Third Person’s POV

    +10 Free Coins

    The sterile silence of the hospital corridor was broken only by the click of a door utching. The red light above the surgical ward flickered off, and the door slowly opened.

    Lucien Duskgrave was wheeled out on a gurney, pale and motionless. Caelum Knox, who had been standing guard outside for hours without rest, immediately stepped forward.

    The surgeon removed his mask, his voice calm but edged with gravity. “The patient’s leg bones have been reset. The surgery was sessful. But he must remain in bed for at least a month. Absolutely no weight on his legs during this period.”

    Caelum frowned, his wolf restless under his skin. “Why won’t his healing take care of it? He is Alpha-born. His regeneration should outpace any fracture.”

    The doctor’s eyes darkened with something close to unease. “Normally, yes. But not in this case. His injuries were sustained mid-shift. The bones snapped while caught between man and wolf form. That kind of rupture distorts the very alignment of spirit and flesh. His natural regeneration cannot decide what shape to knit to-it stalls, caught in the fracture.”

    Caelum’s jaw tightened. He had seen it before-rare, brutal. The kind of wound even an Alpha might not walk away from.

    The doctor added, “If we had left him to self-heal, his legs might have fused incorrectly-half human, half wolf. A permanent deformity. Surgery was the only way to guide the bone back into proper alignment. Now, only time and restraint will allow his body to finish what our hands have started.”

    Caelum gave a terse nod, then pushed Lucien into a private recovery room. For a time, silence stretched, broken only by the faint rhythmic beeping of machines.

    Atst, Lucien stirred. Hisshes fluttered, and his eyes-still sharp despite the pallor of exhaustion-opened. His first words were not about himself.

    “How is Riley?” His voice was hoarse, but the urgency in it was unmistakable.

    +10 Free Coins

    Caelum’s lips twitched into something close to reassurance. “You may rest easy, Alpha. Riley’s transnt surgery was sessful. The organ was her own to begin with; there will be no rejection. Her body just needs time to recover. In fact, she may heal faster than your legs.”

    Lucien’s gaze flickered toward his bandaged limbs, silver eyes shadowed but steady. He understood. He remembered thendslide, the way he had forced a partial shift to shield Riley from the falling boulders. His body had paid the price for that choice.

    A faint smile ghosted across his otherwise ashen face. Relief loosened the tension etched in his features. “Good. With her body mended, she’ll no longer carry the weight of guilt. She won’t think of leaving me anymore.”

    His eyes hardened, his tone edged with iron. “Her legs and her hearing still need attention. I’ll find the finest specialists in the world, no matter the price. I will see her whole again.”

    Then, as if an afterthought, he asked, “And Scarlett?”

    Caelum’s expression darkened. Hisugh was sharp, cold, with no trace of pity. “Dead.”

    Lucien blinked. “Dead? For the loss of one kidney alone?”

    Caelum shook his head slowly, voice edged with disdain. “Her death was no simple matter of a missing organ.”

    The memory rose before him vividly.

    Also she was saved by Lucien once, but when the mountainside copsed again, Scarlett had been struck down by falling stone. The massive boulders crushed her lower body, pinning her beneath their weight. Pain had burned through her so violently that, for a fleeting moment, the madness clouding her mind receded. Instinct-the raw, animal drive to survive-forced its way through her delirium.

    “Help me,” she had begged, her voice thin and desperate. “Please… I don’t want to die. Save me.”

    But Caelum’s focus then had been singr: Riley and Lucien. He had no time for a woman who had long chosen her own destruction.

    Scarlett’s fingers had wed into the dirt, nails shattering one by one until they

    8:29 pm ED

    +10 Free Coins

    were torn and bleeding. She had dragged furrows in the earth as if sheer will might free her, but the stone never relented. Her screams grew weaker, her strength bled out onto the soil, until the light in her eyes guttered and went dark.

    By the time she was carried into surgery alongside Riley, there was nothing left of her but the shallow flutter of a dying breath. When her kidney was harvested, her body gave in entirely, and she perished upon the table.

    Lucien listened in silence. His expression betrayed little—no grief, no pity. Only the cold weight of inevitability. Scarlett had sown the seeds of her own end.

    “She chose her path,” he said atst. His tone was t, final. “Caelum, leave me. Go check on Riley.”

    Caelum inclined his head, shoulders taut with restrained tension. He obeyed without hesitation, striding swiftly to Riley’s ward.

    Yet when he entered, the sight that met him stopped him cold.

    The bed was empty.

    Sheetsy rumpled, the air still faintly carrying her scent, but the girl herself— gone.

    For a moment his mind went white, nk with disbelief. Riley had just survived surgery. Her body was fragile, too weak to even walk, much less vanish. How could she simply disappear?

    A cold dread settled in his gut. Without wasting another heartbeat, Caelum summoned the attending physicians.

    When the doctors arrived and saw the vacant bed, their faces paled. Panic buzzed through them. Orders flew, and they rushed to pull the hospital’s security footage.

    The monitors flickered to life, and the grainy recording yed.

    There she was. Riley-slumped in a wheelchair, her head tilted, her body limp with exhaustion.

    Behind her, a woman in nurse’s scrubs pushed her through the hall. But she was no nurse. The body beneath the uniform was heavyset, the gait wrong, the face partially hidden by a mask.

    8:29 pm

    +10 Free Coins

    They watched as the imposter wheeled Riley through the hospital corridors, pressed the elevator button, and disappeared into the shadows of the lower levels.

    Caelum’s hands curled into fists, his ws itching beneath his skin. His wolf snarled inside him, rage and fear colliding like thunder.

    She had been stolen. Taken from under their very noses.

    And whoever had dared toy hands on Riley Vale had just dered war on Stormridge Pack itself.

    3:29 pm ED