All Chapters of Shattered Mate Bond: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Waking Pain Jace's POV Consciousness returned slowly, dragging me up from the depths of medicated sleep like a reluctant swimmer breaking the surface of dark water. The first thing I noticed was the absence of the constant, gnawing ache that had been my companion for the past three days. The silver was gone, extracted from my system, leaving behind only the sharp, clean pain of surgical healing. The second thing I noticed was Grace. She sat in the chair beside my cot, a book open in her lap, her face illuminated by the soft afternoon light filtering through the hospital window. She'd changed clothes since this morning—traded the blood-stained shirt for a simple black sweater that emphasized the lean lines of her shoulders and the elegant curve of her neck. For a moment, I let myself simply watch her, drinking in details I'd been too pain-addled to appreciate earlier. The way she tucked a strand of short dark hair behind her ear when it fell across her cheek. The small furr

Eavesdropping on Hope Jace's POV I woke to the sound of hushed voices, my sister's familiar tone mixing with Grace's deeper, more controlled cadence. The silver chelation therapy had left me groggy, my thoughts moving through molasses as I struggled to piece together where I was and what had happened. The steady beeping of monitors reminded me—Dad's hospital room, silver extraction, Grace staying to help when she had every reason to let me die. Every instinct screamed at me to announce that I was awake, to join whatever conversation was happening just out of my clear hearing. But something in their tone—intimate, serious, the way people talked when they thought they were alone—made me keep my eyes closed and listen instead. "—think it's the first sensible thing he's said in three years," Mia was saying, and I realized they were talking about me. About what I'd said to Grace before exhaustion had claimed me. *They're discussing whether I'm worth the risk,* I thought with a mixture

The Wolf Remembers Grace's POV The moment Jace had lurched upright at the sound of those alarms, terror had shot through me like lightning finding ground. Not the clinical concern I'd maintained since arriving—this was something deeper, more primal. The kind of fear that bypassed rational thought and went straight to the heart of every protective instinct I possessed. My wolf had reacted before I could stop her, rising to the surface with a whimper of distress that I hadn't heard from her in three years. She remembered him. Despite the severed mate bond, despite the rejection and the pain and the careful barriers I'd built around my heart, she remembered what he'd once meant to us. *Mate,* she'd whispered as I'd caught his arm, steadying him when his injured body couldn't support the weight of his desperation. *Hurt. Help.* The simplicity of her response had been both heartbreaking and revealing. My human mind could catalog all the reasons why caring about Jace was dangerous, wh

After the Storm Grace's POV The surgical team wheeled Alpha Storm back into the room six hours after they'd taken him away, and the sight of him made my heart clench with sympathy. He looked diminished, somehow smaller than the commanding presence I remembered, his face pale and drawn beneath the surgical lights. Tubes and wires connected him to even more machines than before, and the steady beeping of monitors created a mechanical symphony of life support. But he was alive. That was what mattered. Dr. Martinez followed close behind, his surgical scrubs wrinkled and stained, exhaustion written in every line of his weathered face. He moved with the careful efficiency of someone who'd just spent hours performing delicate work under intense pressure. "The surgery was successful," he announced without preamble, and I felt the collective exhale of relief from everyone in the room. "We were able to relieve the pressure on his spinal cord and repair the damaged vertebrae. The next seven

Coming HomeGrace's POV The moment my arms wrapped around Jace as he crumbled, something inside my chest shifted—a piece of me that had been misaligned for three years suddenly clicking back into place. His shoulders shook against me, raw grief and terror spilling out of him in waves, and all I could think was how right this felt. *Like coming home.* The thought should have scared me. Should have sent alarm bells ringing through every carefully constructed defense I'd built around my heart. Instead, it settled over me with the quiet certainty of truth finally acknowledged. For three years, I'd convinced myself that the hollow ache in my chest was normal. That the way I never quite felt complete, never quite at peace, was just the natural state of someone who'd been through trauma and rebuilt themselves stronger. I'd learned to function around that emptiness, to build a life that didn't depend on filling it. But holding Jace while he fell apart, feeling his desperate grip on my s