Rejected By The Beta, Claimed By The Alpha King의 모든 챕터: 챕터 191 - 챕터 198

The drugs held me beneath the surface, a current I couldn’t fight no matter how hard I kicked. Sera’s poison lingered in my veins like winter frost, numbing everything from the inside out. I could feel Lukas’s hand on mine – warm, solid, real – but reaching him meant swimming through layers of something thick and cold that pressed against my consciousness from all sides. My body existed somewhere distant, separate from the part of me that was still trying to surface. Voices drifted through the haze, none of them clear enough to catch. The steady beeping of machines, the rustle of fabric, a low murmur that might have been Lukas speaking. I tried to focus on his voice, to use it as an anchor, but the drugs kept pulling me under. Sera’s presence had left stains on my mind, cold fingerprints I couldn’t scrub away no matter how hard I tried. In the deepest part of my consciousness, where the human mind met wolf instinct, Athena paced. Her copper form was dim

The water hit my back like a physical blow, too hot by any reasonable standard but exactly what my exhausted body needed. I braced my forearms against the shower wall and let my head hang between my shoulders, water sluicing down my spine in sheets that turned the bathroom into a steam-filled cavern. Four days without proper sleep had left me running on something beyond exhaustion, a hollow, buzzing alertness that made every sensation too sharp and every thought too slow.I’d been standing there for—minutes? longer?—when Lily’s presence brushed against my mind. Not words. Just images, pushed through our tenuous connection with the particular lack of finesse that was pure Lily: Amelia, awake, propped against her pillows with one wrist still cuffed to the bed rail but the other free, a glass of water balanced carefully in her freed hand. She was rolling her eyes at something I couldn’t see, her copper hair falling around a face that had colou

I kept my arm around Amelia’s waist as we walked back to our bedroom, feeling the particular lightness of her body against mine with a protectiveness that bordered on possessiveness. Five days in a medical bed had left her thinner than she should have been, the curves I’d memorised with my hands reduced to angles that made something in my chest ache. She leaned into me more than she normally would, her steps careful but steady, and I matched my pace to hers without comment.The corridors of the palace were quieter than they should have been at this hour, most of the staff still confined to quarters after the Voice’s attack. The few guards we passed snapped to attention, their expressions carefully neutral though I caught the relief in their eyes at the sight of their queen walking under her own power. News traveled fast. By now, everyone would know Amelia was awake, was recovering, was—against all odds—still herself.

Lukas’s hand found my waist as the door closed behind Dr. Thornwood, his palm warm through the fabric of my sweater. He guided me with careful pressure, and I let him, my body moving to his without conscious decision. His lap was solid beneath me, his chest a wall of heat at my back, and for a moment I let myself sink into the contact, my head finding the hollow of his collarbone with the particular certainty of something coming home.Dominic and Nico sat opposite, the two of them arranged in chairs that had been pulled close to the desk. Dominic’s scarred face was set in lines of controlled patience, his steel-grey eye fixed on the map with the particular focus of a man who’d been hunting the same prey for too long. Nico looked worse – dark circles shadowing his eyes, a fresh cut across his jaw that hadn’t been there yesterday. They’d been searching while I’d been lying in a medical bed, and the guilt of that sat in my chest like something physical.I took a breath. Held it. Let it g