Twenty Eight

Just when I thought it was over for me and the life inside my body had been taken away from me, I suddenly woke up with a deep inhale and my heart started beating again. The first thing I saw was Aiden's face fixed on mine, worry and concern filling every part of it. Then the sounds started coming in. I could hear voices — Aiden, Nathan and one other person, who had to be Marcus, who Aiden had requested earlier. My eyes followed the sounds and opened fully, my vision blurry at first, then slowly sharpening.

That's when I saw everyone present.

It seemed I was really fighting for my life here. I didn't want to die like this. Thankfully, I had come back.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You died," Aiden replied. "But I brought you back. I fed you vampire blood to heal your body temporarily." He paused. "But it won't help much because the venom is still fighting inside your system."

Then I felt it. The sensation came back like it had never left — the burning in my veins, worse than before, like liquid fire spreading through every part of my body simultaneously.

I was still on the soft expensive couch.

Nathan stood over me beside Marcus, whose huge physique filled the space around him. Aiden was crouched beside me with an expression I hadn't seen on his face before. Something that looked like relief, sitting quietly underneath everything else he kept up front.

"Stay awake now or you will really die this time," he said. Not a request.

"Yeah, I've been working on that," I managed.

The burning rolled through me again and I pressed my teeth together and refused to make a sound.

"The venom is accelerating fast," Nathan said, bending closer, his voice tight. "Whatever triggered it — the spike in adrenaline, the fight — it sped up the timeline."

Aiden's jaw worked. "How long does she have now?"

"An hour. Maybe less if it gets worse."

I stared at the ceiling. The wolf pendant Stephanie gave me was still against my chest, warm against my skin. I pressed my fingers to it.

*Not again, I'm not going to die

The burning pulsed again, spreading further. I could feel it working its way into my chest now, into my stomach, going deeper with every passing minute.

"So that's it?" My voice came out small. Broken. "I'm just going to die here?"

Aiden's expression flickered with something I couldn't quite name. Frustration? Regret? Both at once?

"There's one other option," he said slowly. "But you're not going to like it."

"I'm dying in less than an hour," I shot back. "Try me. I don't think I have much of a choice here anyway."

He crouched beside me again, his hazel eyes intense and fixed on mine. "Your healing ability. Nathan told me about your arm — how it healed completely in hours. That's not normal. Not even for a strong wolf."

"I'm not a wolf," I said bitterly. "I'm wolfless, remember?"

"Are you?" His voice came out soft but sharp at the same time. "Wolfless wolves don't heal like that. They don't have whatever is inside you."

I thought about the voice in my head when I was drowning. The inhuman strength that came out of nowhere when I grabbed Josh's ear during the chase. The blue eyes looking back at me in the mirror the morning of my wedding.

"I don't know what I am," I admitted quietly.

"Then maybe it's time to find out," Aiden said, standing. "Because if there's something inside you — whatever gave you that healing ability — it might be strong enough to fight the venom."

"How do I access it?" I demanded.

He looked at me, and something in his expression made my stomach drop before he even spoke.

"The same way it surfaced before. Through survival instinct. Through pain and fear."

The understanding arrived cold and immediate.

"No," I said. "No way."

"It's the only chance you have," Aiden said flatly.

Nathan stepped forward. "Aiden, there has to be another way—"

"There isn't." His voice was hard and final. "Either we do this or she dies. Those are the only options on the table."

I stared at him. At this man who had threatened to put me in a Hunt Game, who had looked at me like a puzzle he wanted to take apart, who was now offering to push me to the edge of death to potentially pull me back from it.

"Why?" I asked. "Why do you even care if I live or die?"

He didn't answer immediately. Just looked at me with those hazel eyes that gave away nothing and everything at the same time.

"Because," he finally said, "you're more interesting alive."

It wasn't a good answer. It wasn't even a kind one.

But it was honest.

And right now honesty was all I had.

"Fine," I said, my voice steadier than anything else in my body felt. "Do it. Wake up whatever is inside me."

"April—" Nathan started.

"*Do it.*" I turned my eyes straight to Aiden. "I didn't survive my father stripping everything from me, Luke rejecting me in front of my entire pack, Maxwell hunting me through a forest, and going off a cliff just to die from a bite on a stranger's couch. So do whatever you have to do."

Something moved across Aiden's face. Something that looked close to respect.

"Alright," he said quietly.

Marcus stepped forward with the silver chains and moved toward the table set up across the room.

"Last chance to back out," Aiden said, watching me carefully.

I thought about Stephanie's necklace still pressed warm against my chest. About Ice, gone somewhere at the bottom of that river. About the girl I used to be who died standing at that altar in a dress she had spent months choosing.

About the girl I was becoming instead.

"I'm not backing out," I said firmly.

Aiden nodded once. "Then let's begin."