CHAPTER 42

Helena’s POV

Jarett’s hand was still in mine when he said it.

“I have to.”

The words hit colder than the snow in that forest.

“Please,” I whispered. My fingers curled around his sleeve like it was the only thing anchoring me to this bed, to this room. “Don’t go down there. Not now.”

He didn’t answer right away. He looked at me with the dark circles under his eyes, clenching his jaws.

He looked like he hadn’t slept nor eaten. He’d been sitting in this chair for gods know how long just holding my hand while my body tried to leave without me.

“I’m not leaving you,” he said finally. Like if he spoke too loud I’d shatter. “I’m going to make sure nothing gets to you.”

My throat burned. “The doctor said it was a trance episode and just a fever. It was nothing real.”

Jarett’s mouth twitched. “You don’t believe that.”

I shook my head because I didn’t and because I could still feel her fingers on my forehead. I could still see the cut in her throat, and the smoke that wasn’t smoke, and the wolves in chains.

“The North wolves,” I said. “They’re not here for you. They’re here for me.”

His thumb continued moving over my fingers, brushing over my knuckles.

“Then let them come,” he said. “They’ll have to go through me first.”

He stood.

The machine beeped. The IV tugged at my arm.

“Jarett—”

“I’ll be right outside the door,” he cut me off. “I'll station guards at the door. There is a nurse that comes every ten minutes. Just press that button and I'll be here in three seconds. Okay?”

It wasn’t a question.

I nodded anyway. Because if I argued he’d stay, and if he stayed, he wouldn’t do what he needed to do.

He leaned down and pressed his forehead to mine. He smelled like hospital soap and him. Like cedar and something warmer underneath.

“Stay,” he whispered. “With me.”

Then he was gone.

The door clicked shut.

The nurse came in ten minutes later like he promised. She checked my vitals, changed the IV, told me my fever was down half a degree.

“Good,” she said. “That’s good, Helena.”

She didn’t ask what I’d seen. They just called it a trance episode.

When she left, I stared at the ceiling at the white tiles and noticed that one of them had a crack.

My hands were shaking.

"It was supposed to be me. The first vessel. But I fought. So they made another." The words kept replaying in my head.

The images came back in pieces. The stone room, the chanting and the baby with gold eyes, that was me?

I remembered the men in dark jackets dragging her away and her layered voice.

The door opened again. I jerked, expecting a nurse. It wasn’t, it was Brent.

He stood in the doorway in a black jacket, hands in his pockets like he owned the place. Behind him, one of Jarett’s guards shifted, blocking half the doorway.

“Visiting hours,” Brent said, smiling. “You look better.”

“I don’t want you here.” My voice was hoarse from screaming.

“I know.” He stepped in anyway. The guard didn’t stop him.

Brent looked around the room. The monitors. The IV. The empty chair where Jarett had been.

“He left you,” Brent said softly. “To go deal with my friends.”

My stomach dropped. “Get out.”

He sat in Jarett’s chair. Like he’d planned it.

“You saw her, didn’t you?” he asked. “The first one.”

I didn’t answer.

Brent sighed. “She’s stubborn. Always was. That’s why they had to make you.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Do you know why the North came all the way down here, Helena? It’s not politics. It’s not territory. It’s prophecy.”

The word made my skin crawl.

“An old bloodline,” he continued. “Born under the pale moon. A vessel that can hold the alpha line without breaking. The first one fought it. So they buried her, and waited forty years, and made another.”

His eyes met mine.

“You.”

“No,” I whispered.

“You’re shaking,” Brent said. “You feel it, don’t you? The pull. The memory. That’s why you seized. Your body remembers what your mind was forced to forget.”

The door opened again and Jarrett walked in.

He took one look at Brent in his chair and the room went silent.

“Get out of my mate’s room,” Jarett said. Quiet. Deadly.

Brent stood slowly, hands raised. “Just checking on her. She’s family now, technically.”

“Family doesn’t bring North wolves to my city.”

Brent smiled. “They’re not mine. They’re hers.” He nodded at me. “They came for the vessel.”

Jarett moved so fast I didn’t see it. One second Brent was standing, the next he was against the wall, Jarett’s forearm across his throat.

“Don’t you ever say her name like that again,” Jarett growled.

Brent didn’t fight. He just looked at me over Jarett’s arm.

“Wake up, Helena,” he said. “Before they bind you again. Before the trance becomes a cage.”

The exact words the woman in the forest had used.

My breath caught.

Jarett let him go. Brent straightened his jacket, glanced at me one last time, and walked out. The guards followed.

The room was quiet again. Just the beeping. Just us.

Jarett came back to the bed. He didn’t sit. He knelt, so we were eye level.

“Tell me,” he said.

So I did.

Everything. The forest. The snow. The woman with the cut throat. The stone room. The baby. The words. 'Before they bind you again.'

When I finished, Jarett closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were gold. Not fully shifted. Just the edge of it.

“They’re not taking you,” he said. “Not while I’m breathing.”

I reached up and touched his face. He was burning up. Not with fever. With rage.

“I’m scared,” I admitted. “What if she’s right? What if I’m— what if I’m not just me?”

Jarett caught my hand and kissed my palm.

“You’re Helena,” he said. “You’re mine. And whatever else they tried to make you, we’ll burn it out together.”

Outside, far down the hall, something howled.

Not a wolf.

Something else.

Jarett stood.

“Stay,” he said again.

“I will,” I promised.

But in the back of my mind, I could still hear her.

'Wake up. Before they bind you again.'

And the moon in that forest had cracked right down the middle.