Broken heart of a warrior

Chapter 8

Tillägnad till

xXChemicalQueens97Xx

Everything around me was unnaturally quiet, the kind of silence that felt almost sacred, almost unreal, as if the world itself had paused and was holding its breath. For a moment, I let myself sink into it, surrendering to the stillness, letting the calm wash over me like warm water seeping into tired bones. It wrapped around me gently, deceptively comforting, softening the edges of whatever nightmare I had clawed my way out of.

I tried to shift in the bed, to stretch and turn, to reassure myself that I was still in control of my own body, but the IV line tethering my arm pulled me back with a stubborn, almost accusing tug. A quiet groan slipped past my lips as frustration stirred. I blinked against the harsh brightness flooding the room, my vision swimming before slowly adjusting to the sterile white walls that surrounded me.

The room was bare, painfully almost oppressively so. No personal touches. No warmth. Just the single bed beneath me, stiff and unfamiliar, and the faint, rhythmic hum of machines nearby. The air smelled sharply of antiseptic, clean to the point of suffocation, as if it was trying to erase anything human that dared exist within it.

As I lifted the sheet, a flicker of shock ran through me, sharp, immediate, impossible to ignore. I was wearing nothing but my underpants. My breath caught for a second, my pulse quickening as unease crept in.

My mind raced. Why was I here like this? Why was I basically naked while blood, and lifesaving fluids, pumped steadily into me? The vulnerability of it made my skin prickle. Confusion gripped me like a cold hand wrapping around my throat, tightening just enough to make it hard to think. For a heartbeat, everything felt distant, fragmented, like pieces of a memory just out of reach.

Then it hit me.

The fragile calm shattered instantly, like glass under pressure.

The memory surged back, sharp, violent, merciless. The attack at the mall. Chaos erupting without warning, screams tearing through the air. The deafening crack of gunfire. The flash of metal catching the light just before impact.

I had taken a bullet protecting the princess.

Damn it.

My hand instinctively rose to my left shoulder, fingers brushing over the wound. It was smaller now, already knitting itself back together, but the skin was still tender, heat pulsing faintly beneath the surface. A dull throb lingered, a reminder that even we were not untouchable.

Werewolves healed fast, faster than any human could comprehend, but even we were not invincible. Not against something like silver bullet. Not against a moment like that.

It would take days for the injury to fully close, days for the ache to disappear completely.

And even longer for the memory to stop replaying behind my eyes.

A shaky sigh escaped me as I replayed the events in my mind, each fragment surfacing in uneven flashes, the blur of being carried blending with the disorienting motion and the steady, grounding weight of my mate just behind us, his presence lingering like a protective shadow that refused to leave my side, even in the chaos, even when everything else had felt like it was slipping out of control.

My thoughts shifted quickly, catching on something far more immediate and unsettling, and I found myself hoping, almost desperately, that it had been Blade who undressed me, because the thought of anyone else seeing me, even partially made my stomach tighten with a quiet but unmistakable tension that spread through my body.

If Alessandros had seen me, if he had caught even the smallest glimpse beneath the surface, he would recognize me for who I truly was, Alina, not Kendra, not the carefully constructed identity I had worn like armor, but me, exposed in a way I could not afford to be.