Chapter 4: The Sleeping Mother

St. Mercy's Hospital smelled like antiseptic and death.

I'd been here so many times in the past three months that the nurses recognized me on sight. They gave me sad smiles and pitying looks as I walked through the lobby, dripping rainwater on their polished floors.

"Sign in, sweetie," the receptionist said gently, pushing the clipboard toward me.

I signed my name in handwriting that barely looked like mine anymore. Shaky. Broken. The signature of someone who was falling apart.

The elevator ride to the fourth floor....the supernatural ward.....felt longer than usual. Or maybe time was just moving strangely today, this day that would end with me in the beds of three Cursed Alphas.

The doors opened with a soft ding.

I walked down the corridor, past rooms filled with wolves recovering from silver poisoning, curse wounds, magical accidents. The supernatural ward housed the cases that human medicine couldn't fix. The ones who needed something more.

Room 447. Mom's room.

I stopped outside the door, my hand on the handle, and took a breath.

This never got easier.

I pushed the door open.

The machines beeped steadily.....heart monitor, breathing monitor, IV drip. The sound of life support. The sound of someone hovering between living and dying, unable to choose either.

Mom lay in the bed exactly as she had for three months. Exactly as she would tomorrow and the day after if I couldn't pay her bills.

She looked so small.

That's what always struck me. My mother had been strong, vibrant, full of life and laughter. Now she looked like she was disappearing, fading into the white sheets, becoming a ghost before she'd even died.

Her dark hair....the same shade as mine....was streaked with grey now. Her face was pale and sunken. Her hands, folded on top of the blanket, were skeletal.

The mate bond breaking had done this. The wolfsbane had done this.

Grief had done this.

I pulled the chair close to her bed and sat down, taking one of her cold hands in both of mine.

"Hey, Mom," I whispered.

She didn't respond. She never did.

"I lost my job today. Joe let me go. Said the wolves don't want a wolfless serving them." I tried to laugh but it came out as a sob. "Guess I can't blame them. Who wants to be reminded that broken things exist?"

The machines beeped their steady rhythm.

"I don't know what to do anymore. I've tried everything. Applied everywhere. Sold everything we had. I'm out of options."

My throat tightened.

"Except one."

I stared at her face, memorizing the lines, the shape of her nose, the curve of her lips. Trying to remember what she looked like when she smiled.

"There's this thing tonight. The Rite. I know you've heard of it. Everyone has, even if they pretend not to."

The memory of finding her flashed through my mind, vivid and brutal.

Coming home from a double shift, exhausted, wanting nothing but sleep.

Finding the apartment door unlocked. Weird. Mom always locked it.

Calling her name. No answer.

Walking to the kitchen and seeing her on the floor.

So still. Too still.

The empty bottle beside her. Wolfsbane. The label stark and clear.

Dropping to my knees, shaking her, screaming her name.

Her lips were blue. Her skin was cold.

Calling 911 with shaking hands, barely able to speak.

"My mother....she drank wolfsbane....please, please help...."

The ambulance ride. The longest minutes of my life.

Watching them pump her stomach, hook her up to machines, work frantically to save her.

The doctor pulling me aside, his expression grave.

"The amount she ingested... it's a miracle she's alive. But the wolfsbane combined with the mate bond breaking....her system has sustained severe damage."

"Will she wake up?"

His hesitation told me everything. "I don't know. I'm sorry. Sometimes with trauma this severe... the body stays alive, but the mind decides it doesn't want to be here anymore."

"So she's choosing this? Choosing to leave me?"

"It's not that simple...."

"Yes it is." My voice broke. "Dad's gone and she can't handle it, so she's leaving me too. I'm not enough to stay for."

"That's not....."

But I'd walked away before he could finish.

Walked away and left her in that hospital bed, machines breathing for her, and I hadn't known if I'd ever get her back.

I squeezed her hand now, three months later, and the guilt was just as sharp.

"I was so angry at you," I admitted. "For giving up. For choosing wolfsbane over me. For deciding that living without Dad wasn't worth it, even though I'm still here, still needing you."

Tears slipped down my cheeks.

