DEREK
“Kill her?!”
The words tore out of me before I could stop them, louder than I meant, harsher than I wanted. They echoed off the sterile white walls of the hospital hallway like a weapon fired in a church–sacrilegious and final.
Aiden gasped.
His fingers slipped, dropping his half–eaten candy wrapper to the floor. His lip trembled. His eyes, so much like hers, went wide with a kind of fear that made my stomach turn.
And then–just like that—he started to cry.
Not loud, not dramatic. No sobs. Just a quiet, breathless sort of crying that fractured something deep in me. The kind where the pain is too big to find words for. The kind that makes you older just from hearing it.
I scooped him into my arms in a single motion, pressing him against my chest. He clung to me instantly–arms locking tight around my neck, face burrowed into my shoulder like he could block out the world by hiding in my shirt.
I felt his tears soak through the fabric. Felt the little tremors of his chest against mine. Gods, I wanted to take it all back–the words, the panic, everything.
The doctor’s face shifted–guilt flickering over his features. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you–or the boy.” He motioned gently toward Aiden, his voice softer now. “But this is extremely serious. Elena’s case is unlike anything I’ve dealt with before.”
I adjusted my grip on Aiden, one hand at the base of his back, the other on his head. His tiny fists were balled tight in the collar of my shirt, like if he let go, I might disappear too.
“I’ve read her file,” the doctor continued. “The memory loss. The tampering. What was done to her wasn’t natural. It wasn’t even ethical.”
His tone had shifted, too–something between clinical and disturbed. As if even speaking it aloud made it harder to process.
I didn’t say Logan’s name. But it pulsed in my head like a sickness. The sessions. The manipulation. All dressed up as treatment.
What he did to her went beyond cruelty. All just to hide the fact that his fated mate was a rogue who had been a friend to Elena. Because he was as prejudiced as I was when I first met her.
If he wasn’t already dead, I’d tear him apart myself.
The doctor’s voice brought me back. “Her hippocampus–and the surrounding structures in her temporal lobe–have been under an enormous amount of stress. Her brain is like a map that’s been erased and redrawn too many times. The pathways to your memories, to the moments you shared with her, are fragile. If you force her to remember before her brain is ready, it could result in permanent damage. Psychological, yes–but physiological as well.”
Aiden, still wrapped around my neck, sniffled. His tears were soaking through the shoulder of my shirt.
Then, quietly, his voice came through, small and shaky.
“So I can’t tell my mom that her mate is my dad?”
The doctor’s expression turned somber. “I’m sorry, son.”
Aiden’s breath hitched. He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye. “But that means… that as far as my mom knows… she’s a single mom.‘
His voice cracked on the words
“That means I won’t get to see my dad. At all!”
+25 BONUS
And then he clutched me harder, with a kind of desperate strength that made it hard to breathe. Not because he was squeezing too tightly–because I was falling apart inside.
smoothed a hand over his hair, kissed the top of his head. “It’s okay, buddy,” I murmured, trying to steady my voice for his sake. “We’ll figure it out. I’m not going anywhere.”
But it hurt. Godess, it hurt.
Because everything he’d said was right.
To Elena… I was just some stranger in her hospital room. Not the mate who chased her through a thousand arguments and half- healed wounds. Not the man who fought his own pack to bring her back, or the one who finally learned how to love her right- too late. Not the father of her child.
