties. Comms crackled. Orders snapped. Someone grabbed Boreas before the puppy could lunge toward the blood like a fool.

Dominic and his returning team slammed into the garden at the alarm, faces still streaked with field grime, weapons up, eyes scanning. Their movement was practiced panic.

"SECOND CONTACT!" someone shouted.

Another soldier, younger and male, lurched forward near the hedge line, his eyes the same dirty gold. He lunged at a guard with his mouth open.

Dominic hit him first.

He tackled him into the grass so hard the man’s teeth clicked. Dominic drove his forearm across the infected soldier’s throat and slammed the back of his head down again, pinning him while two others dropped onto limbs - knees on wrists, hands forcing arms flat.

Zip ties snapped tight, biting into skin.

A hood came down.

A syringe was inserted into the infected soldier’s neck, and he thrashed violently, animal-like, until the sedative took effect and his movements slowed, then became limp.

It all happened fast. Seconds. A minute at best.

Only a palace expecting assassinations could produce such speed.

Killian, in Dax’s arms, was getting heavier by the second.

Dax lowered him carefully to the grass, keeping him upright because lying him flat would make him bleed faster, and Dax knew it, even if his hands were shaking now with the effort of not losing control.

A medic skidded into the grass on their knees.

Gloves on. Shears out.

They cut through fabric. Pressed gauze into a wound that didn’t want gauze. Packed, layered, pressed harder.

Blood welled up through everything - too bright, too persistent, pulsing with a heartbeat that was out of time.

"Pressure," the medic snapped, voice tight.

Dax’s hands complied immediately, pressing down where he was told, feeling the heat of Killian’s blood soak into his gloves and feeling the slick slide of it between fingers.

Killian’s skin was going cold around the edges - face pale, lips losing color, sweat beading at his hairline in a clammy sheen.

His eyes stayed open.

That was what killed people.

Not the gore.

Not the mess.

The fact that they stayed awake long enough to know.

Killian swallowed once.

His throat worked like the motion hurt.

"Tell..." he whispered.

Dax leaned in, close enough that their foreheads nearly touched. His voice was furious, low, and raw. "No."

Killian’s mouth twitched slightly, without any humor. Apology-shaped.

"You have..." he tried again and coughed. A wet cough. A thin spray of red at the corner of his mouth.

The medic’s hands tightened, faster now, more desperate.

Killian’s gaze drifted past Dax’s shoulder, toward Otto and Arion.

Arion was still in Otto’s arms, shaking so hard his small boots knocked against Otto’s thigh. His face was smeared with tears and blood, eyes locked on Killian like his brain had decided this was the image it would keep forever.

Killian’s voice was barely air. "He... did good. Save him; he’s infected."

Dax’s eyes burned. "You did good."

Killian blinked slowly.

His slick, trembling fingers caught Dax’s sleeve like an anchor.

"I’m sorry," he breathed.

Dax’s jaw flexed violently, like he wanted to argue with the entire concept of apologies. "Not like this."

Killian tried to inhale.

He didn’t get all the way.

His chest rose, then stalled.

His eyes fluttered.

For one second, his gaze met Dax’s, and there was no professionalism left. No polish. Just a man who had done what he was built to do and a body that could no longer pay the price.

Then his focus went soft.

His grip loosened.

His hand slid off Dax’s sleeve.

His body went heavy.

The medic froze for a fraction of a second, fingers still pressed into the wound, and then shook their head once.

Dax didn’t move.

He held Killian as if holding him harder could reverse time.