"But I get it now. I understand what it's like to feel so broken that you can't see a way forward. To feel so lost that nothing seems worth it anymore."

The machines beeped.

"I'm sorry I was angry. I'm sorry I wasn't enough to make you want to stay."

My voice cracked completely.

"I'm going to save you, Mom. Tonight, I'm going to do something that Dad would hate. Something that would make him ashamed of me. But I don't care.

I'm not losing you too."

I wiped my eyes with my free hand, the other still holding hers.

"The Rite is... it's where women go to be claimed by unmated Alphas. For one night. In exchange for gold." I paused. "A lot of gold. Enough gold to pay your bills. Enough to make sure they keep taking care of you."

Saying it out loud made it real.

"I'm scared," I whispered. "The Alphas tonight....they're the Cursed ones. Lucian, Sebastian, and Nicholas Blackwood. All three of them. And I'll be alone with them, and they can do whatever they want to me, and I have to let them."

My hands shook.

"I wish Dad was here. He'd know what to do. He always knew what to do."

But Dad was gone, ripped apart by rogues, and I was alone trying to hold together the pieces of our broken family.

"I wish you could wake up and tell me I'm making a mistake. Or tell me I'm brave. Or just... tell me something. Anything."

Silence except for the machines.

I leaned forward, resting my forehead against our joined hands.

"Please wake up, Mom. Please. I can't do this alone anymore. I'm so tired. I'm so fucking tired of being strong."

A knock on the door made me jerk upright.

A nurse stood there....Sarah, one of the kind ones...her expression sympathetic.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Lilith. But visiting hours are ending in fifteen minutes."

I nodded, unable to speak.

She left, closing the door softly behind her.

Fifteen minutes. That's all I had left.

I stood up, still holding Mom's hand, and looked down at her.

"I have to go. I have to get ready for tonight." I bent down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her skin was cool and dry. "I love you, Mom. I'm doing this for you. All of it is for you."

I straightened up, forced myself to let go of her hand.

"When you wake up....and you will wake up....I'll be here. I promise. We'll get through this together."

I backed toward the door, unable to look away from her.

"I'm not giving up on you. Even if you've given up on yourself, I'm not giving up."

My hand found the door handle.

"Goodbye, Mom. I'll see you tomorrow."

I stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind me.

Leaned against the wall, my eyes squeezed shut, fighting to keep from completely breaking down.

A doctor passed by, gave me a concerned look but didn't stop. They were used to seeing devastated family members in this ward.

I pushed off the wall and walked toward the elevator, my footsteps echoing in the quiet corridor.

Behind me, in room 447, machines continued their steady beeping.

Keeping my mother alive.

Keeping her hovering in that space between living and dying.

Tonight, I would make sure she stayed alive.

No matter what it cost me.

No matter what pieces of myself I had to give away.

The elevator doors opened. I stepped inside and pressed the button for the ground floor.

As the doors closed, I caught my reflection in the polished metal....a girl who looked like she'd already lost everything.

Maybe I had.

Or maybe I was about to.

The elevator descended, taking me down, down, down.

Away from my mother.

Toward whatever waited for me tonight.

Toward three Alphas who would claim my body and use it however they wanted.

Toward the Rite.

I stepped out into the lobby, walked past the receptionist who smiled sadly, pushed through the glass doors into the grey afternoon.

The rain had stopped but the sky was still heavy with clouds.

I started walking home.

Four hours until midnight.

Four hours until I learned what it meant to be thoroughly, completely used.

Four hours until I stopped being Lilith Thorne, daughter of Marcus and Iris, and became something else.

A body. A vessel. A means to an end.

But if it saved my mother, it would be worth it.

It had to be.

Because the alternative....losing her, being completely alone....was worse than anything three Alphas could do to me in one night.

At least, that's what I told myself.

That's what I had to believe.

Because if I let myself think too hard about what was coming, I'd lose my nerve.

And I couldn't afford to lose my nerve.

Not now.

Not when I was this close to saving her.

I walked home through the grey afternoon, my wet clothes clinging to my skin, the hospital smell still in my nose, my mother's cold hand still imprinted on my palm.

And I prepared myself for tonight.

For the end of everything I used to be.