Chapter 6: The Connecting Door

He was already inside the room.

Alpha Dimitri stepped forward from the doorway, closing the distance between us with slow, deliberate steps. The air in my new room grew thinner with every inch he took. My head dropped before I could stop it. Chin to chest with my shoulders curving inward. The same posture my body had performed for years around Lucan. It made me small, safe, and invisible. And I hated it. I hated that even here, my muscles still remembered exactly how to make myself smaller.

I kept breathing, my breaths rapidly alternating between shallow and fast. Each inhale caught high in my throat.

He stopped right in front of me.

I could feel the heat rolling off his body. The clean scent of his skin mixed with faint traces of herbs and something darker, more masculine. My hands fisted in the sheets. I waited for the blow. For the words that would tell me I had already failed some test I didn’t know existed.

His hand rose.

I flinched hard, my head jerking away with one arm flying up to shield my face on pure instinct. The movement was ugly and automatic.

The hand never came.

Instead, his fingers brushed a loose strand of my short ginger-red hair away from my eyes. It was gentle and almost… careful. The touch lingered for half a second longer than it needed to.

My arm stayed raised another heartbeat before I forced it down. Relief and shame crashed through me at the same time. He hadn’t been about to hit me. And yet my body had reacted as if he would.

Alpha Dimitri took one step back, giving me space. I felt my shoulders drop slightly, air finally moving all the way through my lungs again. His own breath caught for the briefest moment — a tiny hitch, almost nothing — before he steadied it again. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it.

“Look at me,” he said quietly.

I lifted my head slowly. His green eyes caught the faint moonlight and held it. They were sharp and unreadable. For several long seconds, our gazes locked. Something passed between us that I could not exactly name, but it was heavy enough that my breath caught. His jaw tightened once, in a small involuntary flex, before his expression smoothed back into control. He didn’t look away. Neither did I.

“You told them I was sick,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Not poisoned. Sick. In front of the guards. In front of Ms. Darkmoon. In front of Beta Petru and half the square.”

My throat worked. “I—”

“If you ever speak of my illness to another soul again,” he continued, his voice terrifyingly calm, “I will execute you myself.”

The words felt like a blade pressed against my neck, and I swallowed a thick lump down my throat.

I nodded quickly. “Yes, Alpha.”

He studied me for a long moment. Then turned and walked back through the connecting door.

“Follow me.”

I stood on shaky legs and obeyed.

His chambers were larger and warmer than mine. Recessed lighting lined the ceiling, dark and unused. It seemed he preferred the single lamp instead, its glow was modern but made dim. Perhaps he preferred the darkness or wasn’t accustomed to too much light. The furniture around his room was old enough to have outlived three generations of Alphas. He sat in a heavy wooden chair and gestured for me to approach.

“Check me,” he ordered.

I moved closer. My hands trembled only a little as I placed them on his chest. The warmth of my gift rose slowly, searching. His heartbeat was strong and steady now. The sickness still lurked underneath — that deep, stubborn rot I had felt the night I saved him — but it had been pushed back for now.

I moved my hands lower, then higher, reading the pathways of his blood, the tension in his organs, the places where the disease still waited like a patient predator. Damaged tissue trying to repair itself. Veins that narrowed too easily. A heart that had grown used to fighting.

He watched me the entire time. Green eyes tracking every movement of my hands, every shift in my breathing. The closeness felt suffocating. My palms pressed against hard muscle. I could feel the heat of his skin through the thin material. My own pulse refused to settle. At one point, I had to look into his eyes during the assessment. Our gazes locked again. His gaze held mine a heartbeat longer than it should have. Something tightened in my chest, and judging by the brief hitch in his breathing, I wasn't the only one who felt it.

I finally dropped my gaze, cheeks burning.

When I finished, he nodded once.

A healer brought the nightly tonic on a small stainless tray, the metal cold and out of place against the room's old wood and stone. Alpha Dimitri looked at the cup, then at me.

“Taste it first.”

I took the cup and drank. The liquid was bitter, herbal, and slightly metallic. I waited. Nothing happened. There was no dizziness or burning. Every night from now on, I thought. Every single night, I would drink first. I handed it back to him.

He drank without hesitation.

Then he leaned back in the chair and studied me again.

“Name the disease,” he said.

My mouth went dry. I searched my memory, everything my gift had shown me that night on his chamber floor. “It attacks the blood first,” I tried. “Then the organs. It feels like… like a slow corruption. Maybe something called Shadowvein or… or Bloodrot? I’m not sure. The patterns don’t match anything I’ve studied before.”

Alpha Dimitri’s expression didn’t change.

“You have two weeks,” he stated. “Identify it. Or I will execute you myself.”

The second threat was delivered in the same calm tone, in one night. My knees nearly gave out.

He dismissed me with a small flick of his fingers.

As I turned toward the connecting door, his voice stopped me again. “Never lock that door,” he said. “If you do, I will execute you myself.”

I stood frozen for half a second. Then I nodded.

“Yes, Alpha.”

I walked back into my room, leaving the connecting door open behind me.

I didn’t try to close it.