She Stole My Bloodline, My Alpha, And My Death Sentence Chapter 07

She Stole My Bloodline, My Alpha, And My Death Sentence Chapter 07

He did not spare me a single glance. He threw himself at Elara’s bedside, seized her skeletal hand, and wept like a man praying to a god who had already turned away. “Elara, don’t be scared! I’ve contacted the best healers in the world! I’ll spend every last cent I have to save you!”

My Moon Goddess bloodline was still in Elara’s body, which meant she continued to hold an overpowering pull on Corvin.

Elara looked at him. Those eyes that had once blazed with possessiveness every time they landed on Corvin were now filled with nothing but revulsion and dread.

She knew that the harder Corvin pushed the healers to keep her alive with aggressive treatments, the longer her suffering would drag on.

She wanted to beg him to pull the tubes and let her die, but she could not even form the words anymore.

I shut the door behind me, sealing that suffocating chorus of sobs on the other side.

Outside the hospital entrance, the summer sun was brilliant and warm, a perfect mirror of my mood.

Then I went to the dungeon to meet the witch.

Her name was Linnea Lowood. Her hair was matted and tangled, she had a prominent hawk nose, and her eyes were an almost unsettlingly vivid blue.

“What do you want, Your Highness?” she said in a rasping voice. “I

can help you. I can take anything you desire. You have your health now, and a brilliant mind. You could seize control of the entire werewolf kingdom without breaking a sweat. Your father should step down, shouldn’t he?”

My gaze was steady. “I’m not going to take anything from anyone. But I’ve seen another gift in you. You should be creating, not stealing.”

“Ms. Lowood, you are a remarkable healer.”

Linnea was silent for two full seconds, then asked in genuine disbelief, “You mean you’re not going to kill me?”

“I endured the Silver Moon Curse for twenty years. I know what it’s like to lie awake in the dark listening to your own heart pounding out of control. I know how hopeless it feels for patients who can never step into sunlight because of a genetic defect.”

“Fate gave me a sharp mind and put you right in front of me. If I used that to play petty power games, it would be an insult to life itself.”

“I’m willing to provide resources. I’ll make you the foremost authority on curses.”

“You’ll have the recognition you deserve, and everything that comes with it.”

Ms. Lowood was quiet for a long moment. When she looked at me again, her voice carried a tremor of something close to fervor.

“It would be my honor to serve you, Your Highness.”

—

Time moved quickly. Three months slipped by in a blink.

In all that time, Elara did not die.

No miracle came. Corvin kept her alive through sheer, brutal force.

He mobilized every resource the Graythorn Pack possessed, surrounding Elara with the most expensive medical equipment in the world and an arsenal of top-tier life-sustaining drugs.

Elara was trapped on that hospital bed with no way out.

Months of being bedridden combined with the side effects of the medications ravaged her once-beautiful face. Her features swelled and distorted beyond recognition. Her skin was mottled with purple hemorrhage spots and covered in festering bedsores.

“Elara is my mate. She can’t die. She’s going to be my Luna—”

Corvin repeated these words every single day like a man possessed.

He even taped photos of the two of them together to the railing of her hospital bed.

Whenever Elara’s eyes rolled back from the pain, he would point at one of those photos and say, “Elara, look. You’re the perfect princess. You can’t give up!”

Elara stared at Corvin with pure venom. The bloodline and the Alpha she had sacrificed everything to obtain had become the very shackles that trapped her between a life she could not bear and a death she could not reach.

Finally, on a full-moon night deep in autumn, the grotesque ordeal came to its end.

That evening, a nurse pulled back the curtains. Moonlight flooded the

room and crushed what was left of Elara’s overburdened heart.

Her body convulsed once, hard, then slammed back against the mattress.

Her clouded eyes stared wide at the ceiling. A single murky tear slid from the corner of her eye. A tear of release.

Almost the exact instant Elara’s heart stopped beating, dozens of miles away, Calla froze mid-sob in front of her mirror.

Ever since her face had mysteriously fallen apart during her sophomore year, she had dropped out for two full years. She had not dared to step outside or let anyone see her.

But just now, in that single second, she felt an odd warmth spread across her skin.

With trembling fingers, she reached up and touched her cheek. The horrifying red blotches and pitted scars that had stumped every dermatologist she had ever seen were fading before her very eyes.