Chapter 298: Chapter 298 The Valerium Trap
Perry’s POV
"Get out of my way!"
My roar shattered the quiet of the medical wing. I didn’t wait for the servants to open the doors; I kicked them open with enough force to crack the wood. Phoebe was limp in my arms, her skin burning with a fever that defied logic, yet she was shivering as if she were naked in a snowstorm.
Marcela was already there, her face pale. She had been summoned the moment I found Phoebe collapsing in the garden.
" the bed," Marcela commanded, abandoning all protocol. She didn’t bow. She didn’t address me as King. She was a healer, and I was just a terrified man holding his world.
I laid Phoebe down on the sterile white sheets. She curled into a fetal position immediately, a low, guttural whimper escaping her throat. It was a sound that tore through my chest like a rusty blade.
"What is it?" I demanded, hovering over them. My hands were shaking. I clenched them into fists to hide the tremor. "Is it... did Justina poison her?"
If that bitch had touched her, I would burn the Davoria Kingdom to the ground before sunrise.
Marcela didn’t answer. Her hands glowed with a soft, diagnostic magic as she hovered them over Phoebe’s abdomen. The light pulsed—erratic, violent, red then blinding white.
Phoebe screamed.
"Fix her!" I shouted, the darkness inside me lashing out, cracking a nearby glass vase. "Marcela, do something!"
"Silence!" Marcela snapped. She pulled her hands back as if burned. She looked at me, her eyes wide with a mixture of horror and awe. "It is not poison, Your Majesty. It is... reconstruction."
I froze. "Speak plainly."
" The White Wolf," Marcela whispered, looking down at Phoebe, who was now gasping for air. "The divinity within her. It has been dormant, suppressed by her injuries and the trauma of the past. But tonight, something triggered it. It is awake. And it is aggressive."
Marcela took a deep breath. "It is reshaping her internal organs. It is trying to heal the damage done years ago. It is trying to rebuild her womb, her core, her very essence."
Hope, sharp and dangerous, spiked in my chest. "She can be healed? She can... be whole?"
"There is a price," Marcela said, her voice dropping to a grave whisper. "The process is too violent for a conscious mind. It will kill her if she remains awake. To survive this, she must enter the Divine Slumber."
I narrowed my eyes. "Explain."
"She must be placed in stasis. A deep, magical coma for three days," Marcela said. "Her heart rate will drop to almost nothing. Her breath will be imperceptible. To the naked eye, she will appear dead. If she fights the power, she dies. If she surrenders to it... she might wake up reborn. Or she might never wake up at all."
The room went cold.
"No," I said instantly. The word was a wall. "Absolutely not."
"Perry—" Marcela started.
"I said no!" I slammed my hand against the wall. "I am not putting her in a coffin for three days on a gamble! I have buried her once in my heart. I will not do it again. Find another way."
I wouldn’t risk it. I couldn’t watch her turn cold. I couldn’t spend seventy-two hours wondering if the love of my life was a corpse or a goddess.
——
Phoebe’s POV
The pain was a living thing, chewing on my insides. But through the haze of agony, I heard him.
*I have buried her once in my heart. I will not do it again.*
His fear was a tangible weight in the room, heavier than the magic tearing me apart. I forced my eyes open. The world was blurry, swimming in tears, but I saw him. My Mad King. He looked ready to fight death itself with his bare hands.
I couldn’t let him do this. I couldn’t let his fear keep us both broken.
"Perry," I rasped.
He was at my side in a heartbeat, his cool hand cupping my fevered cheek. "I’m here, baby. I’m here. We’ll manage the pain. We won’t do the ritual. I won’t lose you."
I grabbed his wrist. My grip was weak, but my will was iron.
"You have to," I whispered.
"No," he said, his voice cracking. "I don’t care about heirs. I don’t care about the bloodline. Justina can rot. I just need you. Broken or whole, I just need you alive."
I pushed myself up. It felt like lifting a mountain. Marcela tried to assist, but I waved her off. I swung my legs over the side of the bed.
I slid down until my knees hit the floor.
The room went silent.
I knelt before him, not as a subject to a King, but as a partner offering everything. It mirrored the way Timothy had once knelt for Jude—a gesture of ultimate vulnerability, placing the power of destruction in the hands of the one you love.
I looked up at him. Tears streamed down my face, hot and fast.
