Chapter 4: Green Eyes

My hands found his chest before I had fully crossed the room.

The warmth surged up from beneath my chest, hotter and sharper than it had been in the evaluation room. I poured everything I had into him. My gift answered without hesitation, chasing the damage through his blood, his organs, every place where something was shutting down.

There was no time to think—only time to work.

Sweat broke across my forehead within minutes.

My back ached from kneeling on hard stone. My hands burned deep in the joints, but still I pushed. 

“Stay. Stay with me. Breathe. Just breathe… please,” I murmured underneath my breath.

His body fought me, but I fought harder, drawing on reserves I didn’t know I had. 

The room grew darker, candles burned lower, and my vision blurred at the edges.

That was when I realized it.

This was not poison.

The damage didn’t feel like an outside attack. It felt older and deeper than that.

It was something inside him breaking down on its own. A sickness that had reached its peak. Maybe the tonic on the floor was supposed to manage it.

Knots tied in my stomach.

The Alpha’s breathing changed first, then the thread under my fingers thickened. His chest rose stronger, and I pressed harder, giving the last of what I had.

His eyes opened, and a gasp escaped my lips.

They were a beautiful forest green, and they fixed on my face. 

I stayed kneeling over him, hands still on his chest, shaking from exhaustion. Tears tracked down my cheeks, and I didn’t even remember when they started.

His eyes remained on me. He was alive.

Neither of us moved, and a cold silence settled in the room. My forehead almost dropped to his chest, but I caught myself in time. Unfortunately, it seemed that wasn't nearly enough.

The doors burst open.

Guards poured in, and shouts filled the room. 

“She poisoned him!” The first guard’s voice cracked through everything. “Traveler! She killed the Alpha!”

More voices echoed from behind me after. The room filled fast, and yet, I still stayed on my knees beside the Alpha. My hands were still on him.

“I found him like this,” I tried. My voice came out hoarse. “I healed him. He was dying—”

No one listened.

Ms. Darkmoon pushed through the crowd. Her sharp eyes took in the scene and then landed on me. 

Her face twisted. “I knew it. I sent this traveler to deliver his tonic myself. She came here to murder our Alpha. This is what happens when we open our gates to strangers.”

The room surged in equal amounts of agreement and anger, with about a dozen fingers pointed at me.

I kept talking, pushing myself to be as loud as I could. “The Alpha is sick, and I brought him back. Look at him. He’s breathing. He’s awake—”

More words would have fallen out of my mouth, but when a tall man with a scar that pulled at the corner of his left eye entered the room, it felt as though I had entirely forgotten how talking worked.

The noise dropped suddenly, and I knew everyone else felt what I did. This mystery man moved through the crowd as though he owned the very air we breathed. He looked at the Alpha on the floor, looked at me, and then looked at the chaos around us.

His voice cut through the air when he spoke. 

“As Beta of Bloodfang Pack, and second-in-command to Alpha Dimitri, I decree that this traveler will be beheaded by sundown tomorrow. Take her to the dungeons to await her trial.”

My knees buckled, and cold spread through my hands and up my arms until they went numb. The room tilted. I tried to speak, but my throat closed tight.

Guards grabbed my arms and hauled me up before I could fully register what had happened. Alpha Dimitri’s green eyes followed me as they dragged me toward the door. He said nothing, his body clearly still too weak to move, but he watched. 

This was the reward I got for playing savior.

The guards pulled me out and left me in the dungeons for it to swallow me.

Stone walls met me everywhere I turned. Cold sank into my bones no matter how much I tried to hug myself. And the torchlights barely reached the corners of my cell. This was how my last night would go without even so much as a guard to watch me fall into my demise.

I stood in front of the metal bars, hoping they would magically open up, until my legs gave out. I slid down the wall until I sat on the dirty straw. My arms wrapped around my knees, and one hand pressed to my stomach.

The baby.

I had pushed so hard to the point I drained myself. I didn’t know what that did to the small life inside me, and there was no way to check or anyone to ask. 

Rubbing slow circles over my belly, I whispered to the goddess, begging her to keep my child safe.

Tears came then, tearing out of me in ugly sobs that echoed off the stone. I cried for Xena, somewhere in the outer territories, who didn’t know. I cried for the baby who deserved better than a mother scheduled to die tomorrow. I cried for the woman I used to be and the stranger I had become, who still couldn’t escape cages.

My neck burned under the scarf. My arms ached. My head throbbed. Hunger gnawed at me, and exhaustion pulled at my bones.

So, this was how it all would end.

That night, sleep did not find me, and when morning came, I was less ready than I was the night before.

Guards came for me, and I stood before they could drag me. Straightening my clothes, I adjusted my scarf high around my ruined neck, then walked out with my head up. No one needed to see me break today.

The walk through the castle felt endless. People stared, and whispers followed my every move. Despite all that, I kept my eyes forward, and one hand wanted to press to my stomach. 

The town square opened before me with an eager crowd ready to see my end.

However, I found Xena’s face first.

She stood near the front, her blue eyes locked on mine, and her jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumped. I was wrong to think Xena was going to watch me die. She started moving, pushing through bodies to get close to me.

A guard grabbed her arm, but she fought. “Get off me. That’s my sister—”

Another guard moved in. “Interfere, and you die with her.”

Xena kept struggling, her eyes wilder than ever.

Seeing alone was more than enough punishment, yet I could not bring myself to look away.

“Xena!” I yelled, my voice more broken than I intended. “Stop. Please. Stop. I can’t… please just stop.”

She froze, her eyes keen on mine. Something in her face shattered, and then she stopped fighting, as if she finally understood my silent message. The guards still held her in place, but she stayed with her eyes, never leaving mine.

The Beta stepped forward, his eyes void of all emotion.

“This traveler, admitted under our laws, attempted to assassinate Alpha Dimitri, and she will be executed for her crime. This is a message and example to all people in Bloodfang territory. Do well to learn!”

He signaled the guards.

It might have been a final act of madness, but I couldn’t help the words that hurled out of my mouth. “I saved him! I found him dying! He is sick, and something inside him was already wrong before I arrived! I used my gift! His heart beats right now because of what I did in that room!”

A few faces in the crowd shifted, but it wasn’t enough to change the judgment. I was still a murderer in the eyes of these people

The Beta signaled again, his feet tapping incessantly against the floor.

They positioned me, and I didn’t fight. I just kept my eyes on Xena and deliberately put my hand on my stomach. I would spend my last breaths focusing on the only two people who ever mattered.

When the guards positioned themselves for the kill, I closed my eyes, and that was when I heard it.

“Free her!”

My eyes snapped open.

Alpha Dimitri stood at the edge of the square, with his face pale and his body hardly holding up.

The crowd parted as he walked forward with guards trailing behind him. He stopped in front of his Beta and stared at him for one long moment. Then at me.

“No one will be beheaded today unless they go against this order. This traveler woman is under my personal protection. She is my new personal healer, and no one touches her,” he announced, his voice echoing in the town square.

And then his green orbs landed back on me.