Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 37

ARIA

I'd been dozing fitfully, half-asleep and half-awake, when agony exploded through every nerve in my body. It felt like I'd swallowed wolfsbane—that burning, poisonous sensation that made wolves' insides feel like they were being shredded. Except this was coming through the bond, I realized with horror. This was Kael's pain, flooding through our connection with such intensity that my own body seized up in sympathetic response.

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream. Couldn't do anything but curl into a ball on my bed as wave after wave of agony crashed over me. My vision went white, then black, consciousness threatening to slip away entirely as my body tried to shut down to escape the pain.

*Kael,* I tried to think toward him, but the bond was a maelstrom of suffering that drowned out everything else.

Seconds felt like hours. The pain built and built until I was sure I was going to die from it, that no one could endure this and survive. My heart stuttered in my chest. My lungs refused to draw breath. Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision.

Then, slowly, the agony began to recede. Not gone, but manageable. Enough that I could gasp air into my burning lungs, could force my seized muscles to relax enough to move.

I rolled out of bed and immediately collapsed. My legs wouldn't hold me. Everything hurt—muscles, bones, nerves all screaming in protest. But I had to get to Kael. Had to know what was happening, if he was alright, if that pain meant the treatment had worked or had gone catastrophically wrong.

I crawled for a few feet before I managed to get my legs under me. The world spun sickeningly, and I had to brace myself against the wall to keep from falling. But I moved forward, one agonizing step at a time, driven by fear and the need to reach him.

The corridors were empty at this hour, dawn just beginning to lighten the sky outside the windows. I stumbled through them, still feeling echoes of pain through the bond, my body weak and shaking from what I'd experienced.

Kael's den was in the lower levels of the pack house, a large room he'd claimed as his personal space when the curse had made shifting impossible. I'd never been inside—it felt like an intrusion, a space too personal for someone who wasn't yet officially his mate.

But I was heading there now, pulled by instinct and terror in equal measure.

I was halfway down the corridor leading to his den when I heard it—a grunt of pain that made my heart stop. Then another. Then a scream that sounded wrong somehow, like it was being torn from a throat that wasn't used to making that particular sound.

I broke into a run, my weakened legs protesting but carrying me forward anyway.

Two guards were stationed outside Kael's den, and they moved to block my path when I approached.

"Luna Aria," one of them—Marcus, I thought his name was—said carefully. "You can't go in right now."

"Like hell I can't," I snapped, trying to push past him. "That's my mate in there. Whatever's happening, I need to be with him."

"Healer Ivory's orders," the other guard said, his expression apologetic but firm. "She said no non-healers during the treatment. That you wouldn't understand what was happening and might interfere."

The words hit like a slap. Ivory had specifically ordered me kept out. Had anticipated that I would come and had made sure I would be barred from entry.

"I don't care about Ivory's orders," I said, my voice rising. "I felt his pain through the bond. I felt what he's going through. Let me in. Now."

Another scream came from inside the den, this one even more wrong-sounding. Human and not-human at the same time, like two voices trying to emerge from one throat.

"We have our orders," Marcus said, though he looked uncomfortable. "Please, Luna Aria. The healers know what they're doing. You need to trust them."

Trust them. Trust Ivory, who'd looked at me with cold assessment behind her pleasant smile. Trust that I wasn't needed, that I would just be in the way, that my presence would somehow make things worse.

I wanted to force my way in. Wanted to use every bit of authority I had as future Luna to override their orders. But what if they were right? What if I didn't understand what was happening and interfered at a crucial moment? What if my presence caused the treatment to fail?

So I paced instead, back and forth in the corridor, my hands clenched into fists as I listened to Kael's sounds of agony. The bond was still mostly muted, but flashes of sensation broke through—pain, yes, but also something else. Change. Transformation. Something fundamental shifting in ways that felt impossible.

Minutes stretched endlessly. I wore a path in the stone floor, my mind spinning with worst-case scenarios. What if the treatment killed him? What if I lost him before we'd even bonded, before I'd had a chance to see if what we were building could become real?

What if Ivory had done this deliberately, had convinced Kael to try this treatment knowing it might kill him, removing the obstacle between her and whatever position she wanted in the pack?

*No,* I told myself firmly. *That's paranoia talking. Irrational fear. She's a healer, she wants to help him. Just because you don't like her doesn't mean she's trying to hurt him.*

Then the screaming stopped.

The sudden silence was almost worse than the noise had been. I froze mid-pace, straining to hear anything from inside the den.

Gasps. Multiple voices expressing shock or surprise. Ivory's confident tone saying something I couldn't quite make out.

And then—impossible, surely impossible—a voice I didn't recognize. Deep, masculine, rough with pain but unmistakably human. Unmistakably speaking rather than communicating through mindlink.

"Did it work?" The voice asked, husky and uncertain. "Am I—"