Chapter2

"Excuse me. I need to see the attending physician." I kept my head down, angling my body in an attempt to slip past him.

Kael slammed a hand against the doorframe, blocking my path. The scent of frosted cedar flared aggressively, suffocating the space.

"The attending was called away on an emergency. You're my patient now." His eyes were completely bloodshot, his voice a raw, gravelly rasp. "You severed our scent link without a single word. You vanished for an entire year. Aria, I never gave you permission to break our bond."

A tidal wave of guilt and devastating pain crashed over me, but I forced my expression into a mask of pure apathy. "I don't love you anymore, Dr. Kael. We're done. We've been done for a long time."

"Done?" Kael let out a dark, breathless chuckle.

Before I could react, he seized my wrist. With a sheer, undeniable Alpha strength, he yanked me into the exam room and slammed the door shut, the deadbolt clicking loudly into place.

"Let me go!" I thrashed violently, but he was fiercely unyielding. He pinned me against the examination table and roughly shoved up the oversized sleeves of my jacket.

The room plunged into a dead, suffocating silence.

My bare arms were entirely covered in a horrific, intersecting web of jagged black scars—permanent burns left behind from taking the brutal silver whips meant for my mother all those years ago.

Kael’s pupils dilated in absolute horror. His massive frame began to violently, uncontrollably tremor.

Panic seized me, and I desperately tried to yank my arm back. "That's all in the past..."

But the words died in my throat. I tore my gaze away from him, my body curling inward in excruciating agony as a horrific, tearing cough ripped through my chest. A violent spasm seized me, and I gagged, vomiting a thick, sickening puddle of black blood and necrotic tissue onto the sterile tiled floor.

Kael absolutely lost it.

He viciously swept the tray of medical instruments off the counter with a deafening crash, dropping to his knees in front of me. His hands were shaking frantically as he tried to wipe the dark sludge from the corners of my mouth. "What is this?! What the hell is going on, Aria?! Talk to me!"

I slumped weakly against the wall, my voice hollow as I surrendered to the devastating truth. "Irreversible organ failure. They told me three months ago... it's already terminal."

Kael went utterly rigid.

"If I had told you back then, it would have only dragged you down into the abyss with me." I bit down hard on my bloodless lip, deliberately turning my face away so I wouldn't have to look at him. "Besides, I'm a defective, wolfless rogue. Your pack would never accept us together. Let me go, Kael. I don't want to die in your arms."

"So you decided to hand me a death sentence for an entire year?!"

He surged to his feet, forcefully yanking me against his chest. His massive arms locked around me in a vice-like, desperate grip.

"Kael... don't touch me..." I pushed at his broad chest, refusing to relent, but my tears were already overflowing, falling uncontrollably. The naked, unrelenting longing and sheer despair in my eyes completely shattered my facade.

"Liar," he rasped, his red-rimmed eyes locking intensely onto my tear-soaked gaze.

In the next heartbeat, he crashed down on me. His lips captured mine in a punishing, wildly desperate kiss.

His dominant Alpha aura crashed over me like a tidal wave. Cupping the back of my head with one broad hand, he devoured my mouth with a ravenous hunger. His tongue roughly parted my lips, unapologetically tasting and swallowing down the foul, metallic taint of blood lingering on my tongue.

Breaking the kiss, he buried his face deeply into the crook of my neck, inhaling my faint scent with the frantic desperation of a starving animal.

"You are mine..." he choked out roughly against my pulse point. "Even Death itself will have to step over my dead body to drag you away from me!"

I completely abandoned the fight, breaking down and sobbing helplessly against his chest. Every last ounce of my strength drained away, leaving me entirely pliant. I offered no resistance as he slammed his palm onto the emergency intercom, invoking his supreme authority to force my immediate admission into a private, VIP intensive care suite.

It felt like a sick, twisted joke orchestrated by the Moon Goddess herself. By sheer coincidence, my assigned suite was located directly across the hall from my mother Selene's private recuperation room.

I had barely been changed into a hospital gown and hooked up to an IV drip when the heavy door to my suite swung open violently.

Selene strode in, her perfect features hardened into a mask of pure ice.

"I see you're as cunning as ever. Have you learned to use self-pity and victimhood to seduce the doctors in this facility?"

The fleeting warmth I had desperately absorbed from Kael’s embrace a moment ago instantly evaporated. Slumping back into the pillows, a bitter, exhausted smile touched my lips. "I am only here to receive medical treatment."

Selene closed the distance between us, her sharp gaze pinning me down.

"Let me make something perfectly clear to you. Alpha Kael is the match I personally selected for Chloe. He is your sister’s future mate."

Beneath the sterile sheets, my fingers dug into the edge of the blanket, my entire body turning to lead.

So that was it... That was the "ceremony details" the assistant had interrupted us to confirm back in the hallway.

I bowed my head to hide the sudden, sharp spike of grief. Swallowing my deep reluctance and gut-wrenching agony down into the bleeding abyss of my stomach, I replied softly,

"I understand."

"Stay far away from him." Selene glared down at me with absolute, aristocratic disdain. "No matter what underhanded, pathetic tricks you deploy, a wolfless piece of trash like you will never be worthy of his protection."