He Refuses to leave

*CHAPTER 2: HE REFUSES TO LEAVE*

Leo should not have come out.

That was our rule. When a patient comes in, he stays in the back room. But he heard the door bang and woke up from his nap.

Now he was standing barefoot in his little healer cloak, his white hair messy from sleep, staring at the man on my table with those huge golden eyes.

My heart was in my throat.

Kade's hand was still locked around my wrist. His grip was weak from the curse, but his Alpha hold was still there. Possessive. Unshakable.

His fever-glazed eyes moved slowly from my masked face to Leo.

"Your... son?" he rasped again.

I forced my voice to stay cold. I pulled my wrist free.

"He is my patient, not yours. Focus on staying alive, Alpha. You're dying."

I scooped Leo up quickly and turned him away. "Mama has work, love. Go back inside, okay? Mama will bring you warm milk later."

Leo frowned at Kade. Kids always sense wolves. He whispered, "He smells like you, Mama. Like snow and pine."

Kade heard it.

His whole body stiffened, even through the poison.

"What did he say?" he growled, trying to sit up. The black curse mark on his chest pulsed angrily, spreading another inch. He hissed in pain and fell back.

"Don't move!" I snapped, pushing him down. My palm hit his bare chest. His skin was burning hot.

The moment I touched him, my own wolf — Lyra — woke up and snarled inside my head.

_Mate! He is hurting! Heal him!_

_Quiet,_ I told her. _He rejected us._

_He is still ours,_ she whined.

I hated that she was right. Even after five years, even after what he did, my body remembered him. My scent was changing. I could feel heat rushing under my skin, and I knew what it was.

My first heat. At twenty-three. Late because of the wolfsbane that caged me for years.

And it was for him. The man who called me nothing.

No. Absolutely not.

I turned away, mixing herbs with shaking hands to hide my scent. Valerian root, moonflower, witch thorn. The cure for a witch's dagger curse.

His Beta, a man named Jax I vaguely remembered from Blood Moon, stepped forward. "Ghost Healer, please. Our Alpha was stabbed by a rogue witch in the northern border. The curse will rot his heart in two days. We will pay anything. Anything."

"Anything won't save him," I said. "The only cure is a soul-binding ritual. My soul energy has to fight the curse inside him. It will take three nights. And it has a price."

Kade's golden eyes were still on the back room door where Leo disappeared. "What price?"

"You will be tied to me," I said, looking him straight in the eye. "Your wolf will be calm only near me. If you go too far from me for too long, the curse will come back. You will be... dependent on my clinic for a while."

It was a lie and not a lie. The soul-binding is real. But it doesn't just make him dependent. It makes his wolf obsessed. Protective. Unable to stay away from his healer.

It's the perfect revenge. The Alpha who rejected me will have to beg to stay near me.

Kade stared at me, and for a second I saw the old arrogant Alpha again. He smirked, even half-dead.

"So you want me chained to your bed, Healer?" he whispered. His voice was hoarse but still cocky.

My face burned under my mask. "I want you alive enough to pay my bill. Five million. Plus you stay here until you are healed. No Alpha warriors in my clinic. No orders. You do what I say."

"Done," he said without hesitation.

Jax choked. "Alpha— five million—"

"Done," Kade repeated, his eyes never leaving me. "I want to know who you are under that mask, Healer. Your scent... I know it from somewhere."

My blood ran cold again. I quickly wrapped a scent-blocking bandage soaked in wolfsbane around my wrist. Lyra whined in protest.

"You have a fever," I said. "You are imagining things."

I started the ritual. I placed my mother's silver staff on his chest, right over the black curse. I chanted the old healer words my mother taught me as a child, the ones I never understood until my wolf woke up.

White light poured from my hands into his chest. Kade arched off the table, his back bowing, a low, deep growl tearing from his throat — not of pain, but of his black wolf responding to my white one.

For a moment, our wolves touched through the soul bond. Black and white. Night and snow.

And he gasped.

"ANI?!"

My chant broke.

He said my name.

Not Ghost Healer. Ani.

My old name. The name only Blood Moon knew.

Kade's eyes were wide now, no longer blurry. The curse had receded an inch from the light, and with it, his mind was clearer. He stared at my white hair, my eyes visible through the mask.

"Your eyes... grey-blue... like..." he whispered. "No. She died. She left five years ago in the rain. The guards said a wolfless girl would never survive the Black Forest."

I stepped back, my hands trembling. "You are confused. Rest."

He grabbed my hand again, this time with both hands. His grip was stronger.

"No," he growled, his Alpha voice returning. "I am not leaving this clinic. And you," he looked at Jax, "Buy this entire street. The clinic's debt, the landlord, everything. I want her clinic under my protection. No one comes in or out without my permission."

Jax bowed. "Yes, Alpha."

"What?!" I shouted. "You can't do that! This is neutral zone! This is MY clinic!"

Kade finally let go of my hand and lay back, his golden eyes dark, possessive, completely obsessed.

"I was dying," he said softly, almost to himself. "My wolf hasn't calmed in five years. Since that night. Since I... since I rejected... And for the first time in five years, he is quiet. Because of you."

He looked at the back room again.

"And that boy in there... Why does he have my mother's eyes?"

The door to the back room creaked.

Leo was standing there again, holding a little wooden wolf toy I carved for him. He looked at Kade, then at me.

"Mama, is he going to stay? Can I show him my wolf? It's white like yours."