Chapter 106
DENER
It all happened too fast..
Flashes
A shout behind us–rough and unexpected. Another rogue, charge out of the jungle like a spark dropped in a dry forest.
Aiden jerked.
The rogue holding him shouted something I didn’t hear-
Then Elena screamed.
And there was blood.
Aiden slipped tree, humbling to the sand with a sharp cry that sliced through me like a blade.
The world shattered
I moved
I didn’t think I moved.
Brock’s knife whistled past my ear.
A blur of silver in the air.
Joe turned, intercepting the rogue who’d rushed us from behind just a grunt, a thud, a body hitting the earth.
I went for the one with the dagger. I hit him like a freight train.
He barely had time to raise the blade before I had my hands around his throat. I drove him backward, tackled him into the sand, and squeezed.
Non
No questions.
No threats.
Just my hand and his windpipe, collapsing like dry bark in my fist,
He made a horrible sound–wet and choking and then nothing.
I didn’t even look at him.
I turned and ran to where Elena was kneeling in the sand, wailing.
Aiden was on his side, curled inward, blood soaking the front of his hoodie.
There was so much blood.
“Elena,” I said, voice shaking, “move–I need to see.”
She barely heard me, but shifted enough for me to drop to my knees. I yanked off my shirt, pressed it hard to the side of his neck.
The blood was coming slower now–but it hadn’tstopped.
Check the dagger!” 1 barked at Brock
He was already kneeling by the body, yanking the blade from the rogue’s stiffening fingers.
He turned it, sniffed it.
Chapter 106
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His jaw clenched.
“silver, Alpha”
Elena gasped, a sharp sound like the aft had been punched out of her lumps.
I swore Loudly.
I scooped Alden into my arms–his body so sanall, so limp and shod.
“Hold the shirt,” told
“Hold the shirt,” I told her. “Don’t stoppressing”
She obeyed without hesitation, her hand already clamped to the fabric, knuckles white.
“Joe–get the car. Now,”
ELENA
It was a blur.
All of it.
The beach, the broken trail through the jungle, the villa coming into view again. Blood smeared across Derek’s chest, My hands wet with it. The scent thick and sharp in the beat.
Derek climbed into the back of the SUV, cradling Aiden like something fragile. I threw myself in beside them, my hand still pressed to the wound.
“Where?” Joe barked.
LL
Nearest wolf hospital,” Derek said. His voice was calm. Deadly. “Now.”
ה
“He’s not breathing right,” 1 said, panic choking me. “Derek, he’s–he’s not-
“Hold the pressure,” he said again. “We’ve got him. Just hold the pressure.”
Joe drove like a lunatic, Brock riding shotgun, shouting into his phone. “Clear the road. Wolf hospital. We’ve got a child down silver poisoning and blood loss.”
Everything outside the windows passed in streaks of heat and motion. Cars blared their horns as we flew past. I couldn’t see anything but Aiden’s face–pale, streaked with blood and sweat, lips slightly parted. Every bump made him jostle in Derek’s
My son
Our son.
Derek’s voice was low, steady. He was whispering to Alden–words I couldn’t make out, voice thick with something unspoken. One of his hands gripped Aiden’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.
He kept finding it.
But it was weak.
Too weak.
I pressed harder on the wound with the wadded up shirt, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to do something. His sk cold. His body so still.
Please, goddess. Please, not my boy. Not my baby
The tires squealed.
We flew through the streets, faster than I thought was possible, weaving through traffic with reckless abandon. Cars hanked.
Chapter 106
People shouted. None of it mattered.
A still hadn’t moved.
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Detekcradled him against his chest, mammaring something too low for me to hear. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. His pants were soaked in blood. His hands were steady–but his jaw was locked eyes were fixed on Alden’s face like he could will him to stay alive just by looking at him.
I wiped tears from my cheeks, realizing too late they’d even started to fall.
My hand never left the pressure point at Alden’s neck
I didn’t know if he was breathing.
I didn’t know if he could feel ne
He was so small in Derek’s arms. Too small. He’d never looked so fragile.
The lights flew by in a smear of color. I had no idea where we were just buildings. Roads. Forest.
Then suddenly–we were through a checkpoint. The road turned to smooth gravel. A sign blurred past. I caught the word SHIFTER MEDICAL but nothing else.
The tires screeched again.
The building ahead was white and glowing and full of people in motion.
We were there.
DEREK
The car hadn’t even fully stopped when the back door flew open and a team of nurses descended
“We’ve got him–move!”
Hands reached for Alden.
Thesitated.
Not until I had to
I bent over him and laid him down as gently as I could, whispering, “You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay,” even though I had
no idea if it was true.
He didn’t respond.
One of the nurses snapped a mask over his face. Another took over compressing the cloth against his neck.
“Neck wound–silver blade pediatric trauma team now!” someone shouted.
And then he was gone.
Through the double doors.
Swallowed by the white lights and chaos and voices I couldn’t follow.
I just stood there
The space where he’d been in my arms felt violently empty.
I turned and there was Elena, standing in the middle of the ER like a ghost. Her hair was plastered to her face. Her hands and anns were streaked with blood. Her chest rose and fell in jerky buts, like her body couldn’t remember how to breathe.
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And then she was moving.
Shëztumbled towand ine and collapsed into my chest like pravity lind given out
I caught her Wrapped any arms around her without thinking
She buried her face into the curve of my neck, her fingers clinging to me. Trembling. Not sobbing, not yet, pest shaking like something was breaking inside her and holding me was the only ng keeping her upright.
theld her tighter.
This wasn’t about us,
This wasn’t about mating bonds or past instalurs.
This was about the boy she loved. The bu
boy who’d bled in my arms.
The boy she would burn the world for.
like I was the only solid thing left in a life unraveling by the second. Like maybe, for one I could feel it in the way she held me. breath, we could pretend none of it had happened. That he was still with us. That she wasn’t covered in his blood.
I rested my chin lightly on her head, my throat tight.
And for once, I didn’t try to speak.
Didn’t offer comfort I couldn’t promise.
I just held her.
Held her while nurses moved around us, while doors slammed, while voices shouted words that didn’t make sense
Held her like it would keep her from breaking.
Held her like it would keep
eu me
from breaking too.
Chapter 107
