Chapter 481
We sat in suffocating silence, two people separated by an ocean of lies. I pulled my knees to my chest and stared into the dim, blue-lit room. As the minutes dragged on, a faint, metallic smell drifted through the sterile air — the unmistakable, coppery tang of fresh blood.
I must have fallen asleep in the uncomfortable plastic chair, lulled into exhaustion by the steady, mocking beep of the heart monitor. But the sound that jolted me awake in the dead of the early morning wasn’t a beep.
It was a wet, tearing cough that sounded like a trapped beast choking on its own lungs.
I bolted upright. The dim green glow of the monitor illuminated Dallas thrashing on the narrow clinic bed. The metallic smell of fresh blood I had noticed earlier was no longer faint — it was suffocating, entirely overpowering the sterile bleach of the room.
He was burning up, his pale skin slick with a freezing sweat.
“Ragnar…” Dallas rasped, his head tossing from side to side in the violent grip of a feverish delirium. “He’s dying — I had to push her away — the cold…”
My breath caught in my throat. I stepped closer, my heart hammering against my ribs.
He let out a ragged, agonizing groan, his hands clawing blindly at the sheets. “Aleppo — I killed them all. The silver — don’t let them touch her.”
The secrets spilled from his lips like bleeding wounds. Siberia. Aleppo. Confirmation that his brutal rejection was nothing but a suicidal sacrifice to keep me safe.
Suddenly, a violent spasm wracked his massive frame. He turned his head and coughed, spitting a thick splatter of pink, frothy blood onto the pristine white sheets.
Pure panic seized my chest. Pink froth. Pulmonary edema. His lungs were filling with fluid, and the LVAD surgical wound over his heart was bleeding internally. He was dying right in front of me.
“Dallas!” I cried out, rushing to the side of the bed. My trembling fingers grabbed the edge of his ruined shirt, desperate to unbutton it and assess the damage to his chest.
The second my fingers brushed the blood-soaked fabric, his eyes snapped open.
The storm-gray was entirely gone, replaced by the pure, bottomless black of his Lycan. Ragnar. But it wasn’t the fiercely protective beast I knew — it was a wounded, cornered predator operating on pure survival instinct.
His hand shot out with blinding speed. His iron grip locked around my wrist like a vice, the sheer force sending a shockwave of pain up my arm.
A guttural, non-human snarl ripped from his throat. “Don’t touch me!” he roared.
With a surge of frantic, adrenaline-fueled strength, he shoved me backward. I stumbled, my heels catching on the cold linoleum, and crashed hard against the wall.
Dallas didn’t stop. Dragging his broken, heavy body off the mattress, his breathing a wet, ragged wheeze, he backed himself into the farthest, darkest corner of the room. He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his torso, hiding the ruined, bleeding mess beneath. He was shivering violently, his Alpha pride absolutely refusing to let me see him bleed out.