82 Chapter 82
82 Chapter 82
Damien’s POV 1
I returned to my vigil by Sera’s bedside, settling into the chair that had be my second home. Her hand
for some sign that she was still fighting toe back to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the silence, the words scraping my throat raw. “God, Sera, I’m so fucking sorry.
This is all my fault.”
The confession spilled out of me like poison from a wound. Every fear, every regret, every moment of self-
loathing I’d been carrying for the past week.
“I never gave you a chance to just be happy, did I?” I traced my thumb over her knuckles, memorizing the feel
of her skin. “From the moment you walked into my office, there was always some crisis, some danger, some
fucking emergency that put you at risk.”
My voice broke on thest word, and I had to stop talking before the emotionpletely overwhelmed me.
But the silence was worse than my rambling confessions, so I forced myself to continue.
“You wanted to prove you were worthy of being Luna,” I said,ughing bitterly. “As if there was ever any
question. You’ve been more Luna than I deserved since the day you told me off over the phone.”
The memory of that first conversation brought a ghost of a smile to my face. Sera, righteously indignant and
to realize it.
“You should have told me to go to hell,” I continued, lifting her hand to press it against my cheek. “Should
have taken Adrian and run as far away from me as possible. You’d both be safer, Happier.”
A soft knock at the door interrupted my self-recrimination. I looked up to see Lucas entering with someone I
hadn’t expected-Ophelia, her usually bright demeanor subdued by worry, and a small figure I recognized as
Adrian.
My son looked impossibly young in the sterile hospital environment, his silver-blue eyes wide with confusion
and fear as he took in the sight of his mother surrounded by beeping machines.
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82 Chapter 82
“Daddy?” Adrian’s voice was so small it barely qualified as a whisper. “Is Mommy sick?”
The question hit me like a physical blow. How did you exin to a five-year-old that his mother might never wake up? That she’d sacrificed herself to save strangers while her own family stood by helplessly?
“She’s… sleeping, buddy,” I managed, my voice thick with emotion. “The doctors are trying to help her wake.
up.”
“Can I talk to her?” Adrian moved closer to the bed, his small hands reaching out tentatively toward Sera’s
still form. “Maybe if I tell her about my day at school, she’ll want to wake up.”
Ophelia’s eyes were bright with unshed tears as she watched Adrian climb carefully onto the edge of the hospital bed. She’d been crying, I realized. Probably more than I had, since I’d been too numb with shock and
rage to properly process what was happening.
“Of course you can talk to her, sweetheart,” Ophelia said softly, her voice only slightly unsteady. “Mommy can
hear everything you say.”
“Hi, Mommy,” Adrian said, settling himself next to Sera with the careful reverence of a child who sensed the
gravity of the situation even if he didn’t fully understand it. “I missed you today. Aunt Ophelia made me
pancakes, but they weren’t as good as yours. She forgot to make them into dinosaur shapes.”
I watched my son’s small hands gently stroke Sera’s hair, the gesture so tender it nearly shattered what was left of myposure. He continued chattering about his day-his friends at school, a book they’d read, a
word. game they’d yed-with the unshakeable faith that his mother was listening to every
“And guess what?” Adrian’s voice dropped to an excited whisper. “Mrs. Peterson said we might get to go on a
field trip to the zoo next month! I’m gonna tell them all about how my daddy is the Alpha King and my
mommy is the strongest person in the whole world.”
“Adrian,” I said quietly, “why don’t you and Aunt Ophelia go get some dinner from the cafeteria? I’ll stay with
Mommy”
“But I want to stay here,” Adrian protested, his small jaw setting with stubbornness. “What if she wakes up
and I’m not here?”
“She won’t wake up without me telling you first, I promised, though the words tasted like ash in my mouth. “I need to talk to her about grown-up things.”
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82 Chapter 82
Adrian considered this for a moment, then nodded solemnly. “Okay. But tell her I love her really, really much.
And that I’m being good for Aunt Ophelia.”
“I will, buddy.”
After they left, the room fell back into its familiar, oppressive silence. I moved to take Adrian’s ce on the
edge of the bed, gathering Sera’s limp form into my arms with infinite care.
“Did you hear him?” I whispered against her hair, breathing in the fading scent of her shampoo. “Your son
thinks you’re the strongest person in the world. And he’s right. You are. So why won’t you fight your way back
to us?”
Days blended together in a haze of medical consultations, administrative duties handled from Sera’s bedside,
and the constant, grinding fear that each breath might be herst conscious one.
Adrian visited every day after school, filling the sterile room with his bright chatter and innocent faith that
everything would be okay.
It was on the tenth day, just as I was beginning to ept that this liminal state might be our new normal, that
everything changed.
I was dozing in the bedside chair, when amotion in the hallway jolted me awake. Voices were raised in
urgent discussion, and I could hear the rapid footsteps of someone hurrying toward Sera’s room.
The door burst open to admit Doctor, followed by an elderly man I didn’t recognize. The stranger was ancient
even by wolf standards, his white hair thin and wispy, his gnarled hands shaking slightly with age or
excitement.
“Alpha,” the doctor said, his usualposure cracked by obvious agitation. “This is Dr. Whitmore. He’s a
specialist in… unusual conditions.”
I was on my feet instantly, every protective instinct on high alert.
He ced his weathered hands on Sera’s forehead, closing his eyes in concentration. For a long moment, the
room was silent except for the eternal beeping of the monitors.
Then his eyes snapped open, and he turned to look at me with an expression of wonderment mixed with
something that looked almost like fear.
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82 Chapter 82
“Alpha,” he said slowly, “there’s something you need to know about your mate’s condition.”
“What?” The word came out as a growl, my patience stretched beyond its breaking point.
Dr. Whitmore’s hands moved to hover over Sera’s abdomen, and when he spoke again, his voice was filled
with a kind of awed reverence that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“She’s not just unconscious,” he said quietly. “She’s protecting something. There are two distinct life
signatures present in her body.”
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