The Alpha's Forced Cure

Part 1: The Claim Aris's POV The scent of panic was the first thing that hit me - thick and metallic, lingering around the room. It mingled with the smell of blood and the seemingly useless aroma of burnt healing herbs. My infirmary, my sanctuary, had been violated by chaos. From the doorway, I took in the scene with a practical, detached eye. A young boy, not a warrior yet, no matter what he called himself, was laying on the cot in the middle of the room. His leg was caught in a rogue trap - one of many set by the older warriors around our pack borders. The heavy tension engulfed the room, thick enough to be cut by a knife, and the only sound that seemed to be tangible was the boys breathing - a shallow, wet rattle. He only had a couple minutes left. The other healers, Elara and Maeve, were anxiously fluttering around him like terrified birds. Their hands, shimmering with the faint blue light of pack magic, were unfortunately doing nothing. Magic was useless against shredded muscle and arterial bleeding. It was like trying to patch a gaping wound with a prayer. The boy’s mother was sitting in the corner of the room, her back against the wall, her muffled sobs rhythmically echoing throughout the infirmary. “Stop,” I said. My voice wasn’t loud, but it sliced through the noise like a scalpel. Elara and Maeve froze, their magical light fluttering and dimming as they became more concentrated on my voice. The mother’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with a stare that could only portray a sad, terrified hope. “Pressure,” I commanded, walking towards the boy and pointing to a spot high on the his thigh. “Maeve, your full weight, right on this spot. Don’t stop until I tell you to do so.” Maeve, her face pale, scrambled to obey, knowing my intentions. I turned to Elara. “Get me the silver suture kit. And three vials of blood replenisher. Now.” Panicked, she ran towards the closet, located near the entrance, meanwhile I was already at the boy’s side, my fingers trying to find the slow, steady pulse on his ankle. His body was failing. I ignored the mothers gaze, fixated on me from the corner, a stare that held awe combined with terror. She was not looking at Aris, an Omega who lived at the edge of the pack, in the forest. She was looking at the doctor, a being with cold steel, and colder calculation, one that might just be able to hold back swift death. Elara returned, shaking as she handed me the instruments. I laid them out on a clean cloth across the table on a clean cloth - scalpel, forceps, clamps, needle driver. These are my tools, and in truth, my real hands. As I began to work, the chaos surrounding me faded into just a quiet hum. This was my world - not of fate, not of magic, not of fate, but of real, observable reality. I removed the dead tissue from the wound, my scalpel moving with calculated strokes and incisions, cutting away the dying and already dead tissue. Each slice was precise, each movement done with purpose. The scent of antiseptic and alcohol was sharp, but a pleasant replacement for the smell of fear. This, I thought, my hands moving automatically along the injury, is real. The solid weight of the forceps steady in my hands. The delicate, but wary work of identifying and clamping the severed artery. The satisfying scrape of my probe, scraping against the gritty bone while checking the injury. This was the truth I could hold, my truth. The boy's mother watched my every move, not a breath escaping her lungs. I could feel her hope rising with every thud of her son's heart becoming more powerful. Hope was a foreign feeling I have refused to believe in. Hope is unscientific. My mind, as it often did during complex procedures, drifted towards this forbidden emotion, one I had long ago discarded. I remember the phantom feeling of it, a supposed "mate bond" that had felt like a glorious, heavenly dream. A dream that had abruptly vanished, in a storm of public humiliation and laughter, leaving behind only the remnants of logic. That bond, they said, was fate. But it was not. It was magic - a lie. The steady thump of the boy's heart under my fingers as I administered the blood replenisher was more real, more trustworthy, than any promise the Moon Goddes had ever made. The tight pull I made on the first suture as I began closing the wound felt deeper and more fullfiling than any fated connection. This was my purpose - not to be one half of a whole, but to make others whole again. I worked for nearly an hour, cleansing the wound with saline, carefully dabbing it on the shattered tibia and preparing it for the external fixator, each step part of a process only I understood. Finally, I was stitching the remaining part of his wound, my needle skillfully diving in and out of the skin. The bleeding had stopped, and the future warrior's breathing became more steady, deeper, regular. His color was returning. I snipped the final suture and stepped back. "He'll live" I said, my voice flat. The mother left out a half sob, half scream, and in the glimpse of a second, she was in front of me. "Thank you", she wept, repeating her words and kneeling in front of me, while tightly grasping her son's hand, her face a mess of tears and raw gratitude. "Goddes, thank you, doctor!" I gave a quick and court nod, already turning away to clean the instruments I had used. The gratitude was only one of the outcomes of what I did, not the goal. The goal was the successful outcome of the procedure. As I was wiping down my tools, I caught a glimpse of Maeve and Elara by the doorway. They were whispering, looking at me with a look that was hard to identify. But I had seen it many times, they were not looking at the doctor anymore. The crisis was over, and the powerful creature that had just taken over was gone. Now, they just saw Aris. I knew that look, it was a complicated mix of awe, fear, and something else, pity. Poor, rejected Aris, the look said, so skilled, but so alone. No mate will ever want her. The familiar, bitter taste rose in my throat. They only saw my skill as a compensation, for being an Omega, a failure for a female. They could not comprehend that this was what I had chosen, and that I had settled for this life. I had chosen the clear, cold certainty of science over the messy, unpredictable promises of the heart. They can have their pity, that was the only thought passing through my mind as the silver gleamed under the light, while I finished cleaning the last instrument. I had the boy's steady heartbeat. And in my world, that was the only victory that mattered.