Chapter 534
Dallas was on the marble floor. His massive body convulsed violently, his storm-gray eyes rolling back into his head, completely devoid of focus. His large hands clawed desperately at his own chest as if trying to tear his ribcage open.
“What did you do?!” Dr. Alistair Vance shrieked, dropping to his knees beside the Alpha King.
Vance Decker stood over them, the empty amber vial slipping from his trembling fingers. All the color had drained from the Gamma’s face, replaced by a mask of absolute horror. “I just wanted to give him peace. A military sedative—to let him rest—”
“You fool!” Dr. Vance roared, his hands frantically pressing against Dallas’s neck to find a pulse. “It’s a vasodilator! You just tanked his blood pressure! His LVAD can’t pump without resistance—you’ve stopped his heart!”
Stopped his heart.
The words tore through my mind. I hit the marble floor beside them, my knees bruising against the hard stone. “Dallas!” I screamed, reaching for his face, but his skin was already turning a terrifying shade of ashen gray.
Pack medics swarmed the booth, shoving me back. One of them grabbed the collar of Dallas’s expensive silk shirt and ripped it open.
I stopped breathing.
His chest was a canvas of pure agony. Jagged, blackened scars crisscrossed his heavily muscled torso—the unmistakable, rotting burn marks of silver. But that wasn’t what made my blood run cold. Running down the center of his chest was a fresh, angry surgical incision, and protruding from his abdomen, slick with blood and sweat, was a thick plastic driveline connected to an external battery pack strapped to his waist.
An LVAD.
The memory of his pale face in the stairwell—the way his body had trembled against mine—suddenly made horrifying sense. His Lycan heart had failed. He had been surviving on a cold human machine and sheer, agonizing willpower. Every cruel word, every time he pushed me away—it wasn’t rejection. It was a dying man trying to spare his Mate the trauma of watching him bleed out.
“He’s been dying for months, Adella!” Dr. Vance yelled over the chaos, performing brutal chest compressions.
“Clear!” a medic shouted.
They loaded his lifeless body onto a stretcher and sprinted toward the back exit. I scrambled to my feet, kicked off my heels, and ran after them into the freezing rain. The red flashing lights of an armored Pack medical transport illuminated the dark alley.
“I’m coming with him!” I cried, lunging for the back doors of the transport.
A massive wall of muscle stepped into my path. Beta Duncan Whitaker.
“Move, Duncan!” I sobbed, trying to push past him.
Duncan didn’t budge. His face was carved from stone, but his eyes were wrecked with unspeakable grief. He grabbed my shoulders, holding me back with a grip that was gentle but entirely immovable.
“I can’t let you in, Luna,” Duncan said, his voice a low, broken rumble. “It’s the Alpha King’s direct command.”
“He’s my Mate! He needs me!” I thrashed against him, the rain mixing with my tears.