Chapter 9 Dorian
nine
Dorian
The drive from Columbus takes three hours. Vespera unconscious in my lap, her body seizing twice more, each convulsion making my Alpha instincts scream. Corvus keeps checking her pulse while Oakley drives too fast through the dark.
"She's stabilizing," Corvus reports, though his voice lacks confidence.
Stabilizing. Like she's a fucking stock portfolio instead of my dying mate.
The lake house appears through the trees—glass and wood and isolation. I'd sent staff ahead to prepare everything. The master suite converted into something between a bedroom and a medical facility. Everything she might need except freedom.
I carry her inside. She weighs less than she should, rejection eating her from the inside out. Two weeks of dying because she'd rather suffer than submit.
"Second floor," I tell them unnecessarily. They know the plan.
The room is ready. California king, clothes already in the closet—things I'd imagined her wearing, things I'll peel off her when she finally gives in. The windows don't open. The balcony door is decorative.
I place her on the bed and immediately want to do more. Want to strip her out of the clothes that smell like that theater program, like other people, like the life she was building without us. My hands shake with the effort of not touching.
"Don't," Oakley says from the doorway. Of course he knows what I'm thinking. He's always been able to read my worst impulses.
"I wasn't—"
"You were."
Corvus enters with medical supplies, all business. "Her temperature's dropping. We need to get fluids in her."
They work around me while I stand there useless, watching her breathe. She looks younger unconscious. Vulnerable. Nothing like the woman who stood on stage as Lady Macbeth and made an entire auditorium hold its breath.
A whimper escapes her lips—pain or fear, I can't tell. The sound makes something in my chest crack.
"This is necessary," I say, though no one asked.
"Keep telling yourself that," Oakley mutters, adjusting her IV.
She stirs. Just a flutter of eyelashes at first, then those green eyes snap open, unfocused and confused. The confusion lasts maybe two seconds before fury takes over.
Her fist connects with my jaw before I see it coming. For someone dying, she hits hard.
"You fucking—" She's scrambling back, pulling at the IV, eyes wild. "Where—what did you—"
I catch her wrist before she can rip out the line. Her pulse races under my fingers, bird-quick and fragile.
"Easy—"
"Don't!" She yanks away, nearly falls off the bed. "Don't you dare—I was at rehearsal, I had—Ben is waiting—"
"You collapsed," I say, though it's not quite true. "You were dying in the street."
"Liar!" Her voice cracks. "You took me, you—the show, I have the show—"
"Vespera—"
"Three weeks!" She's shaking now, trying to stand and failing. "Opening is in three weeks and I'm Medea, I'm the lead, I can't—"
"The show doesn't matter if you're dead."
She laughs, and it sounds broken. "It matters to me."
The raw emotion in her voice makes me pause. This isn't just about leaving Northwood. She'd built something in Columbus. Something that mattered.
"Who's Ben?" The question comes out before I can stop it.
Another laugh, bitter this time. "Are you serious right now? You kidnap me and want to know about—" She stops, sways. "Where am I?"
"Somewhere safe."
"Bullshit." She grabs the bedpost for support. "Where?"
"The family lake house. Forty miles from anywhere. Your phone's dead, no one knows you're here, and even if you could walk—which you can't—there's nowhere to go."
She takes it in. The locked windows, the medical equipment, the closet I know she hasn't seen yet but will.
"A prison."
"A hospital."
"Same thing when the patient doesn't consent." Her hand goes to her throat where the rejection marks burn angry red. "You can't—this isn't—"
"Your consent became irrelevant when you chose death over us."
She flinches. "My choice."
"A stupid choice."
"Still mine."
There's something in her eyes—desperate, cornered. She starts talking about her mother, words spilling out like she needs to say them before she loses consciousness again. How her mom left when she was ten. No explanation, no goodbye, just gone.
"Maybe she knew," Vespera says, unfocused now. "Maybe she saw what would happen and got out before—"
"Before what?"
"Before someone decided she was theirs to keep."
The parallel isn't subtle. I want to argue, to point out the difference between abandonment and claiming, but she's already fading, eyes rolling back.
"Catch her," Corvus says, and I do, pulling her against my chest as she goes limp again.
"We need to discuss the plan," he says, checking her vitals again. "She has maybe thirty-six hours without intervention."
"Then we intervene."
"She won't accept help."
"Then we make acceptance irrelevant."
Oakley shakes his head. "You can't force her."
"Watch me."
But even as I say it, holding her unconscious body, feeling how fragile she's become, I know he's right. Force got us here. Force made her run. Force is killing her.
"Put her to bed," Corvus says quietly. "We'll take shifts watching her."
I carry her to the bed, arrange her carefully. She looks small, breakable. Nothing like the force of nature who rejected three Alphas.
"I'll take first watch," I say.
They leave without argument. They know I need this—need to sit here in the dark and watch her breathe, need to torture myself with her proximity while she can't protest.
Around midnight, she stirs.
"Ben?" she mumbles, still mostly asleep.
The name on her lips makes me want to break things.
"No," I say quietly. "Not Ben."
Her eyes open slightly, recognize me, close again. "I hate you."
"I know."
"I'm going to die hating you."
"No," I say, brushing hair from her fevered face. "You're not going to die at all."
She doesn't respond, already pulled back under by exhaustion and sickness. But her hand moves slightly, fingers curling like she's holding something that isn't there.
In the morning, I'll have Corvus find out everything about this Ben. About the theater program. About the life she was building. Not because I care, but because I need to know what she thinks she's lost.
What I took from her.
What I'll have to replace to make her stop wanting to die.