Chapter 92 The Ghost in the Glass

Chapter 92 The Ghost in the Glass
The hallway in the North District medical wing didn’t feel like a hospital. It felt like a tomb designed by a billionaire with a god complex. The air was too cold, smelling of ozone and the sharp, stinging scent of bleach that tried and failed to hide the metallic tang of old blood.

I leaned against the wall, my hand instinctively dropping to the swell of my stomach. My son was quiet tonight, but I could feel his heartbeat, a steady drum that pulsed against my palm. He was the only thing keeping me upright. Behind me, Kaelen was a silent shadow, his presence a heavy weight of guilt and woodsmoke. Since Maya’s betrayal, he hadn't spoken a word. He just moved like a man already dead, his golden eyes fixed on the back of my head as if he expected me to vanish if he blinked.

"Thirty minutes, Sera," he whispered, his voice cracking like dry earth. "That was the timer. We’ve wasted ten just getting through the perimeter."

"I know," I snapped, though the bite in my voice was fueled by fear, not anger. I looked at my hands. The silver light from the 'Healer’s Curse' was still humming under my skin, making my fingertips itch. It wanted to be used. It wanted to reach out and stitch the world back together, but every time I felt it flare, I felt my own strength drain.

We reached the heavy blast doors of the North Wing. There was no keypad, no palm scanner. Instead, a small camera lens hummed as it tracked my movement.

"Identity confirmed," a smooth, synthesized voice echoed through the hall. "Welcome home, Seraphina."

The doors hissed open, revealing a room that looked like a nightmare from the future. It was a forest of glass. Dozens of cryogenic pods stood in rows, glowing with a soft, ethereal blue light. In the center of the room sat a single chair, and in that chair sat the man I had watched burn to ash.

Alexander Vance looked up from a tablet, a small, polite smile on his face. He looked younger, maybe twenty-five. His hair was the same pale gold, his eyes the same icy blue, but there was a sheen to his skin that looked like polished plastic.

"You're late," the Alexander-clone said. His voice was a perfect replica, right down to the condescending tilt at the end of the sentence. "Though I suppose the sedative Maya used was stronger than we anticipated. She always was overprotective."

Kaelen growled, a low vibration that rattled the glass pods around us. He stepped forward, his silver Enforcer tattoos beginning to bleed a dangerous, angry red. "Where is she, Vance? Where is the mother?"

The clone didn't flinch. He simply gestured to a pod directly behind him. It was larger than the others, draped in frost. Inside, the silhouette of a woman remained perfectly still. I felt a sob catch in my throat. I didn't need to see her face. I felt the pull in my blood, the ancient Alpha tether that connected us across a decade of lies.

"She’s a remarkable specimen," Alexander said, standing up. He moved with a mechanical precision that turned my stomach. "The Council thought they were being thorough when they ordered the cull. But my father knew the value of a 'True Alpha' long before the Council did. He kept her on ice, literally, waiting for the technology to catch up to her biology."

"She isn't a specimen," I hissed, my amber eyes flashing gold. "She’s my mother."

"She’s a battery, Seraphina. Just as you are a vessel. And just as that boy in your womb is the final piece of the puzzle." Alexander stepped closer, his eyes scanning me with a clinical hunger that made my skin crawl. "The degenerative disease I inherited wasn't a curse. It was a deadline. My original self failed because he was too human, too fragile. But with your son’s cells and your mother’s raw power, I won't just be cured. I’ll be eternal."

"You're a ghost in a stolen body," Kaelen said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "And I’m going to tear that body apart."

"If you move, Thorne, her life ends," Alexander replied calmly, holding up a remote. "The 'Auto-Terminate' is linked to my heart rate. If my pulse stops, her pod flushes with nitrogen. She’ll be dead before she hits the floor."

I felt the silver light in my veins surge. It wasn't just healing power anymore; it was a weapon. The "Healer's Curse" worked both ways. If I could give life, I could surely take it back. I stepped in front of Kaelen, my hand outstretched.

"You want my blood, Alexander? You want the power of the True Alpha?" I asked, my voice echoing with a resonance that made the glass pods vibrate.

“The clone’s eyes widened with greed, dark hunger burning behind them. ‘I want the legacy,’ he said, voice low and desperate, as if claiming it could give him life, power, and meaning he had always been denied.”

"Then take it," I whispered.

I reached out and grabbed his hand. The contact was like touching a frozen wire. I didn't push my power into him to heal him. Instead, I opened the floodgates of the "Curse." I felt the boy’s heartbeat in my womb accelerate, acting as the engine. I reached into the clone's artificial system and pulled.

I didn't pull his life; I pulled the wrongness of him. I forced the decades of suppressed trauma, the grief of my mother’s loss, and the weight of every wolf he had turned into a machine back into his synthetic veins.

The clone’s scream wasn't human. It was a digital screech of agony. His skin began to crack, glowing with a blinding, celestial white light that smelled of burning circuits.

"Sera, stop!" Kaelen yelled, grabbing my waist. "It’s killing you too!"

I didn't stop. I couldn't. Not until the ghost in the glass was gone.