Chapter 5
Callum
Three days in and I’ve stopped tracking time by hours.
I move quickly through the medical hall, bringing fresh water and clean linens to the healers.
It’s a balance of staying useful without crowding them—giving them room to work while ensuring they have everything they need.
My eyes keep returning to Lyanna, watching as exhaustion etches deeper lines around her eyes with each passing hour.
“Temperature’s rising again,” Harper announces, her voice clinical but strained as she checks Dane’s vitals. “One-zero-four point two. Corruption levels are spiking.”
I set down fresh towels beside her. “What do you need?”
“Nothing helps for more than an hour,” Harper says, not looking up from her notes. “We stabilize them, then they crash harder.”
At the bed next to Dane’s, Nyxiana’s violet eyes narrow as she works on Nova. Her hands glow with soft white flame as she applies purification magic to the unconscious Alpha female.
“Same pattern here,” she confirms, her melodic voice tight with frustration. “This attack ... it’s responding to my attempts to heal it.”
“What do you mean, responding?” I ask, moving closer.
Elysia looks up from where she’s treating Gabriel and Amara. “It’s almost like it’s ... feeding on our healing attempts.”
Lyanna presses a palm to Dane’s forehead, her face pale with exhaustion. The Alpha’s skin burns beneath her touch, his breathing ragged. Sweat soaks his sheets despite the cool air. Occasionally he mumbles something unintelligible, his head tossing side to side.
Fuck. If we lose Dane—I shove the thought away violently. Not happening.
“Isla, what are you seeing with Cassie and Kieran?” Lyanna asks, her voice hoarse from hours of non-stop work.
Isla looks up, her green eyes troubled. “Same issue. The moment I apply healing energy, their readings spike. It’s like we’re making it stronger.”
I move to the supply cabinet, restocking bandages while keeping an eye on Lyanna. The shadows under her eyes have darkened, her movements are becoming less precise. I’ve never seen her this drained.
“Harper,” Lyanna says suddenly, her voice sharpening with realization. “Show me those readings again.”
Harper slides her notebook toward Lyanna, pointing to a column of numbers. “See the pattern? Every healing attempt corresponds with a contamination spike exactly three minutes later.”
Lyanna grabs Harper’s notebook, face suddenly alert. She flips between pages, tracing corruption spikes against treatment times. I watch the realization hit her—that look of someone seeing a pattern emerge from chaos.
“It’s not just resisting our healing,” she says slowly. “It’s consuming it. Feeding on it.”
Harper pulls out another chart. “Strongest bonds show fastest consumption rates. The Alphas fell first because they’re bonded to everyone—they provided the most fuel.”
“Fuck,” I breathe, the implications hitting like a fist to the gut.
Nyxiana moves from Nova’s bedside, violet eyes haunted. “I’ve felt it. The energy being pulled away, like water down a drain. I thought I was failing. But it was drinking from me.”
I stare at the beds filled with unconscious pack members. The numbers blur in my vision.
“So, our bonds—the thing that makes us pack—“
“Are what’s killing them,” Lyanna finishes. Her face is drawn, exhausted, but her eyes are sharp. “Unless we starve it. Temporarily dampen the bonds, cut off its food source.”
“And if you go too far?”
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to.
The remaining conscious pack members gather around Dane’s bed—Kari stands with arms crossed; jaw tight.
Wyatt hovers nearby, his usual stoic presence strained.
Reyna paces behind them, her sharp eyes darting between the unconscious bodies and the data displays.
Mateo stands pressed against the far wall, wide-eyed and silent.
Rafe maintains his position by the door, arms crossed, steel-blue eyes fixed on the unconscious Alphas.
“Explain it again,” Kari demands, eyes locked on Dane’s pale face. “Slower this time.”
Harper steps forward, bringing up a holographic display of magical readings. “Look at the pattern. Every time we apply healing energy, corruption levels spike exactly three minutes later. The energy travels through pack bonds, feeding the dark magic instead of healing it.”
Nyxiana’s violet eyes narrow as she examines the data. “He engineered it perfectly. The bonds deliver the corruption and feed it simultaneously.”
Wyatt’s face goes gray. “And to stop it, we have to...”
“Temporarily dampen the bonds,” Lyanna says, her voice steady. “Not sever them—just weaken them enough to starve the corruption.”
“That’s ...” Reyna shakes her head, “That’s like cutting off oxygen to kill a fire while hoping the person inside doesn’t suffocate.”
“Exactly.” Lyanna’s voice is grim. “I have to weaken the bonds enough to starve the dark magic without severing them permanently.”
My stomach twists at the thought. Pack bonds are everything—our strength, our connection, our very identity. To deliberately weaken them feels like sacrilege.
I catch Rafe’s expression from across the room—his jaw rigid, those steel-blue eyes hardening to something that looks dangerously close to old pain. A former Alpha watching another pack’s leadership structure face deliberate dismantling, even temporarily. His hands clench at his sides.
