The Healer's Bond

Emma's hands wouldn't stop shaking. Three attempts to pack a simple suitcase, and she'd managed nothing but a mess of scattered clothes and broken sobs. The rejection bond throbbed like an open wound in her chest, each pulse a reminder of Steve's cold eyes. She stumbled to her bathroom, gripping the counter as another wave of pain ripped through her body. Her wolf clawed at her insides, desperate to run back to the pack house, to beg for what they'd lost."A healer apprentice? The Sterling Creek Pack needs someone of proper breeding..."His words echoed in her mind, each syllable a fresh cut. The mirror caught her reflection—mascara-stained cheeks, silver dress now wrinkled and stained with tears. Her green eyes, usually bright with determination, looked hollow, haunted. Emma ripped the dress off with trembling fingers, the silk tearing with a satisfying screech. She couldn't bear its touch against her skin a moment longer. It represented everything she'd lost tonight, everything she'

Emma's hands didn't shake as she snapped on fresh gloves. They couldn't. Not now. Not when every second mattered. She'd spent five years building walls around her heart, learning to be Dr. Adams instead of just Emma, the rejected mate. But all that careful distance threatened to shatter as the ambulance sirens grew louder.The trauma bay doors burst open with a bang that made her wolf flinch. Paramedics wheeled in the gurney, their voices clipped with urgency. "Male, multiple lacerations, possible chemical exposure—"The words faded to white noise the moment she saw him. Steve Kane lay unconscious, his proud features twisted in pain. Blood soaked through his torn shirt, turning the fabric from navy to black. That same wrong chemical scent clung to his wounds, stronger now, more potent. Someone had wanted to make sure the Alpha didn't survive this attack."Start two large-bore IVs," Emma ordered, her doctor's training taking over where her emotions threatened to fail. Her voice remaine

It was more serious and deadlier than she thought. “Put them under a lot of morphine,” Emma hastily ordered the interns as she jogged back into the intensive care unit ward. Her heart wrenched as she watched Steve shiver in pain with his eyes rolled up into his dead. For the first time in after five years, she was at loss at what to do.See this as a challenge. She told herself. You are a healer, and one of the things that comes with it is solving the problem. Now, what is the problem?She looked at the charts monitor and saw that Steve’s fever was getting higher by the minute.“What do we do?” Sarah asked as she looked at Emma pensively.“A CT scan immediately,” Emma said. “We need to see exactly how this virus works, we need to see how it multiplies, we need to see how it regenerates, from there, we will know what to do from the results.”Sarah left the room to get the interns to wheel the Alpha to the lab.“Interesting,” Emma whispered. The Viruses were actively working and attache

Emma had no idea if what she was about to do was going to work but she had to try. From her discussion with Steve, she had realized that she needed to slow down the attack of the virus until she could find an actual cure. She already had everything she needed. The blood sample and the biological make up of how the virus worked. However, she still had no idea about the main substance used to engineer the virus but she knew that werewolf DNA was involved. She had left Steve in his ward and was finding her way back to Sarah’s office.Sarah almost bumped into her as he got to the entrance of her lab.“Emma!” Sarah cried out in excitement. “You are not going to believe what I have found.”“I hope it is a miracle, Sarah, because I need all the help that I can get.” Emma replied as she fully entered the lab. “What did you find?”Sarah sat on her work stool and pushed her microscope towards Emma to look. “I extracted the virus itself to see what it was specifically made of.” Sarah said. “I c

Steve watched his surviving pack members with a haunted expression on his face. He had failed them all with his foolish decisions. If he could turn back the hands of time, he would without any hesitation.The only thing he could do now was make do with the hand that he was dealt. He had to find a way to salvage his losses.There were six men on the hospital beds in a large ward with the chemical Emma prescribed entering into their system.He could still feel their pains as they slept through the pain.When he could not bear to gaze upon their prone bodies any longer, he walked out of the hospital.His pack was decimated and he needed to find whatever was left of his surviving werewolves.He could still see flashes of the day the vicious attack took place, how the virus brought down the strongest of his men and women before he escaped.The sun was rising and he realized that Emma had spent the night making sure he and his pack members were stable. It pained him that he had to see Emma