The Biker Alpha Who Became My Second Chance Mate Chapter 114

Tristan's POV

The drive to Orion's house felt like it took forever. I kept my fingers pressed against Athena's neck, checking her pulse every few minutes.

Her heartbeat was weak but steady. Her breathing was shallow but consistent. She wasn't getting worse, but she wasn't getting better either.

I tried not to think about what would happen if she never woke up. Or worse, what would happen if she woke up and that thing was still inside her.

The car pulled into Orion's driveway and I saw Sarah on the front porch. She'd been pacing, I could tell from the way she immediately stopped moving when she spotted us. Her face was pale and her hands were shaking.

The moment Orion stepped out of the car, she ran to him. She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.

I couldn't hear what she was whispering to him, but I saw his whole body shake. He held her tight and closed his eyes like he was trying to absorb some of her strength.

After a minute, she pulled back and walked over to my side of the car. She looked down at Athena's wolf form in my arms and her eyes filled with tears.

"Is she going to be okay?" Sarah asked.

"I don't know," I said. It was the truth and Sarah deserved that.

She reached out and touched my shoulder. "I'm sorry. For all of this."

I nodded but I couldn't speak. My throat felt too tight.

Sarah stepped back so I could carry Athena into the house. My legs were still weak from whatever Athena had drained from me earlier, but I managed to make it up the front steps without stumbling.

Inside, Sarah led us down the hallway to a guest bedroom. She'd already prepared everything. There were thick curtains blocking out all the light.

The bed had been stripped down to just a mattress with a single sheet. On the nightstand was a syringe filled with something clear.

"The sedative," Sarah explained when she saw me looking at it. "Dr. Graze dropped it off an hour ago. He said it should keep her under for at least eight hours."

I laid Athena down on the bed as gently as I could. Her wolf form looked so small on the mattress. Her fur was still dull and lifeless. Her ribs were showing through her coat in a way that made my chest ache.

"Should I give her the injection now?" Sarah asked.

"Yes," Orion said from behind us. "We can't risk her waking up before we know more."

Sarah picked up the syringe and found a spot on Athena's hind leg where the fur was thin. She pushed the needle in and slowly pressed the plunger. Athena didn't even twitch.

"That should hold her," Sarah said. She capped the empty syringe and set it aside. "Dr. Graze will be here in a few hours to check on her."

Orion walked over to the window and pulled the curtains closed even tighter. "We need to lock the door too," he said without turning around.

I knew he was right, but the thought of locking Athena in a room made me feel sick. Still, I watched as he turned the deadbolt and pocketed the key.

"Where are Lily and Liam?" I asked Sarah as we left the room.

"At my friend's house," she said. "I didn't want them here for this. If something goes wrong..." I wanted to warn her of friends but something else came out.

"Thank you," I said. "Athena would never forgive herself if they saw her like this."

We walked to the living room and I collapsed into one of the armchairs. My whole body felt heavy and empty at the same time. Orion sat on the couch and put his head in his hands. Sarah sat next to him and rubbed his back.

The silence stretched on for several minutes. I could hear a clock ticking somewhere and the sound of cars driving past outside. Normal sounds from a normal world that felt completely foreign to me now.

"I need to know everything," I finally said. "About what happened back there. About what's inside Athena. All of it."

Orion lifted his head and looked at me. His eyes were bloodshot and there were new lines around them that hadn't been a while ago. More were adding up.

"I don't know where to start," he said.

"Start with your family," I said. "Start with why this is happening to her."

Orion rubbed his face and took a deep breath. "Our mother came from a family of what people used to call werewolf witches. They were wolves who could also drain life force from other living things."

Sarah's hand stopped moving on his back. I could tell this was new information for her too.

"The werewolf community saw them as dangerous," Orion continued. "Too powerful. Too unpredictable. So they hunted them down and killed them. All of them, or so they thought."

"But someone survived," I said.

"Our great-grandmother," Orion nodded. "Her mother hid her when the hunters came and told her to run. She did. She ran for years before she met our great-grandfather. He loved her despite what she was. He helped her learn to control it."

"How?" Sarah asked quietly.

"By never using it when she was angry," Orion said. "By never shifting when her emotions were running high. There was a thin line between a normal shift and tapping into that power. Our great-grandmother learned to stay on the safe side of that line."

I thought about all the times I'd seen Athena shift when she was upset or angry. How many times had she come close to crossing that line without knowing it?

Or was it that she wasn't that angy? Was it something Daxon had said to her?

"No one in our family had ever crossed that line," Orion said like he was reading my thoughts. "We thought the power had died out. That maybe the hunters had been right and it was too dangerous to exist."

"But then Athena was born," I said.

Orion's face crumpled. "The night she was born, the moon turned red. It wasn't supposed to be a blood moon that night, but it turned red anyway. The midwife took one look at the sky and told our mother that Athena was special. That's when Mom knew the power hadn't died. It had just been waiting."

"Waiting for what?" Sarah asked.

"For the right person," Orion said. "For someone strong enough to handle it."

I laughed but there was no humor in it. "Strong enough? Look what it did to her. Look what it made her do."

"She killed Daxon and Seraphine," Orion said quietly. "But I feel there was a reason. Maybe she wanted to safe us." His voice came out broken.

"She almost died," I shot back. "She drained herself so completely that she can barely breathe. How is that strong?"

"Because she fought it," Orion said. "When I commanded her to shift, that thing inside her fought back. But Athena was stronger. She chose to come back to us."

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to think that what happened in that cave was Athena choosing us over the power. But I'd felt what that thing was like through our bond. It wasn't gone. It was just sleeping.

"Is there a way to get rid of it?" I asked.

Orion was quiet for a long time. "I don't know," he finally said. "Mom only told me about our family history on her deathbed. She never had time to explain how to control it or how to make it go away."

"So what do we do?" My voice cracked. "Keep her sedated forever?"

"Dr. Graze is coming," Sarah said. "Maybe he'll have ideas."

"He's a pack physician," I said. "Not a specialist in ancient werewolf magic."

"Then we'll find someone who is," Orion said firmly. "We'll figure this out."

I stood up and started pacing. I couldn't sit still anymore. "What if we can't? What if there is no way to get rid of it?"

"There has to be," Sarah said. "There has to be something."

"You didn't see her back there," I said. I stopped pacing and looked at both of them. "You didn't feel what I felt through our bond. That thing wasn't just using her power. It was feeding on her. It was eating her from the inside out."

"I did too. Incase you've forgotten I can feel her too. I'm not just her Alpha, I'm her brother" he said in a angry tone.

He was right. I could feel him hurting, just that he always have a way to hide how's he's really feeling.

Always in control of his emotions, but I can't.

When I'm angry you'll know. I don't know how to be like him, especially when it has to do with Athena.