Zayne's POV
When the king starts to bleed:
Pain hit me without warning.
Not the clean kind. Not the kind I could fight through with clenched teeth and stubborn will. This pain crawled out from deep inside my chest, sharp and suffocating, like my lungs were filling with ice.
I staggered the moment I crossed the threshold of the house.
The bond flared weakly, Aurora’s presence flickering like a dying flame, and then my knees buckled.
“Alpha!”
Lana’s scream barely reached me before the world tilted violently. I caught myself against the wall, my fingers digging into stone, breath tearing out of my throat in ragged gasps.
“No,” I growled. “Not now," I whispered.
My illness had always been controlled. Suppressed. Locked behind discipline and denial.
But Aurora was gone. And without h