“What happens if you go too far?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Permanent severing,” Isla says quietly. “If done wrong, complete pack structure collapse.”
“Could the Alphas die during this?” Kari asks bluntly.
Lyanna meets her eyes. “Yes. As Alphas, they’re bonded to every member of this pack. That’s dozens of connections we’d be dampening simultaneously. The shock to their systems could be fatal.”
“And if we do nothing?” Reyna asks, her voice tight with barely controlled frustration.
“They’ll be gone by morning. All of them,” Nyxiana says quietly.
The room falls silent. Dane’s chest rises and falls with labored breathing—each inhale a fight, each exhale a surrender. Nova lies in the next bed, her skin the color of old ash.
“There has to be another way,” Wyatt says, but his voice lacks conviction. He knows. We all know.
Kari stares at Dane for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice cracks. “Do it. Whatever it takes.”
The others nod reluctantly, horror and desperate hope warring on their faces.
Lyanna straightens her shoulders. “I’ll need complete silence. Absolute focus. One misstep and we could lose them permanently.”
As the preparations begin, I find myself moving closer to Lyanna, torn between terror at what we’re about to attempt and a desperate need to help her carry this impossible burden.
I position myself between the beds, connecting color-coded monitoring wires to the unconscious pack members. Each setup is identical—four connection points for magical readings, two for vital signs, one central line for emergency bond restoration.
“Test sequence on Dane,” I call to Harper, who’s calibrating the monitoring equipment.
She nods, fingers moving over the touchscreen. “Bond strength at forty-two percent and falling. Corruption levels rising in pattern with previous drops.”
My hands shake slightly as I secure the last monitor to Ben’s chest. I’ve faced rogue Alphas and survived pitched battles.
I’ve watched Lyanna purge corruption from Kieran’s entire pack after dark fae magic poisoned their bonds.
I’ve seen her cleanse assassins twisted by fallen angel influence. She’s done the impossible before.
But this is different.
“Lyanna, talk me through the risk assessment again,” I say, my voice steady despite the churning in my gut.
She looks up from the bond dampening equipment she’s calibrating, her face pale but composed. “If we go too shallow, the corruption continues consuming them. If we go too deep ...” She doesn’t finish.
“Permanent severance,” Harper says clinically, though I see the tension in her shoulders. “Complete pack collapse.”
Nyxiana moves between beds, her white flame magic flickering around her hands. “We’ll need continuous readings on Nova. As Alpha female, her connections are most extensive alongside Dane’s.”
I check the backup systems, triple-verifying each connection.
Elysia approaches with the emergency revival kit.
“Stabilization protocols are in place. If the bonds drop below twenty percent, we use this.” She holds up a sealed vial of glowing silver liquid.
“It’s experimental—a bond stabilizer Lachlan developed.
We inject it directly into the pack bond channels if things go critical. ”
I force myself to catalog the unconscious pack members clinically—Dane, Nova, Ben, Amara, Gabriel, Mariel, Connor, Cassie, and Kieran. Nine people. Nine lives hanging onto what happens in the next hour.
I shove the fear down hard, treating this as a tactical problem. Leadership continuity threatened. Operational gaps forming. I keep the analysis cold, refusing to acknowledge the pressure building behind my ribs.
Across the room, Harper sits beside Ben’s bed during a brief lull, speaking quietly to him even though he can’t hear.
Her fingers trace absent patterns on the back of his hand.
When she notices me watching, she stands quickly, all business again—but not before I see the raw fear in her eyes.
The same fear I’m refusing to examine in myself.
“Everyone in position,” Lyanna says, her voice remarkably steady for someone about to perform the most dangerous healing procedure I’ve ever witnessed.
Wyatt stands rigid by the wall, his weathered face grim. “Just tell us what to do.”
“If this works,” Reyna says, “what happens to the corruption?”
“It starves,” Lyanna explains. “Without pack bonds to feed on, it should weaken enough for us to purge it.”
Rafe steps forward, his massive frame tense with barely controlled energy. “The bonds you’re severing to starve it … some of those might not come back the same.” His voice is flat. “I hope you’re prepared for that.”
The room falls silent. Everyone knows the stakes.
“Five minutes,” I announce, nodding to those still conscious. “Say what you need to say.”
The pack members move to bedsides, touching foreheads and whispering quiet words to unconscious loved ones.
Mateo kneels beside Ben’s bed, his young face streaked with tears as he grips his mentor’s hand.
Kari stands beside Nova, her usual stoicism cracking as she murmurs something in the Alpha female’s ear.
I move to Dane’s side, placing my hand on his burning forehead. “Hold on,” I whisper. “The pack needs you. We all need you.”
When I look up, Lyanna is watching me, her forest-green eyes reflecting my own terror. For just a moment, the professional mask slips, and I see her—truly see her—afraid but determined, carrying an impossible burden.
“Time,” Harper announces quietly.
Everyone returns to their positions. The air feels charged with desperation and hope.
Lyanna takes a deep breath and positions her hands over the dampening equipment. “Beginning bond suppression procedure.”