Adam's first instinct was to protect anyone who was hurt, so he calmly walked over to Blaine and asked him if he was okay.

"I'm..." was all Blaine could choke out, his voice hoarse and his wide eyes flitting between Adam and Kurt, waiting for a reaction.

As soon as Adam saw the soulmate mark on Blaine's arm, he froze, and reached out to touch it softly. No, not a soulamte mark, a candidate mark, right? It had to be. A soulmate mark wouldn't just appear. A little bit at a loss for what to do, Adam went out to the car to get his medical supplies. At least he could give Blaine something to sooth the skin, which had to hurt after a mark appeared so quickly.

Kurt followed him outside.

"Baby I don't know what's going on." Kurt's eyes were wet as he looked pleadingly at his candidate. "It's you and me, right? Us, together forever, soulmates?"

Adam wrapped his arms comfortingly around Kurt. "Of course it is, Kurt. We've talked about this before, right? No matter what happens, we'll be together. I don't know what is happening with Blaine, but it doesn't have to have anything to do with us."

Kurt wanted to believe him, but this situation was so out of the ordinary, it was hard to make predictions about what was supposed to happen now. An entire soulmate mark appearing in seconds? Completely unheard of. And where was Kurt's mark of Blaine's name? This didn't make any sense at all.

Kurt and Adam returned to the house, holing hands. The jovial atmosphere had dissolved into tense silence, as Adam approached Blaine with his medical kit, and lead the younger boy to the bathroom to tend to his arm.

"How bad is the pain?" Adam asked, laying Blaine's arm over the sink. "Like, on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is the worst?"

"I guess a 6," Blaine replied, "but it doesn't feel like a cut. It's more like a sore muscle or something, like after a long time of not exercising then suddenly—um, Adam?"

Blaine noticed that Adam's eyes had taken on a kind of odd look, staring at the new mark. They seemed darker and Blaine watched, scared, as the inherent kindness seemed to disappear from Adam's eyes like water from a drain. When the last drop was gone, Adam looked up to stare at Blaine.

"Blaine, this isn't your fault." Adam's voice was toneless, almost robotic. "Blaine, you are a good kid, with a bright future. What I'm going to do is for your own good. I will not compete with you for Kurt, I have already won Kurt. Kurt is mine, not yours. He will never belong to anyone but me. Do you officially release Kurt as a candidate?"

Tears were starting to fall from Blaine's eyes and he looked away, embarrassed and uncomfortable. Blaine didn't know if this was how it was supposed to work, he never had to compete for a soulmate before. Sebastian was lovely, of course, and had a hard past that Blaine would love to help him get over. But Kurt, Kurt was new and beautiful in an otherwordly way, and sophisticated, and mysterious...

Adam seemed to take his silence as assent, and started to sterilize a scalpel from his kit.

"No...no, wait," Blaine said. "I do not release him, not yet. Lets talk about this, think about it more. Lets talk to Kurt and see what he wants to do, let him decide"

"Kurt is confused." Adam replied, his voice still robotic and his eyes empty of everything but cold determination. "You will release Kurt because Kurt was never yours in the first place. This is some fluke of nature that should never have happened, and it will not get in the way of my life, of my happiness." Adam poised his hand with the scalpel over the new mark on Blaine's forearm. He looked up at Blaine briefly.

"This will hurt, Blaine. This is supposed to hurt and I hope you remember this pain any time you think of talking to Kurt, or looking at him. You will stay away from him or I will kill you, do you hear me? I will kill you by making marks like this one all over your body until you bleed to death."

Blaine was terrified at this point, but could not seem to make himself look away as the scalpel pierced his skin shallowly. It only hurt a little, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the thin line of blood that appeared to cross out his mark. But Adam wasn't finished.

On either side of the first line, Adam carved another, deeper line with the scalpel, so that Blaine was crying and whimpering for him to stop by the time he looked up. Adam gathered up moisture from Blaine's tears and dripped it onto the new wound, a satisfied expression on his face.

"Okay Blaine, now I will clean the cuts, we don't want them to get infected." Adam's eyes had magically returned to their normal warm glow as he carefully cleaned and dressed the cut. "There will be a scar, of course, there's no way around that. But it shouldn't be painful. This..." Adam pressed hard on the wound, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth, "should be the last of the pain."

Adam walked deliberately and calmly back into the dining room, leaving Blaine sitting in the bathroom.

"Kurt, we need to leave right now."

"Okay, baby." Kurt replied, gesturing to his father that he would call later.

They walked out hand in hand, Kurt seeing that Adam looked somewhat shaken.

"What happened, baby?" Kurt asked in a gentle, soothing voice.

"I don't want to talk about it. But I need to go back to New York right away. Tell your father I'm sorry, but I just can't stay here right now."

It wasn't until Adam was all packed up and had gotten into a cab to the airport that Kurt was able to call his dad.

"Kurt, you'd better get over here, I think Blaine needs you." Burt said, his tone solemn.

"Dad, if anyone needs me right now, it's Adam."

"Kurt, Adam forced Blaine to release you as a candidate, against his will. In the bathroom. While all of us were out here eating dinner. He didn't even ask, he didn't use any anesthesia. Blaine's family is trying to comfort him now, but I think you need to do some serious damage control."

Kurt started to feel nauseous. There is no way Adam would do that. Blaine was just a teenager, with an obviously gentle disposition, just like Adam's. There had to be some kind of misunderstanding.

"Okay dad I'll be right over."