CHAPTER 6: A New Heart

A scream stuck in my throat.

Sarlen’s heart had stopped. The servant's frantic words bounced off in my head like the sound of a gunshot.

“The human... his heart has just stopped! He is dying right now!”

I lunged for the heavy iron handle of the oak door, but a terrifying, monstrous roar tore through the room, pinning my feet to the floorboards.

Behind me, King Rowan was breaking apart. The thin veneer of the ruthless, calculating ruler had entirely disintegrated.

He was on his hands and knees, his fingernails clawing deep trenches into the solid stone floor.

His shoulder blades violently expanded, the muscles tearing and knitting together as his body fought a chaotic shift.

But it was his eyes that made my blood turn to ice. They weren't just red anymore.

They were a void of pure, unadulterated madness; purple veins mapped his neck, and his chest heaved visibly, glowing with a lethal heat that practically distorted the air around him.

"Adele... run," he choked out, his voice warping into a double-layered, guttural growl that sounded like two beasts fighting in a single throat.

"I have to go to Sarlen!" I shrieked, my hands shaking against the iron door handle.

"If they find you... they will kill you," he roared, slamming his skull against the stone wall to fight the pain.

"Eric's guards... they are waiting in the hall. My wolf... I can't hold him back. If he takes over, he will tear you apart."

I looked at the heavy door. If I stepped out, Eric's wolves would harvest my blood. If I stayed, the dying King in front of me would morph into a rabid monster. And in the medical wing, Sarlen was slipping away.

“Choose”, my inner wolf demanded, her voice a sudden, fierce whisper in the back of my mind. “Stop hiding. Choose.”

I let go of the door handle.

I turned around, dropping Rowan's heavy black fur cloak to the floor. I stood naked in the dim light, the potion entirely gone from my system, my golden hair shimmering with a faint, ethereal aura.

"I spent ten years running from alphas like you," I said, my fear dropping off me. "My mother and sisters died to protect me because I was small. I am not small anymore."

I took slow, deliberate steps toward the King.

"What are you doing?" Rowan growled, baring long, razor-sharp fangs. Saliva mixed with blood dripped from his jaw. "Get away from me!"

"Shut up, Rowan."

I closed the distance. As I got closer, the suffocating alpha pressure radiating from him slammed into my chest like a physical wall, trying to force my knees to buckle.

I resisted and pushed through the invisible weight, drawing upon the energy buried deep within my bones.

I knelt in front of him. Before his feral mind could process my movement, I reached out and slammed my bare palms flat against his muscular chest.

A blinding, physical shockwave erupted from the point of contact. The moment my skin touched his, a sharp kinetic pulse rippled through the room, shattering the glass of the high arched windows.

Rowan gasped, his entire body stiffening into rigid iron.

The invisible tether between our souls snapped tight with a violent, intoxicating heat. I felt his mind—a sprawling, magnificent empire currently being burned to ash by an uncontrollable fire.

I felt his isolation. I felt his absolute terror of becoming the monster his pack feared.

"Look at me," I commanded.

I dug my fingers into his skin and unlocked the reservoir buried deep within my bones.

I poured it into him; the release flooded his bloodstream like liquid frost rushing straight up his neck. Where his veins had been bulging with purple veins that were radiating a suffocating, feverish heat, my power moved like ice coating a wildfire. The temperature in the room plummeted; our breath turned to white plumes in the air.

Rowan’s eyes widened as the violent, swirling red void in his irises faltered. Then slowly the crimson began to recede, moving backward until his deep, midnight-black eyes returned. The frantic, bulging purple veins beneath his skin eased off as the feverish heat cooled down.

His breathing slowed from a frantic rasp to a heavy, exhausted heaving. He looked down at my hands on his chest, then up into my eyes, his sharp, predatory features softening into utter disbelief.

"You... you calmed me," he whispered, his voice entirely normal. "The fire... It's gone."

"It's not gone," I whispered back, my own chest heaving from the immense spiritual drainage. "I'm just holding it back. Now get up, King. We have my father to save."

Rowan didn't hesitate. He took a simple tunic from a nearby chest and threw it to me, along with a pair of leather boots. I pulled them on in a matter of seconds, tying the tunic tight around my waist.

Rowan grabbed a heavy broadsword from the wall, his black eyes burning with a cold, lethal resolve. "Darius is in the lower vaults. There is an underground passage directly beneath this room. Follow me."

He ripped open a hidden stone panel behind the fireplace, exposing a dark, winding spiral staircase. We bolted down the stairs, our boots echoing sharply against the damp stone. The air grew colder, smelling of earth and old iron as we descended into the belly of the fortress.

We burst through the heavy oak doors of the medical wing.

The room was in absolute chaos. Darius was hovering over Sarlen's limp body, his hands glowing with a frantic, erratic blue light that kept flickering out. Two medical assistants were frantically pressing blood-soaked cloths against Sarlen’s shredded chest.

A rusted metal contraption attached to Sarlen's wrist, a pulse monitor that was supposed to be beeping, was completely silent.

"He's gone, Your Majesty," Darius choked out, sweat pouring down his blind face. "The rogue's claws were laced with a rare toxin. It paralyzed his heart; there is no pulse."

"No!" I ran past the assistants, shoving them away from the table. Sarlen’s face was blue, his lips completely bloodless. His hand was a block of solid ice.

"Sarlen, open your eyes!" I cried, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. "You promised me! You can't leave me alone in this place!"

Silence hung heavy in the room, broken only by the sound of my own ragged gasps. He was dead. The only man who had ever loved me was gone.

A cold, vicious void opened up in my chest.

Rowan stepped up beside me, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. The contact sent a small ripple of warmth through my frozen body, but it wasn't enough. My wolf inside me didn't want comfort. She wanted a miracle.

“The blood,” the dying rogue’s voice from the clearing echoed in my head. “The elders said your blood can transform standard wolves. It makes them unstoppable. Invulnerable.”