208

208
Leo's Pov:

One month.

Thirty-one days, seven hours, and forty-three minutes since Lina's heart had stopped beating on that hospital table. Since the doctors had pronounced her dead, their clinical voices cutting through me like silver blades. Since I had felt our mate bond flicker and fade to the barest whisper of warmth.

But she wasn't gone. I knew she wasn't gone.

I sat in the same chair beside her bed that I'd occupied for weeks now, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. The medical team had been baffled when her body had suddenly resumed breathing on its own mere hours after her supposed death. No brain activity, they said. No response to stimuli. But her heart beat strong and steady, her skin remained warm, and somewhere deep in my soul, I could still feel her.

"Leo." Amy's voice was gentle as she entered the room, carrying a steaming cup of coffee and a sandwich I probably wouldn't eat. "You need to take a break."

I didn't look away from Lina's peaceful face. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine. None of us are fine." Amy set the food on the bedside table and studied me with concerned eyes. "When was the last time you showered? Or changed clothes?"

I couldn't remember. Days blended together in this sterile room, marked only by the changing shifts of nurses and the rotation of friends who insisted on keeping vigil with me. Amy and Noah alternated most days. Jacob came by with updates from the pack. Maria brought homemade meals that went largely untouched. Even some of the pack elders had stopped by to pay their respects to their comatose Luna.

But I never left. Couldn't leave.

"She's still in there," I said, my voice hoarse from disuse. "I can feel her, Amy. She's fighting to come back."

Amy's expression softened with a mixture of sympathy and worry. "Leo, the doctors said—"

"The doctors don't understand the mate bond." I finally turned to look at her, and I saw her flinch at whatever she saw in my eyes. "They don't understand what we share. I know my mate, and she's not gone."

Amy settled into the visitor's chair, her own exhaustion evident in the dark circles under her eyes. She'd been grieving too, mourning her best friend while simultaneously trying to hold the rest of us together.

"Okay," she said simply. "Then we wait."

That was what I loved about Amy—she never tried to convince me I was delusional or suffering from some kind of denial. Whether she truly believed Lina would wake up or was simply honoring my faith, she supported me without question.

"The pack council is asking when..." Amy trailed off, clearly struggling with how to phrase her question delicately.

"When what? When we hold funeral rites for someone who isn't dead?" The words came out harsher than I intended, and I immediately regretted my tone. "I'm sorry. I know they're just concerned about proper protocols."

"They're concerned about you," Amy corrected gently. "We all are. You can't keep this up indefinitely. You're wasting away."

I looked down at my hands—when had they become so thin? My clothes hung loose on my frame, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt truly hungry. Food tasted like ash when Lina couldn't share it with me.

"I'll eat more," I lied. "I'll try to rest."

Amy studied me for a long moment, then sighed. "Noah's coming by around six to sit with her for a while. Promise me you'll at least go for a run. Get some fresh air."

The thought of leaving Lina's side, even briefly, made my chest tighten with anxiety. But Shadow had been restless lately, pacing in my mind like a caged animal. My wolf needed the release almost as much as my human side needed the solitude.

"Maybe," I conceded.

Amy smiled, the first genuine expression I'd seen from her in days. "I'll take that as a yes." She stood and kissed my forehead like a sister might. "She's going to be okay, Leo. I have to believe that."

After Amy left, the room fell back into its familiar quiet rhythm. The soft beep of monitors, the whisper of the ventilation system, the barely audible sounds of hospital activity in the distance. I reached for Lina's hand, intertwining our fingers as I had countless times before.

Her skin was warm, soft, alive. No matter what the medical equipment said about brain function, this was not the hand of a corpse.

"I'm here, baby," I murmured, bringing her hand to my lips. "I'm not going anywhere. Take all the time you need to find your way back to me."

Hours passed. Noah arrived as promised, bringing with him the comforting scent of home and pack. He didn't try to make conversation or offer false platitudes—he simply settled into Amy's vacated chair and began reading aloud from one of Lina's favorite novels.

"Go," he said during a break between chapters. "Shadow's practically clawing his way out of your skin. Run until you can't run anymore, then come back."

I hesitated, my hand still clasped around Lina's.

"She's safe with me," Noah added, his voice carrying the weight of a promise. "I won't leave her side."

Finally, reluctantly, I stood. My legs were unsteady after so many hours of sitting, and I had to grip the bed rail for balance. When had I become so weak?

The hospital corridors felt foreign after weeks in that single room. Staff members nodded respectfully as I passed—word of my vigil had spread, and they'd stopped trying to enforce visiting hours for the grieving Alpha. The lobby was bustling with evening visitors, their voices and laughter feeling obscene in the face of my private hell.

Outside, the late autumn air was crisp and sharp, filling my lungs with the scent of changing leaves and approaching winter. It should have been refreshing after the recycled hospital air, but everything felt muted, colorless. As if the world had lost its vibrancy when Lina's eyes had closed.

I walked to the edge of the hospital's property, where a stretch of undeveloped woodland bordered the parking lot. It wasn't pack territory—wasn't home—but it would have to do. I needed to run, needed to let Shadow have control for a while before we both lost our minds completely.

The transformation came easier than it had in weeks, my body grateful for the familiar shift of bone and muscle. Shadow's consciousness merged with mine as we became one creature, four legs carrying us deep into the trees at a desperate pace.

We ran without purpose or direction, crashing through undergrowth and leaping fallen logs with reckless abandon. Shadow howled his anguish to the darkening sky, a sound so raw and broken that birds scattered from their roosts in fear.