"This isn’t just about a child, Perry," I said, my voice gaining strength despite the fire in my belly. "Look at me. I am the White Wolf. I am your Queen. But right now, I am a liability. I am a weakness your enemies can exploit."
He made a move to pull me up, but I resisted.
"If I don’t do this, I will always be the ’broken vessel’ they mock," I said fiercely. "I want to stand beside you, not behind you. I want the power to protect *you*. I want to be the monster that scares them, so you don’t always have to be."
I took his hand and placed it over my heart.
"I am not asking for permission to die," I told him, locking my gaze with his wild, terrified blue eyes. "I am asking for permission to live. Truly live. Let me do this. Please."
Perry stared down at me. His chest heaved. I saw the battle raging behind his eyes—the selfish desire to keep me safe versus the selfless act of letting me fly.
A single tear tracked through the grime on his cheek. He choked on a sob, a sound so broken it shattered me.
"Three days," he whispered, his voice trembling. "If you don’t wake up in three days, Phoebe... I will destroy this world and everyone in it. I will leave nothing but ash."
I smiled through the pain. "Deal."
——
Perry’s POV
The Ice Crystal Chamber was deep beneath the palace, a relic of the old magic. The air here was zero degrees, preserving everything in perfect stasis.
I carried her in. She was already fading, the sedative Marcela gave her taking effect.
The central dais was a slab of pure, enchanted ice. I laid her down. The cold seemed to seep into my bones instantly. She looked like Sleeping Beauty, but this wasn’t a fairy tale. This was a nightmare I had agreed to.
"I love you," I whispered against her lips. They were already turning cool. "Come back to me."
I stepped back. Marcela activated the containment field. A translucent dome of ice sealed over Phoebe, locking her in a suspended moment of time. Her chest stopped moving. Her color faded to a deathly marble white.
It took every ounce of control I possessed not to shatter the glass and drag her out.
"Three days, Your Majesty," Marcela said softly. "Now, we wait."
I turned away, my heart turning to stone. I walked out of the chamber, leaving my soul behind in the ice.
I emerged from the underground sanctuary into the main hallway, feeling hollowed out. But the world didn’t stop for my grief.
Wade was waiting for me. His face was grim.
"Sire," he said, falling into step beside me. "We have a situation."
"I don’t care," I said flatly.
"You will care about this," Wade insisted. "Justina didn’t leave the city. Our spies report she met with the remnants of Augustus’s faction an hour ago. The old loyalists. The ones we didn’t execute."
I stopped walking. The hollowness filled instantly with a familiar, comforting rage. "And?"
"They are moving," Wade said. "They know the Queen is... incapacitated. Rumors are already spreading through the capital. They are saying the Queen is dead. They are saying you have finally lost your mind with grief."
"Let them talk," I growled. "I’ll kill them all when she wakes."
"It’s not just talk, Perry," Wade said, using my name to snap me to attention. "The water pressure in the palace just dropped to zero. They’ve cut the supply lines. And the perimeter guards are reporting movement in the shadows. They aren’t waiting for a siege. They are attempting a coup. Tonight."
——
Deep beneath the earth, in the absolute silence of the Ice Crystal Chamber, Phoebe floated in the void.
She was not dead. She was everywhere.
Her consciousness was expanded, untethered from her physical form. She was drifting in a sea of white light, her body being knit back together cell by cell. It was a peaceful oblivion.
But then, a vibration disturbed the stillness.
It wasn’t a sound. It was a feeling. A threat.
She felt *him*. She felt Perry’s spike of adrenaline. She felt the malice gathering above her, directed at her mate. The bond between them, the connection that transcended physical distance, twanged like a taut wire.
*Danger. Hunt. Protect.*
Inside the sealed ice dome, the woman who looked like a corpse twitched.
Her heart, which had been beating once every minute, suddenly thudded a powerful double rhythm.
Under the translucent skin of her arms, something rippled. It wasn’t muscle. It was primal energy forcing its way out.
Slowly, terrifyingly, coarse white fur began to sprout along her forearms. Her fingernails lengthened, turning into razor-sharp, obsidian claws that scratched against the indestructible ice.
Her eyes didn’t open. But her lips pulled back in a snarl, revealing teeth that were no longer human.
The Queen was asleep.
But the Wolf was waking up.
