Chapter 28 Chapter Twenty Eight - Lazarus The Werewolf

Chapter 28 Chapter Twenty Eight - Lazarus The Werewolf
The doctor had essentially passed a death sentence on Dallas, and Carter felt his heart break with a feeling so raw and painful and utterly devastating, that those words didn’t even begin to describe it.

He threw off the thin hospital blanket covering his legs and swung them over the side of the bed.
.
Every movement he made sent sharp jolts of pain through his healing body, but he ignored them.

The doctors immediately protested, reaching out to stop him.

"Mr. Whitfield, you shouldn't be moving…"

"You need to stay in bed, you're not strong enough…"

But Carter simply shook them off and shuffled across the short distance separating his bed from Dallas's.

His legs were weak and unsteady, threatening to give out with every step, but he forced himself to keep moving until he stood just beside Dallas's bed.

Up close, Dallas looked even worse. His skin had taken on a greyish tinge that reminded Carter sickeningly of a corpse, and his lips were cracked and bloodless.

The strong, arrogant, insufferable man who'd kidnapped him and claimed him and turned his entire world upside down now looked small and broken and fragile, so much so that Carter's throat closed up with grief.

"What am I supposed to do?" Carter asked, his voice breaking.

He looked desperately at the doctors, at Isaac's kind face and the older doctor's disapproving scowl. "Am I supposed to bite him? To give him some of my pain back? Would that help? There has to be something I can do to help…"

God, that sounded stupid, even to his ears.

"It doesn't work that way," the older doctor said, though not unkindly this time. Instead, his voice was only matter-of-fact as he delivered yet another crushing truth.

"Only an Alpha can perform the pain transfer. The technique requires a level of power and control that humans simply don't possess. There is nothing you can do."

Nothing he could do.

Carter sank to his knees beside Dallas's bed, his legs finally giving out.

Tears he hadn't realized were forming started falling, trailing hot down his cheeks, but he didn't bother to wipe away.

He reached out with trembling hands and took Dallas's hand in his own. It was cold, much too cold, as though all the warmth had been leeched out of him.

Carter brought it to his lips and kissed Dallas's knuckles, his forehead, anywhere he could reach.

"Dallas," he whispered brokenly. "Please wake up. Please. I can't—" His voice cracked completely. "I can't be the reason another person dies. Not like this."

The machines beeped their steady rhythm and Dallas didn't move.

"You're supposed to be this all-powerful Alpha, right?" Carter's voice grew desperate, almost angry that any of this was happening in the first place.

"You're supposed to be stronger than everyone else, too stubborn to let something like this keep you down. So wake up. Wake up, goddammit."

Still, there was nothing, no response at all.

Carter gripped Dallas's hand tighter, leaning in close to whisper directly in his ear. His tears fell onto Dallas's pale skin, trailing down his jaw.

"Wake up, goddammit, or I'll—" Carter's mind scrambled for a threat, something that would reach through the darkness and drag Dallas back. "I'm going to be so mad at you if you die.”

“I’ll run away, you’ll see. I'll disappear so completely that no one in your pack will ever find me. I'll raise your precious wolf baby, if there even is one, and they will never know who their father was. Then all your sacrifice would have been for nothing.”

Carter forced his words out, threat after angry threat, enraged that Dallas would do this to him; make Carter want him and crave him despite everything, and then have the audacity to die and leave him behind.

Absolutely fucking not.

Carter was desperate for any reaction now, any sign that Dallas could hear him, but Dallas remained motionless, his chest barely rising with each shallow breath.

Carter's anger drained away as quickly as it had come, replaced by bone-deep exhaustion and a grief so profound it felt like he was drowning.

He collapsed forward, his forehead resting against Dallas's shoulder, his whole body shaking with sobs that no matter what he did, he simply couldn't control.

"Please," he whispered one more time, broken and defeated. "Please don't leave me alone in this place. I know I'm supposed to hate you, but I—"

He couldn't finish the sentence, nor could he bring himself to say what he was really feeling, because how could he? Even now.

The machines continued their steady beeping, the doctors murmured quietly in the background, and Dallas lay there, stiff as a board, offering no comfort and no response.

Carter had just about given up hope, he knew somehow he would have to start to accept the fact that Dallas really was gone and wasn't coming back.

But then he heard something. A gruff voice, barely above a whisper, but unmistakably smug and unmistakably alive.

"Is all that pathetic crying for me, Carter?”

Carter’s head snapped up so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash.

“I'm touched. Really. Didn't know you cared so much."

Dallas's eyes were open, though just barely, Carter saw only thin slits of dark eyes visible between his pale lids, but they were open and focused on Carter's face.

His lips curved into the faintest shadow of that familiar, infuriating smirk.

For a moment, Carter could only stare in shock, his brain unable to process that Dallas was actually awake and alive, actually smirking at him as though he hadn't just been on the very edges of death.

Then fury crashed over him like a tidal wave. “Fuck you," Carter bit out, even as relief so intense it made him dizzy flooded through his entire body.

He surged forward and crushed Dallas into a tight bear hug, ignoring the startled grunt of pain he made, ignoring the doctors' alarmed protests and practically everything except the solid, warm reality of Dallas solid underneath his grip.

"Fuck you," Carter repeated into Dallas's shoulder, his voice muffled and shaking. "Fuck you for scaring me like that. Fuck you for almost dying. Fuck you for making me care whether you lived or not."

Dallas's arms came up slowly, weakly, to wrap around Carter's back. His laugh was barely more than a wheeze, but Carter felt it rumble through his chest.

Dallas nodded, his lips brushing against Carter's ear. "Missed you too, mate."