Their scents surround me like a comforting perfume. The only anchor in this storm. Beneath it all, something sharp and sterile assaults my nose. Antiseptic. Bleach. The unmistakable smell of a medical facility.
Cool, damp cloths brush against my burning skin, so gentle they might be a hallucination. I feel myself being lowered onto something soft but firm. A bed? The sheets are crisp and cool against my overheated body.
A sharp, quick prick in the crook of my arm makes me flinch. A needle. An IV? The rhythmic, high-pitched beep of a machine somewhere nearby confirms my suspicion.
The voices come and go, sometimes clear, sometimes muffled as if I’m underwater. Tristan’s tone is tight and frightened. Dane’s voice is clipped and urgent. I hear Diego’s soft murmurs occasionally breaking into desperate Spanish when English fails him. And cutting through it all, Rett’s commands. They’re steady, forceful, but underlined with a fear I’ve never heard from him before.
“Her temperature’s still climbing.”
“The marks. Look at them. They’re getting worse.”
“Do something, damn it!”
I drift in and out, losing all sense of time. Minutes could be hours. Hours could be days.
Then, suddenly, my eyes are open.
The world swims into focus, blurry at first, then sharper. I’m not in my apartment. I’m not in the penthouse. I’m in a stark, white, minimalist room that feels both expensive and clinical. An IV tube snakes from the back of my hand up to a clear bag hanging beside the bed.
A woman in a crisp white coat stands over me, checking something on a tablet. She has dark, glossy hair pulled back in a neat bun, warm brown skin, and kind, intelligent eyes. Her scent is a subtle jasmine and cloves with an underlying note of something medicinal. Distinctly alpha. A mated alpha, judging by the bond mark visible just above her collar.
She notices my open eyes and gives me a small, professional smile. “Hello, Zoe. I’m your doctor here at the Sterling Clinic. How are you feeling?”
I try to speak, but my throat is too dry. She seems to understand, holding a straw to my lips. The water is cool and sweet on my parched tongue.
“The pack brought you in early this morning,” she continues, her voice calm. “Your fever was dangerously high, and you were severely dehydrated.”
The pack. At the mention of them, my gaze drifts past her, searching.
And there they are.
They stand in a tense cluster at the foot of my bed, a wall of barely controlled panic. They look wrecked. Unshaven, exhausted, their expensive clothes rumpled and stained. Rett’s usually impeccable clothing is creased, the top buttons of his shirt undone, his hair a disheveled mess. Diego’s eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, his hands fidgeting nervously with the hem of his untucked shirt. Tristan’s usual easy smile is replaced by a tight, worried expression, and Dane has a haunted look in his pale eyes that chills me more than the fever.
They all stare at me with such raw, terrified hope thatsomething inside me aches with a pain that has nothing to do with the fever.
I try to say something, to reach for them, but the effort is too much. My eyes drift closed again, the brief moment of clarity slipping away like water through cupped hands.
But I don’t fall completely unconscious. I hover in that hazy, vulnerable space between waking and sleeping, where sounds filter through but meanings blur. Their voices reach me, muffled as if coming through water.
“The scanner results are back,” the doctor says, her voice professional but tinged with concern. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”
“What is it?” Rett’s voice, tight with barely controlled fear. “What’s happening to her?”
“The fever is a symptom, not the cause,” the doctor explains. There’s a soft, electronic beep—some kind of medical equipment. “The core issue is here. The marks. They’re destabilizing.”
Tristan’s voice is strained, panicked. “What does that mean? I thought beta bonds were just... weaker. Not self-destructing.”
“Normally, yes,” the doctor says. “But this isn’t a normal bond. It’s a full pack-claim. The amount of raw, chaotic energy you’ve poured into her is... unprecedented. For a beta’s system to handle that, the bond requires one thing above all else to remain stable.”
A heavy, tense pause hangs in the air.
“What?” Diego’s voice comes as a fearful whisper. “What does it require?”
“Absolute emotional and psychological security,” the doctor says. “The beta must feel completely, unequivocally, and permanently safe and wanted by the pack. The bond is symbiotic; it feeds on that certainty.” She sighs, a soft, sad sound that cuts through my haze. “Her system isn’t rejecting you because she’s a beta. It’s rejecting you because on a deep, fundamental level, she believes you have already rejected her.”
Another silence, this one more damning.
“This fever is the result of a broken heart,” the doctor continues, her voice gentle but unflinching. “Of a bond that is starving to death. If her belief that she is unwanted, that this was all temporary, solidifies... the marks will fade completely. And the bond will be gone forever.”
