Queen of Death

Ace

~ one month earlier ~

“Name your price,” I snarl at my piece of shit father. Sol’s chest is barely moving, an indication of how slow and shallow her breathing has become.

He pulls his bony fingers out of his pockets and slips off a gaudy gold ring with a ruby gem in the center. “This ring makes the wearer immune to the many protective charms the Elders have put on various rooms here. Every Elder has one.”

“Name your fucking price or I’ll cut it off your hand and leave you to bleed out.” I don’t have time for a jewelry lesson. My mate is dying in front of my eyes and I need to get to her.

“Teleport me out of here unharmed to a place of my choosing and I’ll give you this ring.”

“Done.” I grab him by the collar of his shirt and teleport us out under his direction. As soon as the ring touches my palm I teleport back to the room where the guys are waiting.

“Bring them back to the Grove and meet us in the hospital,” I instruct Rhys.

I focus on Hunter, using our bond to guide me to him. I teleport to him and with the ring I am relieved to discover my father hadn’t lied, it really does work and in the next blink I finally have Sol in my arms.

Blood and organs spill out of her, hot and heavy. Griffin shoves everything back in haphazardly, frantically trying to close the wound and stop the bleeding.

“Solana, open your eyes, baby. That’s it. Keep them open for me, baby.” Hunter cradles her head and his hands, pleading with her to stay with us as Griffin bathes her in warm, golden light.

When I’m confident that Griffin has all of her body parts contained, I teleport us to the Grove’s hospital. We land in the middle of the hallway in the same positions as when we left. On our knees, literally holding Solana together.

Ember comes flying down the hall and ushers us into a room, calling out orders to nurses and other doctors around us. Griffin keeps up his steady stream of healing light. The violent tremor in his hands causes the light to warble in a manner consistent with his terror.

Xander pulls him off of her as he screams for his father to let him stay to heal her before they teleport away.

The hall and room is becoming crowded with people either trying to save Sol or to spectate. Like a bad car crash that you can’t help looking at as you purposefully drive slowly past it.

Dean, Eli, Tate, and her brothers stand behind the glass sliding door, watching the commotion in the room. Bags are being ripped open, gauze and towels are being pressed against her, medicine injected into her veins.

There’s so much going on it’s overwhelming, even for me. Then, just as quickly as it had started, everything stopped. The only sound to be heard was the flatline beep of her heart monitor.

I catch Hunter before he collapses and ease him into a chair. He pulls his head down with his hands and releases an anguished cry so primal it nearly brings me to my knees. Dean and Cole have Tate and Eli in a bear hug, trying to keep them upright and stopping them from running as is their usual M.O.

“Like hell you’re dying on me, Solana,” Ember swears under her breath. Looking up from Sol, Ember briefly searches the room before her focus lands on me and Hunter.

“Hunter, get your ass over here. You, too, alpha.” She orders and the nurses by Sol make room for us to stand by her bed on either side of her. “Hands on her heart, boys. Hurry.”

“I thought you couldn’t heal the dead,” one of the nurses whispers hurriedly to Ember only to wither under Ember’s smoldering glare a moment later.

“She’s not dead,” Ember breathes fire. “She is the daughter of Queens and Alphas. She doesn’t get to die.”

Ember puts her hand on top of mine and Hunter’s over Sol’s heart and a deluge of golden light douses the room. It’s intensely bright and soothing, aiding mine and Hunter’s ability to will her heart to beat again. We throw our entire soul against the bond, plowing rhythmically like soldiers with a battering ram against the barrier she put up.

Thump. Thump. Thump. We beat against the blockage in our bond.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Come on Sol, let us in.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Our heads snap to the machine next to the head of her bed. Faint blips set far apart begin beeping on the heart monitor. Ember never relents on her light and we don’t relent on our bond. Slowly but surely her heart beat gets faster and stronger.

Hunter and I are staring at her with cautious optimism but Ember’s expression doesn’t match ours. Her brow is heavily creased and her lips are turned down in a frown.

“Knock her out. I’m not done healing her and if she comes to,she’ll stroke out from the pain.” Ember orders the nurses in the area. Quickly they use strong meds to put Solana in a comfortable sleep long enough for Ember to heal her.

I don’t care how long it takes. My mate’s heart is beating again and that’s all that matters right now.

***

I lied when I said I didn’t care how long it took. I counted every single agonizing minute she was asleep. Hunter and I rarely leave her bedside. For two weeks we’ve lived almost exclusively in this room. We stay out of the way of the nurses, doctors, and healers who check on her hourly and for the most part they turn a blind eye to us taking up residence in Sol’s hospital room.

I suspect Sol’s parents have something to do with it, too. Not that everyone isn’t kind, but I doubt they’d give this kind of latitude to just anyone.

Dean and Eli spend a good amount of time here with her, too. Dean brings us food and a new change of clothes whereas Eli comes to satisfy the demands of our bond. His wolf craves the presence of his alpha and our mate, whether he wants to admit it out loud or not. Either way I’m not going to push him on it. He’s here. He’s holding firm. And that’s all I can really ask of him right now.

Tate is another story. He took Sol’s brief lapse in life, as they’ve taken to saying in lieu of death, personally. I’ve tried reaching him through our bond, I’ve tried reasoning with him. I’ve even tried throwing the full force of my alpha aura on him, demanding he submit to rational thought.

But the only thing that really helped him was helping Sol’s parents clean house at the council headquarters.

Word of Elena’s, and possibly other Elders’, involvement with Lobo and my father spread quickly to other colonies. Even local packs were reaching out to us with offers of aid and allyship against the remaining council Elders.

Queen Magnolia gave the Elders a week to give up anyone with any knowledge of Elena’s misdeeds or involvement of their own before she promised to rain hellfire upon them and seek the truth for herself.

They didn’t expect Magnolia to have the support she did from other colonies and packs. So after a week of silence, Magnolia made good on her promise. She gathered up every living soul in that place. Those who resisted were killed on the spot. The rest were interrogated.

Sol’s dads and brothers sifted through the swamp the council had become and isolated the weeds that had been poisoning the entire organization. Those are the people they gave to Tate.

Our resident psychopath showed everyone how he got that moniker by torturing the shit out of the corrupt Elders and handful of accomplices that had any part in this mess, even so much as a text acknowledging someone’s wrongdoing, he tortured them for it.

When he’d satisfied his bloodlust for the day he’d sneak into Sol’s room. Hunter is usually sound asleep when Tate comes by, but not me. I watch him from my spot in a dark corner of the room. He punishes himself by not reaching for her hand and holding it, by not inhaling her scent deep into his lungs.

He won’t touch her because he doesn’t think he’s earned it. Not until everyone responsible for her “brief lapse in life” has suffered enough. But that’s just it. He’ll never believe that anyone will have suffered enough.

I don’t think he’ll stop until she commands it. I’ve been able to help him dull the edges of his rage, I’ve gotten him to accept food and sleep on occasion. I can keep him functioning, but whatheneeds in order to heal is his Queen.

Another two weeks go by in similar fashion. They moved Sol into a new suite last week. One with fewer monitors, fewer tubes and wires, and fewer visits from people checking on her at all hours of the day and night. Now that the majority of damage has been healed, they weaned her off the sleeping meds.

During the day she’d open her eyes for a few minutes at a time. She’d give us smiles and reassuring squeezes to our hands. Every day she grew stronger and stronger. Hunter and I finally felt comfortable enough leaving her to sleep on her own in the evenings allowing us to spend more time with the rest of the guys.

We piled into Sol’s bedroom where her scent was the strongest and impatiently waited for the day that we could bring her home.