Chapter 23 SAVE HER!
XAVIER'S POV
"FUCK!"
The roar ripped from my throat, vibrating against the infirmary hallway. I slammed my fist into the stone masonry, the impact cracking the plaster, but I didn't feel a damn thing. The physical pain was a joke compared to the corrosive agony eating me alive from the inside out.
How much time had passed?
The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, bleeding into a bruised purple evening, and still, that door remained shut. Every second was a serrated blade drawing across my skin.
I paced the corridor like a caged beast, my shadow dancing erratically under the flickering overhead lights.
If I weren't terrified of distracting the medical team—of being the reason a scalpel slipped or a stitch missed—I would have torn that door off its hinges hours ago.
My patience wasn't just thin; it was non-existent. It was a blackened thread held over an open flame.
If that doctor didn’t walk through those doors in the next sixty seconds, I was going in, and God help anyone who stood in my way.
Finally, the handle turned. The click sounded like a gunshot in the oppressive silence. Dr. Aris stepped out, his surgical mask hanging around his neck, his scrubs splattered with a dark, terrifying blood that I knew belonged to her.
I didn't give him a chance to speak. I surged forward, nearly knocking him over as I burst into the room.
The sight of her broke me. Avrielle looked so small, lost in the middle of that high-tech hospital bed. Her skin, usually the color of rich cream, was now the translucent, horrifying shade of parchment. Tubes snaked out from under the thin white sheet, and the steady, rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor was the only thing keeping me from losing my mind entirely.
I rushed to her side, my knees hitting the floor by the bed.
I reached out, my fingers trembling as I hovered over her face, afraid that even a touch might break what was left of her.
"Why isn't she waking up?" I demanded, my voice a jagged edge. I didn't look back at Aris, but I could feel him hovering by the door.
"The bleeding has stopped. Why are her eyes still closed, Aris?"
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.
I turned my head slowly, my gaze snapping to him. Aris was shivering, his eyes darting toward the floor, unable to meet the predatory gold of mine. He looked pathetic. He looked guilty.
The beast in me roared. Before he could draw another breath, I was across the room. My hand shot out, wrapping around his throat and lifting him off his feet until his back slammed against the wall with a dull thud.
"Answer me," I hissed, my face inches from his. "Stop giving me that pathetic, sniveling look and tell me why my mate is still drifting! Answer me, or I swear to the Goddess, I will end you right here!"
"Al—Alpha... please," he wheezed, his hands clawing uselessly at my forearm. "The... the surgery... it was successful. We removed the silver... we repaired the organ damage."
I stared at him for a heartbeat longer, the urge to snap his neck pulse-point close, before I shoved him away. He dropped to the floor, gasping and clutching his throat, air whistling into his lungs in desperate gulps.
"Next time," I muttered, turning back to Avrielle, "do not joke with my time. You were a second away from a closed casket."
He coughed violently, the sound echoing in the sterile room. I ignored him, returning to Avrielle’s side. I reached out, finally allowing my hand to settle against her cheek. She was cold. So cold.
"But..." Aris’s voice came from the floor, small and trembling.
My head snapped back toward him, my eyes narrowing. He scrambled to his feet, his back pinned against the wall as if he wanted to melt into the paint. He spoke fast, the words tripping over each other in a race to save his life.
"She is out of danger from the wound itself, Alpha! She should have woken up an hour ago, but... there is something blocking the recovery. Something deep in her system."
"The only reason she isn't dead—the only reason she survived the silver and the blood loss—is because of your Mark on her neck. Your claim is the only thing anchoring her soul to her body."
My chest constricted, a phantom weight pressing down on my lungs. I forced myself to remain stoic, my expression a mask of frozen iron.
"What is wrong with her, Aris? Use your words."
"The vampire’s venom," he whispered, his voice shaking. "It’s high-grade, ancient. It’s fighting for domination within her. But because she's your mate, her dormant werewolf bloodline is reacting. Your Mark is acting like a conduit. I think... Alpha, I think your wolf is trying to use the bond to force an awakening. He’s trying to jumpstart her wolf to fight the venom."
I froze. My hand stilled against her skin.
"That’s impossible. She’s past thirty. The window for an awakening closed over a decade ago. It doesn't happen this late. Never."
"Her body is fighting destiny itself right now," the doctor added, his voice filled with a hopeless sort of awe.
"The venom wants her dead; your wolf wants her turned. And in the middle, her human heart is failing under the pressure of the war."
I slammed my fist onto the bedside table, the metal denting under the force. "Then help her! Use the stimulants, use the serum, do something!"
Aris shivered, his knees buckling until he was kowtowing on the floor, his forehead pressed against the cold tiles.
"I can do nothing, Alpha! Medicine cannot interfere with a spiritual war of the blood! I am sorry... you can kill me, you can tear me apart, but I am powerless against the Goddess's design!"
The nurses in the room followed suit, dropping to their knees and weeping, pleading for mercy for their incompetence.
"GET OUT!" I roared.
The room cleared in seconds. The silence that followed was worse than the screaming. I was the Alpha of the North. I was a man who moved mountains and dictated the lives of thousands. And yet, here I was, watching the only thing that mattered to me slip through my fingers like water, and I was utterly, devastatingly useless.
But I wasn't useless at everything. If I couldn't save her with my hands, I could damn well avenge her with them.
'Kaiden' I sent the mindlink out like a whip, sharp and demanding. 'Get to the Infirmary. Now!'
A few seconds later, the door opened quietly. Kaiden stood there, his usual composure replaced by a grim, funereal mask. His eyes fixed on Avrielle before returning to mine.
"Find them," I said, my voice low, vibrating with a frequency that promised a massacre. "Find out who the attackers were. Trace the scent, find the middleman, find the coward who sat in a chair and ordered this hit. I want names, Kaiden. I want locations."
I turned to look at him, my eyes no longer gold, but a void of absolute darkness. "If you don't give me a definite response in three days, I’ll start the executions with the guards who let them get that close. And then, I’ll move on to you."
Kaiden didn't flinch. He simply bowed. "I’ll have them, Alpha."
I turned back to Avrielle, taking her limp hand in mine and pressing it to my lips. I pitied whoever had instigated this. I truly did. They had woken a side of me I had spent years trying to suppress. No matter how far they ran, no matter what hole they crawled into, I would find them.
I wouldn't just kill them. I would make their end so slow and so agonizing that the devil himself would turn away in horror. They had tried to take my light; now, they were going to learn why the world called me the Devil.
"Stay with me, Avrielle," I whispered against her knuckles. "Stay, and I will give you the heads of every person who did this."