Chapter 270 Come Back - Amelia

Chapter 270 Come Back - Amelia
Wake up.
Kaela reached me through the dark. Not words exactly, but a warm insistence pressed against the inside of my skull.
It’s time to come back, Amelia.
I floated upwards through something thicker than water. Darkness thinned to grey, then to brightness. My eyelids felt weighted, but I forced them open a fraction at a time until the light struck hard enough to make me flinch.
White ceiling. White walls. Fluorescent panels buzzed overhead. The sterile palette belonged to rooms designed to repair damaged bodies. Medical. I was still in medical.
My left hand ached. An IV sat taped to the back of it, clear fluid feeding into veins that felt lined with copper. My right hand was warm because Aleksandr held it between both of his. He had fallen asleep in the chair with his head against the mattress, dark hair across his forehead, looking younger than a century-old king had any right to.
I flexed my fingers. It was barely a movement, but enough.
Aleksandr woke instantly, as if I had triggered an alarm. His attention locked onto mine, panic still visible beneath the exhaustion. One hand rose to my face, unsteady despite the control I associated with him.
“You’re awake.” The words came out scraped raw. He repeated them once, quieter, as if saying them might make them true. “God. You’re awake.”
He pressed a hard kiss to my forehead, then another to my temple. Gratitude made him clumsy and tender, a combination I had never expected to see from Aleksandr Brecc.
I tried to speak. My throat closed on the first attempt, dry enough to crack. The second produced a sound like a frog having a medical emergency.
“Water,” I managed. The word came out as gravel.
He hit the call button before I finished the syllable, three times because once apparently lacked urgency. The door opened within seconds, and Sylvia entered as though she had been stationed outside with her hand on the knob.
“Good to see you awake, my Queen.” Sylvia’s small smile carried genuine relief. Her scarred hands were already working, checking pulse, blood pressure and pupil response with the brisk focus of a healer treating vital signs as intelligence.
She filled a glass from the pitcher on the side table and held it to my lips. The water was room temperature and tasted better than anything I’d ever put in my mouth. I sipped, swallowed, winced as my throat protested the movement.
“Small sips,” Sylvia said. “Your throat’s been dry for a while.”
While I drank, she drew another vial of blood with one smooth movement. Dark red filled the tube. Sylvia capped it, placed it on the tray and studied me with the concentration of someone who had treated werewolf royalty long enough to distrust appearances.
“How’s Kaela doing?”
The question caught me off guard. I reached inward and found Kaela sprawled across our shared landscape, exhausted beyond dignity. Her massive form lay still, breathing slow and heavy, as though she had fought a battle in my sleep and refused to explain the details.
Tell her I need a fucking nap, Kaela growled. Her exhaustion translated into an ache behind my eyes.
“She says she needs a rest,” I said, editing for professional company. “She’s exhausted.”
Sylvia’s mouth twitched. “I believe Kaela kept you unconscious deliberately, giving your body time to process the poison without the strain of waking. She may have protected the pups by keeping you still. It is not documented, but wolf instinct reaches places medicine cannot measure.”
My hand went to my abdomen. The small curve remained beneath the hospital gown, firm and real. Fear reached me before reason, sharp enough to strip the air from my lungs.
“Are they okay?” The words came too quickly. “The pups. Are they...”
“They’re perfect, my Queen.” Sylvia spoke in facts rather than comfort. “Strong heart rates, development exactly where it should be for thirteen weeks. The amount you swallowed did not reach them in a concentration high enough to cause damage. They are healthy and growing.”
Relief blurred the room. I blinked hard, unwilling to cry in front of Sylvia when she had already witnessed enough of my vulnerabilities to last several lifetimes.
“I need to test this blood and confirm the toxin levels are falling.” Sylvia lifted the vial. “I’ll be back within the hour.” She gave Aleksandr a brief, meaningful nod, then left with her white coat snapping behind her.
The latch clicked. Machines resumed their steady beeping, and Aleksandr reclaimed the chair beside me. He rested his palm over my fingers without trying to turn the contact into another promise.
“What happened? The pastry. It was...”
“Poison.” His voice flattened around the word. “Designed to end the pregnancy, not kill you. The target was the pups.”
The distinction hurt worse than the original fear. My fingers locked around his, nails pressing into his palm. He accepted the pain without reaction.
“You swallowed very little,” he continued. “One bite, and you spat most of it out. If you had finished the pastry, you would have survived, but we would have lost them.”
I covered my mouth. The sob came from somewhere beyond language, carrying the horror of a loss I had avoided without understanding the danger. Tears ran unchecked while I tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the sound contained.
For several breaths, I could not move beyond the image: two heartbeats stopping because I had trusted a plate carried through a guarded ballroom. The pups had survived through instinct, luck and one bitter taste. None of those felt reliable enough to build a future on.
Aleksandr waited through the silence. Exhaustion marked him clearly now that panic had eased: stubble along his jaw, shadows beneath his eyes and the rigid posture of someone who had refused sleep because sleep implied trusting the world to continue without his supervision.
“Did you catch them?” I lowered my hand and forced myself to meet his gaze. “The people who did this. Did you find them?”