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~ ZION ~Twelve hours of waiting outside the ICU, the clock dragging like it knew exactly how to torture me. Every second felt like an hour, and every breath felt like it might be the last before the one that breaks me.Nurses passed by, machines hummed behind closed doors, and I just sat there, staring through the glass, willing her eyes to open.“She’s going to be ok,” Dad says firmly. I’m not even sure when he showed up.“Thanks for being here,” I say quietly.“And why wouldn’t we? She’s our daughter,” Mom says softly.“But in all honesty, you’re doing a crap job of protecting her. I hate hospitals, and she keeps ending up here. So, wrap her up in bubble wrap if you have to. No more hospital visits unless it’s for a pup. I do want grandkids after all,” Dad says, making me stare at him.“You have Sia’s,” I remind him.“I want them from you,” Dad says as I chuckle and turn back to the window that looks into her room.Our kids?I smile softly. Maybe some day. If that’s what she wants.
~ ZION ~Chaos explodes around me. Shouts and gunfire spreading, the sounds ring in my ear. The sharp scent of blood fills my nose as bodies fall. Through the madness, I catch sight of Sean, staggering backwards as he tries to flee with one arm ripped off entirely from earlier. His other shoulder looks mangled, too, but he’s still strong enough to try running.Milena charges after him, and fear envelops me. I want to scream for her to stop, to be careful, but I can’t, not in this form!I snarl, but she doesn’t even look this way, even as another, more dangerous one rips from my throat as I whip my head to the side and hurl the broken body of the hunter who attacked me to the floor. He lands like a discarded rag doll.‘Protect Milena!’ I command through the mind-link, my voice edged with fury.A bullet whizzes past me, and I duck. Spinning around, I wrench the rifle from the hunter’s grip with my teeth and fling it across the room. Running towards her as fast as I can, tearing down the
~ MILENA ~I’m just about to step out the door when someone speaks from behind me, “Just a minute there, Ruin.”I stop and look at Reaper, his cunning eyes fixed on me.“Yes?” I ask, focusing on my heartbeat. Something about him was off… and then suddenly it hits me where I have seen him before. At the ball I went to with Zion… he’s a werewolf!“I would love to have believed what you just said, but then why are there several werewolves around the perimeter?”I frown, turning to face him. “No, they couldn’t have followed me,” I answer smoothly, keeping my heart rate steady. I’ve practised this for years and it’s paying off.He cocks an eyebrow. “Are you accusing me of lying?” he asks, walking towards me.“Not at all, I’m just confident that no one followed me here.”“Then maybe they didn’t follow you; maybe you told them you were here, and in fact they’re here for your sake? What were you really doing out by that tree?” he asks menacingly, now advancing towards me.The urge to turn and
~ MILENA ~I look at the men sitting as if they own the entire damn world, and in a way, they have.“So, what is it that couldn’t wait?” Shade asks, he’s sitting on the left, his dark eyes fixed on me.“I can take him down.”“Who?” Reaper asks, he’s sitting in the middle, his calculating eyes fixed on me. Why does it look like I’ve seen him somewhere else, and I mean not in the Arkan, but elsewhere…“Zion King.”“And how do you think that you’ll manage that?” Reaper asks.I pull down my collar with a jerk, schooling my face to repulsion. “I found out I’m his fated mate,” I mock, hating myself for this; but I’ve lived my life hiding my emotions, putting on an act, so it isn’t too hard to do. I just wished Zion wasn’t listening in on this. It would hurt him more.My eyes flick across all five, whose faces change. “He bonded you?” Blood asks. He’s the eldest here, but despite his aged face and almost fully white head of hair, his eyes are as sharp as steel.“Yeah,” I say, wrinkling my nos
~ ZION ~I marked her.I marked her, and it’s healing beautifully. I watch as she sleeps contently, unable to sleep with the excitement and happiness I’m feeling right now.My Woman, My Luna, My Lena.I chuckle softly at that. It’s how I first came about calling her Lena. I’m about to settle down beside her when her eyes suddenly snap open and she looks at me.“I think I know what the code might be for! When we were little, there was this media device that Milo would put movies onto so we could watch them when it was a strictly no internet mission Dad would be on. To log on there was a password, and I remember! I remember he used to tell me it’s a very long password, that there’s no limit to how long it could be and that I’ll never be able to guess it,” she says, her eyes wide as she holds onto me, a spark in her gorgeous eyes. “He always teased me about it. It has to be that.”I brush back her hair from her face and nod slowly. “Great. So would he have still had it?” I ask, my attenti
~ MILENA ~The door opens quietly and my eyes snap open. I reach for the fork I had kept from lunch earlier, but I relax realising it's Zion, recognising his footsteps.“You really need to stop creeping around like a thief in the night,” I say, sitting up, gritting my teeth at the way my body groans with pain. I’ll get better soon. I’ve lived with more pain than this, but the annoying thing is I don’t like being stuck in a hospital.He smiles, the dim light of the hospital room illuminating his face, and I can tell he looks tired.“I didn’t want to disturb you, yet my woman clearly can’t relax unless I’m here.”My woman…We haven’t talked about us properly, but we’re falling into old patterns, becoming something. I never thought we would again. He leans over me, caging me between his arms before he kisses my forehead softly.“I won’t break,” I point out firmly.He smirks. “Trust me, I know, but this isn’t the kind of pain I want to give you.”He’s about to sit in the armchair when I sl