Confessions in the Dark
The silver was out, but the nightmare was just beginning.
I stared at the thick, black sap coating the assassin's blade. My mind raced through every botanical encyclopedia I had ever memorized. It wasn't just Wolfsbane. It was Nightshade Ash—a rare, dark magic compound designed to bypass an Alpha's rapid healing factor and slowly rot their heart.
"Freya..."
The weak, breathless sound of my name snapped my attention back to the floor.
Kade's massive head lolled to the side. The terrifying, invincible Alpha King was completely losing his battle against the poison.
The veins on his neck were turning a sickly, toxic black, spreading rapidly from his shoulder toward his chest. His breathing became incredibly shallow, his golden eyes fluttering shut as a violent tremor wrecked his powerful frame.
"No, no, no! Kade, stay with me!" I dropped the blade and frantically crawled back to his side.
I pressed two fingers to the pulse point on his throat. It was erratic and terrifyingly weak. The fever was spiking at an unnatural speed. His skin felt like it was literally on fire beneath my hands.
"Mommy?" Asher's small, terrified voice came from behind me. "Is the big man going to sleep?"
"He's sick, baby," I choked out, fighting the absolute panic rising in my throat. I couldn't let my son watch his father die on the floor. "Asher, listen to Mommy. I need you to be very brave. Get back in the bed and cover your eyes. I have to do some messy healer work to save him."
Asher hesitated, his glowing golden eyes wide, but he nodded. He scrambled back onto the massive mattress, pulling the heavy silk duvet over his head.
I turned back to Kade.
I unzipped the deepest pocket of my apothecary satchel. I had spent four years preparing for every possible plague in the woods, but treating dark magic required something far more dangerous than herbs. It required the pure energy of a fated mate.
"Kade, open your eyes," I ordered, uncorking a vial of concentrated moon-flower extract and pouring it directly into his bleeding wound.
The liquid hissed as it touched the dark magic. Kade let out a horrific, tortured roar, his back arching off the floor. His massive hands blindly reached out, his fingers desperately wrapping around my wrists with bone-crushing force.
"It burns," Kade choked out, his eyes rolling back in his head. The fever dream was completely taking over. He was hallucinating. "The snow... it burns."
"I know, I know," I whispered, tears blurring my vision. I didn't try to pull my hands away. I let my inner wolf push her comforting, maternal aura directly through our physical contact, trying to soothe his erratic heartbeat. "Just hold on."
"I couldn't find you," Kade sobbed, the sound so devastatingly broken it shattered the last remaining wall around my heart.
The ruthless Alpha King was crying in his delirium.
"I dug through the snow, Freya. I dug until my claws bled.
They said you were dead. They said my father's assassins got you. "
My breath completely stopped.
He wasn't talking about tonight. He was reliving the night I ran away four years ago.
"I'm right here, Kade," I whispered, my voice breaking. I shifted closer, gently resting my forehead against his burning one. "I'm alive."
"I deserved it," Kade rasped, his eyes closed tightly, a single tear cutting through the dirt and blood on his scarred face.
"I kept you in a cage. I was a monster. I thought.
.. I thought if I pushed you away, if I made you hate me, you would run before the High Council killed you.
But the bed... Goddess, the bed was so cold without you. "
Every word was a silver dagger straight to my soul.
He didn't betray me. He hadn't chosen Vivienne. He had played the villain on purpose to scare me into running away, sacrificing his own happiness and our mate bond just to keep me breathing. And I had punished him for it by hiding his son.
"You're not a monster," I sobbed, finally burying my face in the crook of his uninjured neck, inhaling the intoxicating, failing scent of dark pine and smoke. "You saved us tonight. You took the blade for Asher."
"My pup," Kade mumbled, his grip on my wrists slowly weakening as the moon-flower extract finally began to fight the dark magic. "He has my eyes. Don't let them... don't let the Council take him, Freya. Run."
"I'm not running," I vowed fiercely, pulling back to look at his pale, sweating face. I placed both of my hands flat against his massive chest, directly over his heart.
I closed my eyes and completely unblocked my end of the mate bond.
For four years, I had built a massive mental wall to shut him out. Now, I tore it down entirely. I pushed every ounce of my love, my forgiveness, and my healer's energy directly into his soul.
The effect was instantaneous.
The dark, toxic veins on Kade's neck completely stopped spreading. The sickly black color slowly began to recede, retreating from his heart as my pure mate energy bolstered his failing Alpha healing factor. His erratic breathing leveled out into a deep, steady rhythm.
The fever broke.
I slumped back on my heels, completely exhausted, wiping the sweat from my brow. I looked at my hands; they were covered in his blood.
Kade's golden eyes slowly fluttered open. The terrifying haze of the fever was gone. He looked up at the ceiling, blinking in confusion, before his gaze snapped to me kneeling beside him.
He looked at my tear-stained face, and then down at the bandaged, stitched wound on his shoulder.
"You stayed," Kade whispered, his voice incredibly hoarse, filled with absolute, overwhelming awe.
"I'm a healer," I deflected weakly, looking away to pack my satchel, terrified of the intense, consuming fire returning to his golden eyes. "I don't let my patients die."
"You opened the bond, Freya," Kade stated softly. He didn't try to get up. He just reached out his large, blood-stained hand and gently tucked a stray lock of copper hair behind my ear. The touch sent a violent shiver down my spine. "I felt you. In my soul. I felt you forgive me."
I opened my mouth to deny it, to tell him I was only doing it to save his life, but a loud, frantic pounding on the heavy oak doors interrupted me.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
"Alpha Kade!" Marcus's panicked voice echoed from the hallway. "Alpha, open the doors! We heard the glass shatter!"
Kade's hand dropped from my face. The tender, vulnerable mate instantly vanished, replaced by the lethal King. He winced, gritting his teeth in agony as he slowly forced his massive frame off the floor.
"Stay here," Kade ordered me, his voice returning to a low, commanding rumble as he wiped the blood from his chest with a discarded towel.
"You can't open that door," I warned him, standing up. "You're still weak. The poison is neutralized, but your muscles are torn!"
"I am the Alpha," Kade growled softly, though he swayed slightly on his feet. "My pack doesn't see me bleed."
He walked heavily to the oak doors, placing his hand over the blood-seal to unlock it. He pulled the heavy doors open just a fraction—enough to speak, but not enough to let anyone see inside.
I stood a few feet behind him, out of sight, but I could hear everything.
"What is the meaning of this, Marcus?" Kade demanded coldly.
"Alpha, thank the Goddess you're alive!" Marcus gasped. "The patrol found the rogue's trail leading up to your balcony! But Alpha... the pack is in a panic. Rumors are spreading."
"What rumors?" Kade's voice dropped dangerously.
"Princess Vivienne told the elders before she left," Marcus hesitated, his voice dropping to a nervous whisper. "She told them you brought the enemy healer here not to cure us... but because she is the one who poisoned the water supply in the first place."
My blood ran cold. Vivienne. That vengeful, spiteful witch.
"The elders are demanding her head, Alpha," Marcus continued, oblivious to the fact that Kade was barely standing. "They are marching on the Alpha Suite right now. They want the rogue healer executed for treason."
Kade didn't say a word. He didn't look back at me.
He violently shoved the massive oak doors wide open.
"Let them come," Kade roared into the hallway, his terrifying, demonic Alpha aura completely suffocating the corridor. "Tell the elders that if they want to execute my Luna and the mother of my heir, they will have to go through my dead body first!"