How long had it been since we'd felt truly whole? Not since that day at the lake, when Lina had laughed in my arms and promised we would face whatever came together. That seemed like a lifetime ago—before Morgana, before Paul, before the sacrifice that had stolen my mate from my arms.

We ran until our sides ached and our paws bled, until exhaustion finally began to dull the sharp edges of our grief. Only then did we turn back toward the hospital, our pace slower but no less urgent. Every moment away from Lina felt like a betrayal, as if our absence might be the thing that finally severed whatever thread still connected her spirit to her body.

As we approached the hospital grounds, Shadow suddenly pulled up short, his ears pricked forward in alarm. Something was wrong—I could feel it in the sudden tension of his muscles, the way his hackles rose without apparent cause.

We shifted back to human form and ran the rest of the way, my bare feet pounding against cold pavement. The elevator felt impossibly slow, each floor marked by growing dread that coiled in my stomach like a living thing.

The ICU corridor was in chaos. Nurses rushed between rooms, their voices sharp with professional urgency. Dr. Hayes stood outside Lina's room speaking rapidly into a phone, her face pale and strained.

My blood turned to ice.

I pushed past a startled orderly and burst through Lina's door, Noah's name on my lips—only to stop dead in my tracks.

The bed was empty.

Not just empty—completely vacant, as if no one had ever occupied it. The sheets were gone, the pillows removed, even the medical equipment had been wheeled away. Only the bare mattress remained, stark and white under the harsh fluorescent lights.

"Where is she?" My voice came out as a strangled whisper, then exploded into a roar that echoed off the sterile walls. "WHERE IS SHE?"

Noah was nowhere to be seen. No sign of struggle, no indication of what had happened. Just an empty room where my mate should have been.

Dr. Hayes appeared in the doorway, her face grave. "Alpha Winters, I need you to remain calm—"

"CALM?" I whirled on her, Shadow's consciousness bleeding through as my eyes blazed gold. "My mate is gone and you want me to remain calm? Where is Noah? Where is Lina?"

"We're trying to piece together what happened," Dr. Hayes said, taking a careful step back. "The security footage is being reviewed, but—"

"But what? She just vanished? People don't just disappear from hospital beds!"

My mind raced through possibilities, each more terrifying than the last. Had someone taken her? Some enemy we'd missed? Had her body finally given out while I was gone, and they'd moved her to the morgue without waiting for my return?

The thought of Lina's body lying cold and alone in some basement storage area made my knees buckle. I gripped the door frame, fighting against the wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm me.

"Sir, please—" Dr. Hayes reached out as if to steady me, but I jerked away from her touch.

"Don't. Just... don't." I struggled to regain control, to think rationally through the panic that threatened to consume me. "When was she discovered missing? How long has she been gone?"

"Approximately thirty minutes," Dr. Hayes replied. "Nurse Patterson came in for the hourly check and found the room like this. Your Beta was nowhere to be found either."

Thirty minutes. I had left Lina's side for thirty minutes, and now she was gone. The first time I had abandoned my post, the first time I had let my guard down, and someone had taken her from me.

Just like before. Just like when Paul had captured her while I was distracted by training. Once again, my failure to protect her had cost us everything.

"The security team is conducting a sweep of the building," Dr. Hayes continued, her professional composure cracking slightly under my fierce glare. "We've notified hospital administration and local law enforcement—"

"This is pack business," I snarled, cutting her off. "Keep your human authorities out of it."

I pulled out my phone with shaking hands, speed-dialing Amy's number. She answered on the first ring, her voice bright with false cheer that suggested she was still trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy.

"Hey, Leo. How was your run? Feeling any—"

"Lina's gone."

The silence that followed was deafening. When Amy spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper.

"What do you mean gone?"

"I mean she's not in her room. The bed is empty, Noah is missing, and no one knows what happened." I paced the length of the corridor, my free hand raking through my hair. "I need you here now. And call Jacob—tell him to mobilize the pack. Someone took her."

"Leo, wait. Are you sure someone took her? Maybe—"

"Maybe what, Amy?" My voice cracked with desperation. "Maybe she just got up and walked away after being comatose for a month? Maybe Noah decided to take her for a midnight stroll without telling anyone?"

I knew I was being unreasonable, taking my terror out on someone who was only trying to help. But the rational part of my mind had shut down the moment I'd seen that empty bed. All that remained was the primal fear of a mate who had lost the most precious thing in his world.

"I'm on my way," Amy said quietly. "Hold tight, okay? We're going to find her."

But as I hung up and stared at the vacant room where Lina should have been, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was too late. That whatever slim chance I'd had to save her had slipped through my fingers the moment I'd walked away.

I slumped against the wall, Shadow's anguished howl echoing in my mind as the full weight of my failure crashed down upon me. I had promised to protect her, to never let anyone hurt her again. And now she was gone—truly, completely gone—and it was all my fault.

The mate bond, that fragile thread I had clung to for weeks, felt fainter than ever. Soon it would snap entirely, leaving me with nothing but the hollow ache where my heart used to be.

I closed my eyes and tried to reach for her across whatever distance separated us, pouring every ounce of my love and desperation into that fading connection.

Come back to me, Lina. Please, wherever you are, find your way back to me.

But the silence that answered was deafening, and for the first time since this nightmare began, I wondered if my faith had been nothing but delusion.

Maybe she really was gone forever this time.