Chapter 144 Kaden's POV
Blood was everywhere.
Pooling beneath Elara soaking through the sheets. More blood than I had ever seen from a single person.
"She is bleeding out!" Damian's hands were moving frantically, trying to stop the hemorrhaging.
"I need O-negative blood! Multiple units! Now!"
Nurses ran in all directions. Equipment beeped frantically. And Elara lay there, pale as death, unconscious.
"Don't you dare leave me," I said, gripping her hand. "Don't you dare die after everything we've been through."
In the corner, Adrian was crying. Loud, healthy cries that under any other circumstance would have filled me with joy. But right now, all I could think was that my son might never know his mother.
"Blood pressure is dropping!" one nurse called out.
"Start the transfusion!" Damian ordered.
"And get me the emergency medications. We're losing her."
They hooked IV lines into both her arms. Bags of blood flowing into her body, trying to replace what she had lost.
But it wasn't enough. She was still bleeding.
"There's a tear in the uterine wall," Damian said, his voice tight with stress.
"I need to repair it surgically but if I do that now, in her weakened state, she might not survive the procedure."
"And if you don't?"
"She definitely won't survive; she will bleed to death within the hour."
"Then do the surgery to save her whatever it takes."
Damian looked at me. "This is going to be dangerous there's a real chance-"
"I said save her. I don't care about the risks. Just save her."
He nodded and started barking orders for more equipment. More medications preparing for emergency surgery right there in the delivery room because there was no time to move her.
I was pushed to the side as they worked. Forced to watch helplessly as they cut into my mate, trying to repair the damage childbirth had caused.
Adrian's cries grew louder as a nurse approached me, holding my son.
"Alpha, he needs to be fed and checked we should take him to the nursery-"
"No he stays here where I can see him."
She looked uncertain but handed him to me.
I held my son for the first time and really held him. Feeling his weight, his warmth seeing his face clearly.
He had beautiful, perfect dark hair like mine. And when he opened his eyes briefly, I saw they were green like Elara's.
The crescent moon mark on his chest was still glowing faintly pulsing with each heartbeat.
"Your mother is fighting for you," I whispered to him. "Fighting to stay with us you need to be strong for her. Can you do that?"
As if he understood, Adrian's cries quieted slightly. He looked up at me with those green eyes and something in my chest cracked open.
Love. Pure, overwhelming love for this tiny person who'd just entered the world.
"I've got the tear repaired," Damian announced.
"Now we just need the bleeding to stop and her vitals to stabilize."
More waiting, more watching the monitors. More praying to the heavens I'd long since stopped believing in.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Damian spoke.
"Blood pressure is rising. Bleeding is slowing. I think... I think she's stabilizing."
Relief hit me so hard I nearly collapsed. "She's going to make it?"
"Her body is responding to the transfusion. The repair is holding. If she continues like this for the next few hours, yes. She will make it."
I looked down at Adrian. "You hear that? Your mother is going to be okay."
He had fallen asleep in my arms exhausted from his dramatic entrance into the world.
A nurse gently took him from me. "Let me clean him up properly and do his health checks. You should stay with your mate."
I reluctantly let her take Adrian and returned to Elara's side.
She was still unconscious but her color was better. Her breathing steadier the monitors showed improving vital signs.
I took her hand and just held it waiting for her to wake up.
Hours passed and the medical staff cleaned up. Moved Elara to a recovery room set up Adrian in a bassinet beside her bed.
Finally, when it was just me and Damian in the room, I spoke.
"Xavier is working for Erebus."
Damian froze. "What?"
"Elara told me on the drive back. Xavier has been working with Erebus all along. Dark Moon Pack has a cave somewhere in their territory. They are creating Erebus followers through torture and dark magic branding people converting them by force."
Damian sank into a chair, his face going pale. "I knew they had dark practices. I knew they were involved in things I didn't want to be part of. But this... this is beyond anything I imagined."
"You left because you suspected something?"
"I left because I saw rituals and practices . A woman I loved was killed because she tried to expose what the Dark Moon Pack was really doing."
His hands clenched. "But I didn't know the full extent and didn't know Xavier was actively working for Erebus."