Chapter 37 THE BLOOD WARD
The infirmary doors weren't locked. They were melted.
The metal door in the corridor hung off its hinges, sagging as if doused in acid. The smell coming from inside—burnt flesh and that damn scent of rotting violets—spilled into the hallway.
"Kael!" Valeria lunged forward, but Dorian grabbed her arm and slammed her against the wall.
"Stop!" Dorian growled. His eyes were locked on the dark entrance of the infirmary. "Don't you hear it?"
Serra listened. There was no silence. From inside came a wet, sticky sound. Like someone chewing on raw meat. And then... the flat, high-pitched tone of the heart monitor.
Beeeeeeep.
"His heart stopped," Valeria’s voice broke. "Is he... is he dead?"
"No," Serra said, gripping Silas’s pouch tight. "That sound is to lure us in."
Dorian kicked the melted door aside and stormed in. Serra and Valeria were right on his heels.
(THE FEEDING)
The infirmary was dark. Emergency lights flickered, bathing the room in strobing red flashes.
In the center of the room, a silhouette stood over Kael’s bed.
It wasn't a monster. It had no claws. It was an old, hunched man. The Council robes on his back were soaked in blood.
Elder Lorden.
That quiet, cowardly old man who trembled before Dorian... Now he was bent over Kael. But he held no knife. Lorden’s mouth was unhinged, opened impossibly wide, and he was inhaling a grey smoke rising from the open wound on Kael’s chest.
Kael’s body thrashed violently on the bed. His eyes were open, but rolled back to whites.
"Get off him!" Dorian roared.
Lorden lifted his head. His face... God, his face was melting. The skin sagged, revealing the black, veined thing underneath. He had no eyes; just two black pits.
"Too late, Alpha," Lorden said. His voice wasn't metallic like Mara’s. It was his own voice, but aged a thousand years. "Your cousin's life force is delicious. Vespera was stale. But this... this is pure power."
Valeria screamed and drew her gun, firing at Lorden. Three shots. All to the chest.
Lorden didn't even flinch. The moment the bullets hit his body, they turned into black liquid and dripped away.
"Bullets won't work," Serra said. "He's no longer flesh and bone. He is a husk."
Serra rushed forward, opening the pouch. "Dorian! Pull him away from Kael! Not physically—use your will!"
(THE BATTLE OF WILLS)
Dorian didn't attack Lorden. Instead, he focused on Kael. He extended his hand and spread his own Alpha aura, that sealed power, into the room.
"Look at me, Kael!" Dorian shouted. "Do not yield to him! You are my blood! Return to your Pack!"
Dorian’s voice cut through the fog in Kael’s mind. The thrashing of Kael’s body stopped. Kael took a deep, gasping breath, like a drowning man surfacing.
Lorden hissed. His feeding had been severed. He turned to Dorian with fury.
"You..." Lorden said, pointing a finger at Dorian. "Your turn will come."
Serra used Lorden's distraction. She filled her palm with the mixture of ash and silver dust Silas had given her and threw it right into Lorden’s melting face.
The moment the dust touched Lorden, the room shook with a scream. But it wasn't a human scream. It sounded like tearing metal. Lorden’s face burst into flames—not red, but a blinding white fire.
"This is just the beginning!" Lorden shouted, retreating while engulfed in flames. "We are an army! And the seed... the seed has taken root!"
Lorden ran to the infirmary window and threw himself out, down into the dark courtyard.
(THE INFECTION)
Dorian ran to the window, but there was no one below. It was as if Lorden had turned into smoke and vanished.
"Kael!" Valeria dropped to her knees beside the bed. "Kael, can you hear me?"
Kael’s chest was heaving. He was alive. But the wound on his chest... that silver sword wound had changed.
The veins around the wound had turned black. And right in the center of the gash, beneath the skin, a small, hard lump had formed.
Serra looked at Kael’s wound. Then at Dorian.
"What did he do to him?" Valeria whispered, wiping the sweat from Kael’s forehead. "Did he eat him?"
"No," Dorian said. His voice was dead. He was staring at that lump in Kael’s chest. That lump pulsating just like the seal on his own chest.
"He didn't eat him," Serra said, the realization making her nauseous. "He impregnated him. Lorden didn't use Kael as food. He used him as an incubator."
Kael suddenly opened his eyes. His pupils were normal, but there was a deep, indescribable terror in his gaze.
"Dorian..." Kael rasped, gripping Dorian’s wrist. "Inside me... something is moving inside me."
The war hadn't ended. It had just changed dimensions. The Second Carrier had escaped, but he had left behind a ticking time bomb growing inside the family’s most beloved member.