All Chapters of The Mate They Threw Away: Chapter 331 - Chapter 340

Sage.I found Dominic in the study an hour after Argos left, staring at a map spread across the desk like it might rearrange itself if he glared hard enough."You're not actually reading that," I said."I'm reading it fine.""You've been on the same corner of it for ten minutes."He looked up, caught. "Fair."I pulled the chair opposite him and sat, resting my elbows on the desk. "I need to see them, Dominic.""See who.""You know who."He set down his pen slowly. "The triplets.""Yes." My voice cracked a little on the word and I hated it. "I haven't held them in weeks. I keep telling myself there's a good reason. Council audits, Saturn, Thorne, whatever comes next. But every reason feels smaller than the fact that Liam is probably walking better now and I wasn't there to see it happen.""He is," Dominic said quietly. "Walking better."I stared at him. "You've seen them.""Argos sends updates. I didn't want to tell you unless you asked, because I know what it does to you to hear it s

Sage.The Sanctuary smelled the way it always did, antiseptic layered over something warmer underneath, herbs drying in the rafters, the low hum of the ward machines. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it until I was standing in the doorway of Exam Room Two, looking at a patient I didn't recognize."Male, mid-twenties, presented two days ago," said Nessa, my head nurse, flipping through his chart without looking up. "Fever that won't break, tremors in the hands, and he keeps saying he can hear his own bond humming even though he's never been claimed.""That's not possible," I said."I know it's not possible. That's why I paged you the second you crossed the gate."The young man on the table was pale, sweat-slicked, staring at the ceiling like it had wronged him personally."Hey," I said gently, crouching beside him. "I'm Dr. Winters. Can you tell me what you're feeling?""Threads," he rasped. "Under my skin. Moving.""Threads.""You'll think I'm insane.""I promise I won't." I reac

Sage.The feral Alpha had been chained to the reinforced bed for six hours by the time I got to him, and even from the doorway I could hear him growling low in his throat, a sound with no words left in it."His name's Baric," Nessa said, keeping her voice level, professional. "Third-generation Alpha out of the eastern packs. Started showing symptoms four days ago. By this morning he'd stopped responding to his own name.""Family?""A mate. She's in the hall. Insisted on staying.""Bring her in. If he responds to anyone, it'll be her."The mate was young, maybe mid-twenties, eyes red-rimmed and swollen from crying but dry now, like she'd run out. She took Baric's hand the second she was close enough, and something in his growl hitched, softened, before roaring back louder than before."He knows you're there," I told her gently. "That's good. That means whatever this is, it hasn't taken everything yet.""Can you fix him?""I'm going to try. But I need to see what's happening inside him

SageKieran arrived without warning, the way he always did, like announcing himself first might rob him of some advantage."You didn't answer my calls," he said, standing in the doorway of my office like he owned the frame around it."I've been busy." I didn't look up from the file in front of me. "You might have heard. Plague mutation, Council inquisitors, a patient screaming through a spinal tap. Small things.""I heard you brought Dominic here.""He's coming tonight, yes.""Without consulting me."That made me look up. "I wasn't aware I needed your permission to invite people into my own clinic."He stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a quiet click that felt louder than it should have. "You're the mother of my child, Sage. Everything happening to you happens to Silver Crest. That includes who you let stand beside you when the Council starts circling.""Noah is my son," I said evenly. "Not a policy consideration.""He's both." Kieran crossed the room, close enough now t

Sage.Emma's fever broke a hundred and four that night, and I was in the nursery before the second call finished ringing through my phone."How long has she been like this," I demanded, already crouched beside the crib, my hands moving over her small, too-hot body."Twenty minutes," said Ilsa, the Sanctuary nurse assigned to the triplets' wing, her voice tight with the particular calm of someone holding panic at arm's length. "Noah and Liam spiked almost simultaneously. We've got cooling cloths on all three, but nothing's bringing it down.""All three at once?""Within minutes of each other."I looked across the room. Liam was thrashing weakly in his crib, small fists opening and closing against nothing. Noah lay eerily still, too still, his breathing shallow and fast."That's not a normal fever pattern," I said, mostly to myself. "Triplets can share illness, but not usually with this kind of synchronicity.""You think it's connected. To the plague. To what's happening at the clinic."