All Chapters of Married Off as a Breeder, She Became His Only Mate. : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Briony's POV"That's not possible," Sage said, already moving. "Split into pairs. West stretch first, then work back toward the barracks. He's an old man, not a ghost. Somebody's seen something."Two more warriors peeled off toward the smoke, and I stayed exactly where I was, knees pressed into the dirt beside Kieran's cot, both hands braced against his shoulders to keep him from thrashing himself off the edge."Go," Bettina told me. "I've got him.""I'm not leaving.""Briony…""I'm not leaving him." My voice came out low, steady in a way that surprised even me, given how hard my pulse was hammering under my own skin. "You need someone to hold him down while you work. I'm staying."Bettina didn't argue further, just gave a short nod and turned her attention back to the wound, pressing a fresh cloth against skin that had gone the color of a week-old bruise.Kieran's breathing had changed in the last few minutes, shorter now, catching hard at the top of every inhale like something insid

Briony's POVHalric hit the ground on his side, one arm curling instinctively around the wound at his ribs, blood already soaking dark through his tunic and pooling fast against the churned dirt beneath him.Rourke stood frozen where he swung, staring down at the blade in his own hand like he didn't recognize it, like the blood coating the edge belonged to someone else's weapon entirely.I dropped beside Halric, hands already pressing hard against the wound, gold light spilling from my palms into torn flesh that responded this time, nothing like the poison locked in Kieran's veins. The gash sat deep, deeper than I wanted to look at directly, and I forced myself to keep both palms flat instead of flinching back from the heat of his blood soaking through my sleeves."Stay with me," I said, forcing steadiness into my voice that I didn't fully feel. "I've got you. Just breathe."Halric's eyes found mine, glassy but present, his lips moving wi

Briony's POVHis fingers pressed harder against my throat, the way a predator tests whether prey will still fight back.Sage pushed up off the broken cot, blood smeared across her chin, already reaching for a blade she dropped somewhere in the fall. "Kieran, damnit, let her go…""Don't." I forced the word out past the pressure at my windpipe, eyes locked on his. "If you come at him with steel, he'll finish this before you're close enough to stop it.""Then what the hell do we do?" Sage's voice cracked with something raw, fear for me overriding every instinct that usually kept her calm under pressure.Bettina had backed against the supply table, hands pressed flat over her mouth, and around us the other warriors and healers had gone still, none of them willing to be the one who moved wrong and turned an unfocused threat into a fatal one.I thought about the training ring. The knot pattern branching into something new after the fev

Briony's POVThe wall of light hung between us for three full breaths before I understood I'd have to be the one to break it.Kieran crouched by the wrecked shelf, glass crunching under his knees, gold eyes fixed on the barrier like it might grow teeth of its own. Blood ran thin down his forearm from the cut, dripping onto broken jars of dried yarrow and crushed lavender, and some small, useless part of my brain registered the waste of good herbs even in the middle of everything else.I let the light drop."Briony." Sage's voice, muffled through the door, panic bleeding through even the wood. "What the hell happened in there?""Stay out," I called back, not taking my eyes off him. "I mean it, Sage."He didn't move when the light vanished. He watched me instead, head low, breath coming in short pulls through his nose, and I understood then that charging at him again would only prove I was exactly what his instincts already believed me to be.So I did the opposite.I lowered myself to t

Kieran's POV"There has to be something else." I kept my hand pressed against Briony's shoulder, feeling the tremors running through her in waves that didn't seem to be slowing. "A tincture. A different ritual. Anything.""If there were, don't you think I'd already have it in my hands?" Bettina's fingers moved fast over Briony's wrist, counting, though her face had gone past the point where numbers meant much of anything useful. "I've read every scrap on this bloodline I could find. Nobody ever wrote down what to do once the burn-out actually starts. Only what it looks like."Outside, a horn blast cut through the wall, followed by shouting close enough that I felt it in my teeth. The fight hadn't paused for any of this. "Alpha!" One of the warriors skidded into the doorway, blood smeared down one side of his face, breath coming in short pulls. "The east flank's buckling. Sage sent me, she says she needs bodies now or that stretch is gone."Every instinct in me wanted to stay exactly