Chapter 4 The key

Odessa

"Dying?" I laughed. It came out cracked and ugly. "Alpha Grayson, you drugged me, put me in a car with mannequins, and now you want me to believe your son is dying?"

"I know how it sounds."

"No, I don't think you do." I pushed past him into the hallway. "Where is my phone? I want my phone. I want my brother. I want to go home."

He didn't stop me, which was somehow worse. A man who has kidnapped you should at least try to block the door.

"Your phone is in the room behind you. Nobody touched it. The front gates are open, and a driver is waiting if you want to leave." His voice was so calm. "But I am asking you, as a father, to see him first. Five minutes. After that, I will drive you home myself and you will never hear from this family again."

I should have said no. Any sane woman would have walked out, called the police, and screamed until the whole pack territory shook.

But then I heard it from somewhere down the hall. A cough, wet and awful, the kind that scrapes the inside of your chest just from listening.

My feet moved before my brain agreed.

The room at the end of the hall was dim, and it smelled like herbs, iron, and something sour underneath. Two healers in grey robes stood on either side of the bed, whispering. They went quiet the second I walked in.

And there he was.

Evan Sebastian Sorrel, the man who danced me into a corner in front of three hundred people, looked small in that huge bed. His platinum hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. His lips were almost blue. There was a dark stain on the pillow beside his face, and I didn't need anyone to tell me what it was.

"Oh my Goddess," I whispered.

"He collapsed two days ago," Alpha Grayson said quietly behind me. "He has been getting worse every hour. They have tried everything. Silver tonic, moon-water, even the old blood rites."

"Then why am I here?" My voice shook, and I hated it. "I'm not a healer."

One of the healers, an older woman with tired eyes, finally looked at me. "Miss Kade, there is nothing wrong with his body. No poison. No wound. No disease we can find."

"That's impossible."

"We thought so too." She glanced at the Alpha. "Until his wolf started calling for you."

I stared at her. "For me?"

"Every time he drifts out, there is one name." The healer swallowed. "Yours."

My chest went tight. I shook my head hard. "No. No, this is some kind of game. Evan has a fiancée, or an ex-fiancée, or whatever Mia is. We haven't even spoken in seven years."

"Odessa," Alpha Grayson said gently. "Just touch his hand."

"Why?"

"Please."

I hated that word coming from him. I hated even more that I walked to the bed anyway.

His hand rested on top of the blanket, pale and too still. I remembered those hands from a long time ago, wrapping around mine to fix my grip on a wooden training sword. Again, little wolf. Slower. You're rushing.

I took a breath, and I touched him.

It felt like lightning went up my arm.

I gasped and almost yanked my hand away, but I couldn't. Heat rushed through my whole body, in my chest, my stomach, behind my eyes. In my head, my wolf, who had been sleeping lazily for most of my life, suddenly sat up and howled.

Ours.

"What the hell?" I whispered.

On the bed, Evan's breathing changed. It went from short and ragged to long and slow. The terrible color started to come back into his face. Behind me, one of the healers let out a sound like a sob.

"His heartbeat is steady," she said, stunned. "It's... it's steady."

I finally ripped my hand back and stumbled away from the bed, holding it against my chest like it was burned. "What did you do to me?"

"Nothing," the Alpha said. His eyes were wet. "I did nothing, Odessa. The Moon Goddess did."

I shook my head, again and again. "No. Don't say it."

"I think you already know."

I did. That was the worst part. The smell of him in the hall, the way my body followed him without question on that dance floor. The way I never, not once in six years, looked at any other man the way I used to look at him.

The man I hated for six years was my fated mate.

Evan

I knew it before I opened my eyes.

Her scent hit me first. Vanilla, warm skin, and something wild underneath, like rain on the forest floor. My wolf went crazy inside me. After days of silence, he was suddenly pacing, growling, begging.

She's here. She's here. Open your eyes.

My eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds, but I forced them open.

And there she was, standing at the far end of my room, pressed against the wall like she wanted to disappear into it. Her hair was a mess. Her eyes were red, and she was looking at me like I was some kind of ghost.

God, she was beautiful.

"Little wolf," I rasped.

"Don't," she said, and her voice shook. "Don't you dare call me that."

I almost smiled. Almost. Then I saw the way she held her hand against her chest, and my heart dropped.

"You touched me."

"Your father made me."

"My father kidnapped you." I tried to sit up. The room spun, and one of the healers rushed forward, but I waved her off. "Odessa, I swear, I didn't know he was going to do that."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" she snapped, and finally the tears spilled over. "You gave me a knife, Evan. You stood in front of three hundred people and offered my family a partnership like a hero, and the whole time you knew?"

"I didn't know for sure."

That was a lie, and the second it left my mouth, pain tore through my chest. I doubled over, coughing, and I tasted blood again.

"Stop it!" Odessa was suddenly at my side, her hands gripping my shoulders, and the pain just melted. It disappeared like it was never there.

We both froze.

Her face was so close to mine. I could count every one of her lashes. I could see her pulse hammering in her throat.

"It hurts when you lie," she whispered, horrified. "That's what's happening. It's not an illness."

I should have denied it. I should have found another lie, a softer one, anything to protect myself.

But I was so tired of lying. I had been lying to everyone, including myself, for six years.

"I've known since you were seventeen," I said quietly. "The night before everything fell apart. I felt the bond snap into place the second you laughed at something my father said. And I was twenty, engaged to someone else, and your brother's best friend. So I did the only thing I could think of."

"What?"

"I stayed away from you, so I would never ruin your life."

She stared at me. Her hands were still on my shoulders, and neither of us moved.

"You idiot," she finally whispered, and it sounded so much like a sob that it broke me. "You absolute idiot."

Outside the door, I heard raised voices. A crash. Then Joshua Kade's voice, thunderous, shaking the whole hallway.

"WHERE IS MY SISTER?"

Odessa went completely white.