Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 48

ARIA

The clinic was chaos when we arrived.

Healers rushed between rooms, their voices urgent as they called for supplies and assistance. The smell of blood and antiseptic hung heavy in the air, making my stomach clench. Nina's face had gone pale, her usual composure cracking as she tried to get information about her cousin's condition.

"Where is she?" Nina demanded of the first healer she could grab—a young man named Thomas who looked overwhelmed by the sudden influx of patients. "Where's Ivory? How bad is it?"

"Room three," Thomas said, gesturing down the corridor. "But you can't—Healer Eliza said no visitors yet. She's still assessing the damage."

"She's my cousin," Nina snapped, already moving in that direction. "I'm going in."

Kael and I followed, me still supporting most of his weight as he limped along. The cuts from his fight with Damon were bleeding sluggishly, and I could feel pain radiating through our bond that he was trying to shield from me. But he was determined to see Ivory, to make sure she was alright, and nothing was going to stop him.

We reached room three just as Eliza emerged, her expression grave. Her hands were covered in blood—Ivory's blood, I realized with a lurch of my stomach—and there was a weariness in her eyes that suggested the situation was worse than I'd hoped.

"How is she?" Nina asked immediately. "Can I see her?"

Eliza's gaze flickered between us, lingering on the fresh mating marks on Kael's and my throats before settling on Nina. "She's alive. But Nina, it's bad. That blow to her head when she hit the table—there's swelling we can't control yet. Internal bleeding that we're trying to manage. And her ribs—at least three broken, one of which punctured her lung. She's breathing, but barely."

The clinical description made it sound almost manageable. But the fear in Eliza's voice told a different story.

"Can I see her?" Nina repeated, her voice breaking slightly.

"Five minutes," Eliza said. "But she's unconscious. She won't know you're there."

Nina disappeared into the room without another word. Kael tried to follow, but Eliza put a hand on his chest, stopping him.

"Alpha, you need treatment yourself. Those cuts are deep, and you've lost blood—"

"After," Kael said firmly, echoing what he'd told Nina earlier. "I need to see her first. Need to thank her for what she did."

Eliza looked like she wanted to argue, but something in Kael's expression—desperation mixed with guilt—made her step aside. "Five minutes. Then you're letting me treat you, even if I have to sedate you to do it."

Kael nodded and limped into the room. I started to follow, but Eliza's hand on my arm stopped me.

"Luna Aria, perhaps you should wait out here. Give them privacy for—"

"I'm going in," I said quietly but firmly. "Ivory did this for me as much as for Kael. I need to see her. Need to understand what she sacrificed."

Eliza studied my face for a long moment, then nodded reluctantly. "Be prepared. She doesn't look good."

That was an understatement.

The room was small, dominated by the treatment table where Ivory lay motionless. Someone had cleaned the blood from her face, but the bruising was already spectacular—deep purple spreading across her left cheek and jaw where Damon's fist had connected. Her nose was clearly broken, set at an angle that made me wince just looking at it. But it was the way she lay so still, her chest barely rising with each shallow breath, that truly frightened me.

This vibrant, competent woman who'd been coordinating security just hours ago now looked fragile. Broken. Like a strong wind might shatter her completely.

Nina stood beside the table, holding Ivory's hand, tears streaming silently down her face. Kael moved to Ivory's other side, his expression stricken as he took in the extent of her injuries.

"This is my fault," he said hoarsely. "She did this for me. Put herself in danger to protect the ceremony, to make sure Aria and I could complete the bonding. And now she's—"

"She's a fighter," Nina interrupted, her voice fierce despite the tears. "She's survived worse than this. She'll pull through. She has to."

But I heard the doubt underneath the certainty. The fear that this time, Ivory's luck had run out.

I hung back near the door, feeling like an intruder on this intimate moment of grief. These were people who'd known Ivory for years, who loved her like family. What right did I have to be here, when my presence—my very existence in Shadowmere—was the reason she'd been hurt?

Through the bond, I felt Kael's anguish, his guilt, his desperate wish that he could trade places with Ivory. That it was him lying broken on that table instead of her.

*This isn't your fault,* I tried to project through our connection. *Or mine. This is Damon's fault. He's the one who attacked her.*

But the reassurance rang hollow even to me. Because if I'd never come to Shadowmere, if I'd stayed in Blackwood and accepted my place as Damon's convenient assistant, none of this would have happened. Ivory would be safe. Kael wouldn't be standing here drowning in guilt.

The pack would be whole instead of fractured by my arrival.

"I'll find a way to make this right," Kael said softly, speaking to Ivory even though she couldn't hear him. "Whatever you need, whatever it takes for you to heal—you'll have it. I swear it."

A knock on the door made us all turn. Two junior healers stood in the doorway, their arms full of supplies. They were young—probably not even twenty yet—and their eyes widened when they saw who was in the room.

"Healer Eliza sent us," one of them said—a girl named Sarah, I thought. "She needs these for the treatment. Fresh bandages, blood-clotting potions, pain suppressants."