The Biker Alpha Who Became My Second Chance Mate Chapter 99

Athena's POV

The first thing I felt was the cold, not the kind that comes from a breeze but the kind that crawls into your bones and settles there like it belongs.

My head throbbed with each heartbeat and my throat burned like I'd been screaming for hours, though I couldn't remember making a sound. My entire body felt heavy and sluggish, like someone had filled my veins with concrete instead of blood.

Panic kicked in instantly because nothing about this felt right and everything about it felt wrong.

I forced my eyes open but the darkness swallowed everything around me, so thick and complete that I could barely make out the outline of my hands when I lifted them in front of my face.

My skin was clammy with cold sweat and my breathing came in short, uneven bursts that echoed strangely in whatever space I was trapped in.

Then it hit me like a punch to the gut.

The air was sharp and bitter, carrying that metallic tang that made my wolf whimper and retreat deeper inside me like she was trying to hide from something that could hurt her.

Wolfsbane.

My stomach twisted into knots as I reached desperately for the bond, clawing at that golden thread that should have connected me to Tristan no matter how far apart we were.

I needed to feel him, needed to know he was looking for me, needed anything that would tell me I wasn't completely alone in this nightmare.

Nothing came back to me except silence.

The bond was still there but muted and suffocated under a thick, choking fog that made it impossible to reach through. It was like trying to call someone through a wall of cotton, knowing they were on the other side but unable to make them hear you.

"No," I whispered, and my voice came out ragged and broken. I tried again, mentally clawing at that space where Tristan should have been, but there was still only that empty, crushing void where his presence should have anchored me.

Tears pricked my eyes and I blinked them back because crying wouldn't help and weakness wouldn't save me. Not now and not here, wherever here was.

I sat up slowly and every muscle in my body screamed in protest like I'd been thrown down a flight of stairs. Chains clinked somewhere near my ankle and I felt cold metal bite into my skin, the weight of it both foreign and terrifying.

The panic only got worse as reality started to sink in.

I was chained up in some dark place, drugged with wolfsbane, cut off from my mate, and I had no idea how long I'd been unconscious or who had done this to me.

My hands shook as I reached down to feel the shackle around my ankle, the metal smooth and unyielding under my fingers.

I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to think past the fear, to remember what had happened before everything went black.

It came in flashes like scenes from a movie played out of order.

A knock on the door while I was impatiently waiting for Derek to come, because he sounded weird on the call.

Yes, I remembered that part now. When I heard the knock, I'd thought it might be Derek coming over like he'd promised.

But it wasn't Derek or anyone from the pack.

It was Seraphine.

My eyes flew open at the memory and my breath came quicker as the pieces started falling into place.

She had stood in my doorway looking pale and exhausted, her usually perfect hair a tangled mess around her face.

I remember blinking at her in confusion because Tristan had gotten a call just minutes earlier saying Seraphine had tried to kill herself and was in the hospital.

"What... what are you doing here?" I had stammered, keeping my voice soft but wary because something about seeing her there felt wrong. "Shouldn't you be in the hospital? Tristan had gone to check up on you"

Seraphine had just stared at me for a long moment with eyes that looked too bright, too focused, before saying in a clipped tone that sounded almost annoyed, "I needed to talk to Tristan. It's important, I thought he'd still be home.."

Something about her voice had been wrong from the start, brittle and sharp around the edges, but she had looked so desperate standing there that I stepped aside anyway and let her into my home.

"What do you want to talk about? Maybe I might tell him if he gets back." I asked after she came inside and I closed the door behind her.

She didn't answer right away and instead sighed like I was being difficult, then sat down on my couch like she belonged there and had every right to make herself comfortable in my space.

"Can you get me something first? Water or anything really. I'm so thirsty."

I hesitated because something felt off about the whole situation, but she looked genuinely exhausted and if she'd just gotten out of the hospital after a suicide attempt, the least I could do was get her a glass of water.

I finally nodded and turned to head for the kitchen, already mentally preparing myself for whatever conversation was about to happen.

I was halfway to the sink, reaching for a clean glass from the cabinet, when her voice floated after me, low and venomous and nothing like the desperate tone she'd used at the door.

"You stole him away from me." I froze with the glass still in my hand, my blood running cold at the hatred in her voice.

"What?" I turned back toward the living room, expecting to see the same exhausted woman who'd asked for help.

But she wasn't sitting on the couch anymore.

She was standing right behind me, close enough that I could see the fury twisting her face into something ugly and unfamiliar.

Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides and her eyes burned with a rage that made my wolf recoil inside me.

"You stole him from me," she repeated, her voice rising with each word. "He was supposed to be mine. We had something real before you came back and ruined everything. Now you have to pay for what you did."

I barely had time to process what she was saying, let alone move away from her, before I felt the sharp sting in my neck, fast and precise like a needle sliding into my skin.

My free hand flew to the spot as everything around me began to tilt sideways like the world was sliding off its axis.

"W-what did you do?" I tried to ask, but my tongue felt too heavy and the words came out slurred and wrong.

The glass slipped from my other hand and shattered on the kitchen floor, the sound seeming to come from very far away even though it happened right next to me.

I tried holding on to the sink or anything as I could feel myself floating.

The room swam before my eyes as Seraphine's face came closer, and I could see that the desperate, exhausted mask had fallen away completely.

What was left underneath was calm and cold and satisfied.

As I falling, I held on the stool but we both landed on the floor together.

"You should never have come back," she whispered, and those were the last words I heard before darkness swallowed me whole and dragged me down into nothing.