To heal a Rogue

LYSANDER

The sentinels hauled David between them, his entire body still convulsing violently enough to make their grip look precarious. Foam and blood gathered thickly at the corner of his mouth, spilling down his chin as another seizure tore through him.

The healers met us halfway down the corridor.

They already had a stretcher waiting.

Platinum chains lay coiled across its surface, prepared before anyone had even lowered David onto it. Someone must have sent word the moment I shouted for them. No one stopped to ask what had happened. No one stared at the blood or the man fighting for his life in the middle of the night.

They had simply seen the emergency and moved.

The moment David was secured in those chains, the healers took over, wheeling him toward the infirmary while the sentinels followed until they were certain he was in capable hands.

I went with them as far as the infirmary doors.

Then I stopped.

There was nothing more I could do for David.

He had chosen death rather than give me a name. Whatever information he had carried with him was partly gone now, buried somewhere beneath the poison ravaging his body. I had already squeezed everything I could from him, and there was no point pretending otherwise.

So my mind moved on to better things.

My mind had moved on to Bonnie.

The only person in this entire estate whose survival I actually cared about tonight.

The healer who had been attending to her found me before I had taken three steps back into the corridor.

"We managed to secure a witch," she said, slightly breathless. "Despite the hour. She’s nearly here."

Relief came so quickly it almost felt like another kind of pain.

"I want to be there while she works."

"Of course, Alpha Lysander."

She turned immediately, and I followed her through another set of doors and down the short passage leading toward Bonnie’s space.

I made myself ask the question before I looked at her.

"How is she?"

"Stable." The healer replied in quick succession.

The word should have eased something inside me. But it didn’t.

"Nothing active is happening right now," the healer continued. "But we still don’t know what caused the episode. The witch’s diagnostics should tell us whether this was truly a magical attack, rather than relying on the hypothesis we have formed. If it was, she may be able to identify the nature of the spell and, hopefully, tell us how to prevent it from happening again."

She hesitated.

"At best, she may even be able to help us determine who was responsible."

"Then bring her here as quickly as possible."

"I will."

She glanced toward the room.

"You’re welcome to stay with your mate until she arrives."

I nodded.

The healer left, and I pushed open the door.

Bonnie lay exactly where they’d left her.

For a moment, I stood there.

She was asleep, or something close enough to sleep that I didn’t trust it. Her face was pale against the pillow, her lashes resting motionless against her cheeks. Her breathing was steady, but too shallow for my liking, each rise of her chest seeming smaller than the one before it.

I crossed the room.

When I took her hand, I did it carefully, avoiding the cuts along her forearm. The wounds had already been cleaned and covered with a thin layer of pale salve that carried the faint scent of crushed herbs.

She should have been able to heal them herself. That was what I thought at least. I still did not know much about how healers fully functioned.

Because under ordinary circumstances, those cuts would barely have lasted long enough to scar.

She was not only an Omega, too.

But it seemed whatever had happened tonight had taken something from her.

Perhaps it was just my own fear taking precedence, but I could feel that much even without knowing exactly what it was.

Her power should have been fighting its way back already. Instead, there was a strange weakness clinging to her, something that seemed to exist beneath the physical damage, beyond anything the healers had been able to touch.

I sat beside her.

For several seconds, I said nothing.

Then I tightened my fingers around hers, careful not to hurt her.

"I’m sorry." The words sounded pathetic the moment they left my mouth.

I looked down at her.

"I keep failing to keep you safe."

My throat tightened.

I’d spent years believing strength meant being the one who stood between danger and everyone under my protection. I’d believed that if I was powerful enough, ruthless enough, feared enough, nothing could reach the people who mattered to me.

And yet Bonnie was lying unconscious in front of me.

Again.

My thumb moved slowly across the back of her hand.

"I should have known something was wrong."

There was no answer—only the quiet rhythm of her breathing.

I lowered my head, pressing her hand against my mouth.

"I should have been there."

The door remained closed.

The witch still hadn’t arrived.

And for the first time in longer than I cared to admit, I found myself afraid that all the strength I possessed might still not be enough to keep the one person I couldn’t afford to lose alive.

The thoughts sat heavier in my chest than I expected them to.

I’d meant them as something small, something private, but they had lodged themselves beneath my ribs like a splinter I couldn’t work free. I kept staring at Bonnie’s hand in mine, at the faint rise and fall of her chest, wondering how many times I could tell myself I was protecting her before the words stopped meaning anything.

Footsteps approached from the corridor.

I recognized their weight before I turned.

It was Beta Bradley.

"I heard the rogue poisoned himself," he said.

"He did."

"I’m certain the healers will salvage something from him regardless." Bradley’s expression remained composed, but something sharpened behind his eyes. "If a rogue is willing to die rather than surrender his secrets, we’re dealing with something considerably more dangerous than a handful of disgruntled malcontents. Fanatics, most likely."

He paused.

"I intend to bring in a delicate to assist in determining exactly what we’re dealing with."

I did not mind that at all. In fact, I fully agreed. So I made it vocal.

"I agree."

Bradley nodded and turned toward the door.

Something in me refused to let him leave.

"Wait."

He stopped.

"I want to ask you something."

"Anything, Your Majesty."

I looked down at Bonnie for a moment before returning my attention to him.

"What did my uncle actually tell you when he decided to hand his seat to me instead of my cousin Johann?"

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