Chapter 90
Sebastian
I froze, then yanked the covers back. The black silk sheets had bloomed with fresh crimson, a spreading stain that made my heart stop completely.
"Lirael?" I pulled back, hands hovering uselessly. "Where are you hurt? Tell me where—"
"I don't know," she gasped, curling tighter. "Lower abdomen... feels like something's tearing..."
"Fuck." I was already moving, already throwing on the robe I'd discarded earlier, already kicking open the bedroom door. "MARCUS!"
He appeared within seconds, eyes wide. "Alpha?"
"Car. Now. Silver Moon Sanctuary. Get their best gynecologist on standby immediately." I scooped Lirael up again, ignoring how the blood was soaking through her clothes and onto my arms. "Move!"
As we raced down the stairs, all I could think was: Of all the times for an emergency. Of all the goddamn times.
---
Silver Moon Sanctuary was the most exclusive medical facility in the city, catering exclusively to supernatural elite. They had Lirael in an examination room within minutes, a severe-looking female doctor already running scans while I stood against the wall with my arms crossed, watching every movement like a hawk.
Lirael lay still now, sedated enough to stop the thrashing but still conscious, her face paper-white against the sheets. The ultrasound machine hummed, projecting three-dimensional images of her internal organs onto a screen, and I watched the doctor's expression shift from professional calm to profound shock.
"Blackwood Patriarch..." She zoomed in on something, then out, then in again, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "This young woman's physiology is... extraordinary."
"Get to the point," I said coldly.
"This is her first menstrual cycle. Ever." The doctor's fingers moved across the screen, highlighting different areas. "That hallucinogenic drug acted like a key, forcibly activating her ovaries and uterus. But ironically, the onset of menstruation is what neutralized the drug's effects."
I stared at the screen, not quite understanding. "Explain."
"Her reproductive system was completely dormant until tonight. The drug jump-started it, but the natural hormonal cascade of her first period essentially... washed it out." She paused, then continued more carefully. "There's something else. Her uterus is approximately three times larger than a human woman's. She has only one ovary, but three fallopian tubes."
The implications crashed over me like a tidal wave.
"You saw nothing," I said, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "She's perfectly normal. Do you understand? If any of this data leaks—if I even suspect you've mentioned it to anyone—your medical license will be the least of your concerns."
The doctor went pale. "Yes, Alpha. I'll destroy the records immediately."
"Good." I moved to Lirael's side, brushed a strand of silver hair from her forehead. She was already falling into a deeper sleep, the sedatives finally taking hold. "Treat the symptoms. Make her comfortable. And forget everything you saw tonight."
---
I should have gone to bed. Should have at least tried to sleep after the chaos of the last twelve hours. Instead, I sat in my study with a glass of whiskey I hadn't touched, watching the fire burn low, my left hand unconsciously turning my antique pocket watch over and over.
Dawn was breaking outside, painting everything in shades of gray and gold. I'd been awake for over thirty hours, and exhaustion was starting to make my bones ache, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw Lirael's face twisted in drugged desperation, heard her begging me for something I'd almost given her.
Almost.
I'd come so close to crossing that line. To taking her while she was out of her mind, while she had no real agency, no real choice. And the worst part—the absolutely damning part—was that I'd wanted to. God, I'd wanted to so badly it had taken every ounce of willpower I possessed to walk away.
But I had walked away. And then the universe had intervened anyway, stopping me with biology and blood and timing so absurd it would have been funny if it weren't so fucking frustrating.
"Arrows drawn and still I failed," I muttered to the empty room, taking a sip of whiskey that burned all the way down.
The medical report sat on my desk, already encrypted and backed up to three separate secure servers before I'd ordered the original destroyed.
My phone buzzed. Marcus, checking in from the medical wing where he was stationed outside Lirael's recovery room.
She's stable. Sleeping peacefully. Doctor says she'll need 48 hours of bed rest, then another week of reduced activity.
I typed back: No visitors except medical staff. I want hourly updates on her condition.
Understood, Alpha.
I set the phone down, picked up my whiskey glass again, and stared into the amber liquid like it might have answers I didn't.
The truth was, I was terrified. Not of Genesis Foundation, not of Lucas or family politics or any external threat. I was terrified of what I'd almost done tonight. Of how close I'd come to becoming exactly the monster Lirael had always accused me of being.
She'd saved my life on that bridge. Chosen to stay and fight beside me instead of running when she had the chance. And how had I repaid that trust? By dragging her into a trap, letting her get drugged and traumatized, nearly violating her in the worst possible way.
I'm in love with you.
I'd said those words on that bridge, meant them with every fiber of my being. But love wasn't supposed to feel like this—like drowning and burning simultaneously, like every instinct I had was trying to destroy the one thing I couldn't afford to lose.
I watched the fire and thought about Lirael's face when she'd looked at me in the car, after I'd confessed everything. That moment of vulnerability, of potential forgiveness, before Lucas had torn it all away.
I'd asked her for a chance to prove I could change. To show her I could be something other than the controlling bastard who'd kept her in a cage.
Well. Tonight had been a hell of a test.
And I'd passed. Barely. By the skin of my teeth and the grace of biological timing, but I'd passed.
"When she wakes up," I said to the empty room, my voice rough with exhaustion and something that might have been hope, "when her body recovers and she's clearheaded again... I'm going to make her want me. Not because of drugs or desperation or Stockholm syndrome. She's going to choose me because she wants to."
I drained the whiskey in one burning swallow, set the glass down with a decisive click.
"And if I fail again—if I fuck this up the way I almost did tonight—I'll write Blackwood backwards on every goddamn building in this city."