Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 13

ARIA

The pack infirmary was a blur of motion and desperate voices when Nina helped me through the doors.

"Sit here," she ordered, guiding me to a bench against the wall. "I'll get someone to look at your wounds."

"I'm fine," I protested, trying to stand. "I need to see Kael—"

"You're bleeding through your clothes, Aria." Nina's voice was gentle but firm. "You can't help him if you collapse from blood loss. Five minutes. Let us treat you, then you can go to him."

I wanted to argue, but she was already waving over one of the younger healers—a woman named Sarah with kind eyes and efficient hands.

"Nightwalker attack," Nina explained quickly. "Check her over thoroughly. Their claws carry infection."

Sarah knelt in front of me, carefully cutting away the torn fabric of my pants to examine my leg. I hissed as air hit the wounds.

"Three deep lacerations," Sarah murmured, cleaning the wounds with something that burned. "You're lucky. A few inches higher and they would have hit the femoral artery."

Lucky. Right. I'd nearly been killed by invisible monsters, and the only reason I was alive was because a cursed Alpha had thrown himself between me and death.

As Sarah worked, I could hear the controlled chaos from the main treatment room where they'd taken Kael. Healers shouting orders, the acrid smell of blood and fear, someone crying softly.

"How is he?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "The Alpha—is he—"

"They're doing everything they can," Sarah said, but I heard the uncertainty in her tone. "The wounds are deep, and nightwalker attacks are notoriously difficult to treat. Their claws carry a toxin that prevents normal healing."

My stomach dropped. "What does that mean?"

"It means even with our best healers working on him, his wolf can't heal the way it normally would. And with the curse already weakening him..." She trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence.

She didn't have to. I understood.

Kael was dying.

He'd saved my life, and now he was dying because of it.

"I need to see him," I said urgently. "Please, I need—"

"Let me finish bandaging these wounds," Sarah interrupted, moving to the gashes on my shoulder. "The nightwalkers got you good, but the cuts are clean. No signs of toxin in your system—you must have gotten lucky, or the Alpha killed them before they could inject you properly."

Lucky again. While Kael lay dying in the next room.

Sarah worked quickly, wrapping my wounds in clean bandages and giving me something for the pain that I barely registered. My entire focus was on the sounds coming from the main treatment room—urgent voices, running footsteps, someone saying "We're losing him" in a tone of absolute despair.

"Done," Sarah finally said. "But Aria, you need to rest. You've lost blood, and the shock—"

I was already standing, limping toward the treatment room before she could finish.

Nina tried to intercept me at the door. "Aria, maybe you shouldn't—"

"I'm going in," I said firmly. "He saved my life. I'm not leaving him alone."

Something in my voice must have convinced her, because she stepped aside and opened the door.

The sight that greeted me made my knees weak.

Kael lay on a massive treatment table that had been specially constructed to accommodate his wolf form. Six healers surrounded him, their hands working frantically to stem the bleeding from multiple wounds. His magnificent black fur was matted with blood—so much blood that it pooled on the floor beneath the table.

His breathing was shallow, labored. His eyes were closed, and even from across the room, I could see that he was fading.

"The wounds aren't closing," one healer said desperately. "I've tried everything—pressure, cauterization, even the emergency blood-clotting potions. Nothing's working."

"The nightwalker toxin is too strong," another healer replied, his voice breaking. "Combined with the curse already in his system, his body can't fight it. He's losing too much blood too fast."

"There has to be something!" Nina snapped from beside me. "He's the strongest Alpha in the Northern Territories. He can't just—"

She couldn't finish. Couldn't say the word *die*.

I stood frozen, staring at Kael's still form, watching his chest rise and fall in increasingly shallow breaths. This couldn't be happening. Not like this. Not after everything.

Then I remembered.

The moonbeam plants.

"Wait!" I shouted, making everyone in the room turn to stare at me. "I have something. I don't know if it will help, but—"

I patted my pockets frantically. Had I dropped them in the forest? Had they been lost in the attack?

No. There. In my jacket pocket, somehow miraculously preserved despite everything—three moonbeam plants, their silvery-blue leaves slightly crushed but still intact, their root systems carefully wrapped in damp moss.

I pulled them out with shaking hands. "Moonbeam plants. I was harvesting them when the nightwalkers attacked. They have powerful healing properties, and they can help stabilize wolf energy. I don't know if they'll work on nightwalker toxin, but—"

The head healer—an elderly woman named Eliza—gasped. "Moonbeam plants? Do you know how rare those are? I haven't seen them in twenty years."

"Can they help him?" I demanded, limping forward to thrust the plants at her. "Please, tell me they can help."

Eliza took the plants with reverent hands, examining them carefully. "Moonbeam plants are one of the most potent healing herbs known to our kind. They can amplify a wolf's natural healing abilities, help fight off foreign toxins..." She looked up at me, hope flickering in her eyes. "They might work. It's a slim chance, but it's better than nothing."

"Then use them," I said urgently. "Use all of them if you have to. Just save him."

Eliza didn't need to be told twice. She moved to a preparation table, working with quick, practiced efficiency. She crushed the leaves into a paste, mixed in the roots with several other herbs I didn't recognize, and created a thick, silvery poultice.