The final sound I hear before I slip completely back into the fever-dream is a single, sharp, heartbroken sound from across the room.
It’s Diego’s voice, raw and full of a pain that seems to cut right through my own delirium.
“No,” he whispers, the word a shattered, desolate plea.
Then the darkness takes me again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Diego
“No,” I whisper, the word torn from my throat like a piece of my soul.
The doctor’s words hang in the air between us. A broken heart. A bond starving to death. The marks fading forever.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think past the image of Zoe lying in that hospital bed, her skin burning with fever, her body fighting a battle she shouldn’t have to fight. A battle we caused.
“There must be something we can do,” Rett says, his voice sharp with desperation. “A treatment. A procedure. Anything.”
The doctor shakes her head. “Mr. Sterling. It’s a bond issue. The only treatment is to address the root cause.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Dane asks, his voice tight.
“Her belief that she is unwanted,” the doctor says simply.
The words hit me hard. Because that’s exactly what we made her think, isn’t it?
“But that’s not—” Rett starts, then stops, his jaw clenching.
“Not what?” The doctor prompts, her gaze steady.
“Not all she is to us,” he finishes, the words coming out rough and strained.
The doctor’s expression softens slightly. “Then I suggest you find a way to make her believe that. And quickly. Her condition is stable for now, but the marks are continuing to fade. I’ve never seen anything quite like this, but based on the rate of progression...” She hesitates, glancing at her tablet. “You have a few days at most before the bond fades completely.”
A few days. The words echo in my head like a countdown. A ticking clock. A deadline for something that should never have an expiration date.
“We’ll give you some privacy,” the doctor says, signaling to the nurse to follow her. “Call if her condition changes.”
The door closes behind them with a soft click, leaving us alone with Zoe. My gaze shifts to her. She’s still pale, and the only movement is the slight rise and fall of her chest with each shallow breath.
The silence stretches like a wire about to snap.
I’m the one who breaks it.
“This is our fault,” I say, my voice low and hard in a way it rarely is. “All of us. We did this to her.”
No one contradicts me. They can’t. The truth is written on all our faces, in the haggard exhaustion of sleepless nights, in the fear that’s eating us alive.
“We can fix this,” Rett says, but the usual commanding certainty is missing from his voice. “We just need to make her understand that she’s more than?—”
“More than what?” I cut him off, heat rising in my chest. “More than our medicine? More than our fucking aspirin?” My voice rises with each word, the control I’m known for slipping through my fingers. “We never told her she was more! We never gave her a reason to stay beyond the static!”
Rett’s eyes flash, alpha to alpha. “I know that, Diego! Don’t you think I know that? We all know we fucked up!”
“Knowing isn’t enough!” I shout, my fists clenching at my sides. “We’ve been knowing for days! And what have we done about it? Nothing! We let her walk out that door thinking she was disposable!”
“We didn’t know this would happen,” Tristan says, running a hand across his face. “How could we?”
