Chapter 186: Losing Him
Aurora’s POV
He didn’t even look at me. The pain on his face turned into a scary, cold look. With a sudden, wild strength from his alpha wolf side, Oscar pushed me away. He didn’t care that I fell hard on the floor. He reached down, lifted Oliver’s big, heavy body over his broad shoulders in one quick, desperate movement, and stood up.
"Move!" Oscar roared, his voice shaking the walls of the private room.
He didn’t wait for me. He turned around and ran out of the room.
Fear made my frozen body move. I scrambled off the floor, my hands slipping in the pool of blood left behind on the carpet, and ran after him. My heart was beating a wild, painful rhythm against my ribs as I raced down the fancy stairs.
The club downstairs was a total, messy disaster. The heavy, thumping music had stopped. The air felt heavy with stress. News travels fast in a werewolf club, and the smell of a dying King was impossible to hide. People were gasping, their eyes wide with horror as they watched Alpha Oscar run through the lower lounge with the blood-soaked, unconscious body of their King on his back. Workers I had passed just minutes ago stared at me in shock as I ran past them, my face pale, my clothes soaked in the Alpha King’s blood.
Victor was still by the bar, his smug smile completely gone. He reached out to grab my arm as I flew past, but I ripped myself away with a wild growl. My only focus was on the trail of dark red drops leading out the back door.
Oscar kicked the heavy metal exit door open. His black SUV was waiting in the alleyway. He didn’t waste a single second; he threw the back door open and pushed Oliver’s limp body onto the seat.
Before Oscar could slam the door, I forced myself inside. I crawled over the floor, pulling Oliver’s upper body onto my lap. I didn’t care if Oscar yelled at me. I didn’t care if he threw me out. I couldn’t let go of him.
Oscar slammed the door shut, ran to the driver’s seat, and drove backward with a loud screech of tires that sounded like a scream in the narrow alley.
The drive was a blur of scary speed and pure dread. The SUV swerved onto the main road, tearing through red lights and driving wildly through the afternoon traffic. In the back seat, the world felt so small, matching the slow, shallow breaths coming from Oliver’s chest.
"Oliver, please," I begged, my whole body shaking as I held his head against my chest. My fingers searched for his pulse, finding only a weak, unsteady beat beneath his jaw. "Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I’m sorry... I’m so sorry..."
I leaned forward, grabbing the back of the driver’s seat, shaking Oscar’s shoulder with all the strength I had left. "Oscar, please do something! Drive faster! Don’t let him die, please!"
But Oscar showed no emotion at all. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were bone-white. His eyes were locked on the road ahead, a cold wall of silence keeping him away from my crying. He didn’t say a single word to me. His silence felt like a heavy punishment.
"Oscar!" I shouted, a fresh wave of terror hitting my chest as I pressed my cheek against Oliver’s forehead. "He’s getting cold! Oscar, he’s losing his body heat! The wolfsbane... it’s stopping his heart!"
The temperature of his skin was dropping fast, the warm, comforting heat of Oliver fading into the cold chill of death. The gray, toxic veins of the Northern Wolfsbane had crawled all the way up his neck, showing the path of the poison I had put into his body.
Oscar didn’t look back, but the speedometer went higher, the engine roaring in a desperate race against time.
Finally, the SUV swung through the heavy iron gates of the packhouse, tires throwing up rocks as Oscar slammed on the brakes right at the front entrance. He didn’t even turn off the car. He threw his door open, marched to the back, and ripped the door open.
With a rough, mean pull, Oscar dragged Oliver’s body off me. I fell forward, gasping as my hands scraped against the leather seats, but I dragged myself out of the car right behind him.
The packhouse was already in an uproar. Guards rushed out to meet us from every corner of the yard, their faces twisting in horror at the sight of their bleeding King.
"Get the healers!" Oscar shouted, his deep voice carrying across the yard like thunder. "Get them to the private wing now!"
He carried Oliver up the big stone steps, his steps fast but steady under the heavy weight. I ran behind them, my shaky legs barely keeping me up, my vision blurring as the world began to spin. Pack members lined the hallways, whispering and gasping, their scared scents filling the air.
We burst into Oliver’s private room, where the pack’s chief doctor and a circle of top healers were already waiting, tipped off by the mind-link. The room turned into a messy hospital emergency room in a matter of seconds.
"Lay him down! Carefully!" the doctor shouted, rushing forward with a tray of silver tools.
Oscar laid Oliver onto the large bed, the white sheets instantly turning a dark, horrible red. The doctor started working right away, ripping Oliver’s shirt open to show the three neat, smoking bullet holes in his chest. At the exact same time, the old healers stood around the bed, their hands glowing with a bright blue light as they started saying their spells, chanting in an old language to slow down the poison.
I stood at the foot of the bed, like a ghost in my own body. I watched the blood pour from his chest. I watched the needles, the spells, and the loud shouts of the medical team. The rich, woodsy smell of Oliver was drowning in the sharp smell of burning silver and raw poison.
I did this, the thought whispered in my mind, cold and real. I killed him.
The walls of the room began to tilt. The loud shouting of the doctors started to sound far away. The bright light of the healing spells blurred into a blinding white. My knees felt like water, and the air left my lungs completely.
Before I could call out his name one last time, darkness rushed in from the sides of my eyes, hiding the room completely, and I fainted, falling hard onto the bloody floor.
Comments