81 Chapter 81
81 Chapter 81
Damien’s POV 1
The hospital room felt like a fucking tomb.
I stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, my hands pressed against the cold ss hard enough to leave
fingerprints, watching the city sprawl below me in blissful ignorance while my entire worldy motionless
behind me. Three days. Three goddamn days of listening to machines beep and doctors mumble excuses and
watching my mate waste away in that sterile white bed like she was already dead.
She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be dead. I would feel it if she were dead, wouldn’t I? The mate bond would
snap, Alex would howl himself into madness, something would break inside me that could never be repaired.
But right now, that bond felt like a whisper. Like trying to hear someone calling through a blizzard.
“Fuck!” The word exploded from my chest with enough violence to rattle the windows, and I spun away from
the view to stare at the woman who held my entire existence in her small, still hands.
Sera looked like a broken doll someone had carefully arranged on white sheets. Her dark hair spread across
the pillow like spilled ink, and her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. The monitors surrounding her
bed beeped their steady rhythm-heart rate stable, oxygen levels normal, brain activity present but abnormal
-but none of those clinical measurements could tell me what I really needed to know.
When was sheing back to me?
What if healing seventeen people had been too much? What if she’d poured out so much of herself that there
wasn’t enough left to wake up?
The door opened with a soft click, and I turned to see one of the doctors entering with her ever-present tablet and carefully neutral expression. She was the head of supernatural medicine, supposedly the best in the region, but after three days of “we’re monitoring the situation” and “this is unprecedented,” I was ready to
throw her and her entire team out the window.
“Any changes?” I asked, though I knew the answer. If there had been changes, they would have called me immediately.
“I’m afraid not, Alpha. Her vitals remain stable, but there’s no sign of emerging consciousness. The brain
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scans are…” She hesitated, consulting her tablet like it might suddenly produce a miracle cure.
“What?” The word came out as a growl, and I saw her unconsciously take a step backward.
“Unusual. Her brain activity suggests she’s not in a typic state.”
“Get out.”
She blinked at me in confusion. “I’m sorry?”
“GET OUT!” I roared, my Alpha dominance flooding the room like a physical force. The doctor stumbled
backward, her face pale with sudden terror. “All of you! Get out and don’te back unless you have actual
answers instead of more fucking excuses!”
She fled the room, leaving me alone with the electronic symphony of Sera’s monitors and the crushing
weight of my own helplessness.
I copsed into the bedside chair, burying my face in my hands as the rage drained away and left only hollow
desperation behind. What kind of Alpha King was I? What kind of mate? Imanded the loyalty of
thousands, controlled territory spanning half the continent, had power that other wolves could only dream of
-and I couldn’t help the one person who mattered most.
“Sera,” I whispered her name like a prayer, reaching out to take her lifeless hand in mine. Her skin was warm,
soft, achingly familiar, but there was no response to my touch. No flutter of eyelids, no gentle squeeze of
fingers. Nothing.
The door opened again, and I looked up to see Lucas entering with two cups of coffee and an expression of
grim determination. He’d been my shadow for the past three days, fielding calls and making excuses and
generally trying to hold my world together while I fell apart.
“The Council is getting restless,” he said quietly, offering me one of the cups. “Word is spreading that the future Luna is… incapacitated.”
I stared at him for a long moment, processing his words through the haze of exhaustion and grief that had
be my constantpanions. I was supposed to formally present Sera to the supernatural world as my
Luna, my equal, my chosen mate.
“Let them say,” I said finally, my voice deadly quiet. “Anyone who has a problem with my priorities can take it
up with me personally. I’m sure Alex would enjoy the exercise.”
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81 Chapter 81
Lucas was quiet for a moment, studying my face with the careful attention of someone who’d known me long enough to recognize when I was about to do something catastrophically stupid.
“And if she doesn’t wake up?” he asked finally. “Damien, you need to consider the possibility that—”
“That what?” I shot to my feet so violently that the chair nearly toppled backward. “That I should move on?
Find a more convenient mate?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Lucas said quickly, but I was already moving, pacing the length of the room like a
caged animal.
“Do you know what she said to me, right before we got the call about the attack?” I spun to face him, and I
could feel my eyes beginning to glow with barely contained wolf energy. “She said she was afraid of being a
liability. That she wasn’t good enough to be Luna. That she needed to prove herself worthy.”
My voice cracked on thest word, and I had to stop talking before the emotionpletely overwhelmed me.
“And then she went and healed seventeen dying wolves, one after another, until she copsed from the
effort.”
“Damien-”
“No.” I held up a hand to stop him. “I don’t want to hear about councils or anything else. Not until she’s awake.
Not until she’s back where she belongs.”
Lucas nodded slowly, epting my decision with the loyalty that had made him my Beta and my best friend.
“What do you need from me?”
“Keep an eye on the rogues. They are still dangerous,”
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