Page 21 of The Alpha's Forced Bride

There wasn’t much I could do except apologize. “Listen—”

The backdoor popped open, and in walked Clancy, wearing thick boots and holding the hunch in his shoulder. “Hey, are you alright?” I asked.

Clancy looked mournful, his face drooping and shadows seeming to fill the crevices where body fat didn't bother to. “Kirk is sick.”

Harvey stood up. “Is he having convulsions again?”

Clancy shook his head. “No, it's something else. It's something stronger. I can't identify it, but I think I know how to help him.”

I darted to Harvey’s side and grabbed his hand. “Tell me what I can do to help, and I’ll do it.”

And with that, Clancy motioned for us to follow him. Finally, I was getting out of the cabin.

Chapter 9 - Harvey

Kirk looked worse for wear when we stumbled into the cabin room that was supposed to be a makeshift hospital for our sick and dying. Possessed wolves eventually reached a point where they were sicker than they'd ever been—and that was usually from fighting their demon day and night for so long.

This was how Kirk looked now. The red of his eyes looked more like a pale pink, like crimson paint that had been watered down. His curly red hair was tattered and wiry, so thin that it seemed like it was about to fall right out of his head. A few clumps of it lay next to his twin-sized cot near the window. The sheets were soiled with sweat and he kept turning his head from side to side in jerking motions as if he was about to start another round of convulsions.

Black straps held his arms to the bed so that he wouldn't thrash about too much. The window was open to let a cool breeze inside, but the room was still hot and humid. Was he about to give in, or was the demon defeating him? I'd seen wolves incredibly ill from their demons, and I had seen a slew of symptoms arise—but it never looked like this. It never looked like they were dying from the inside out. I turned to my left to Clancy, hoping for some kind of sign that Kirk was going to make it through this.

Clancy frowned. I didn't like the look of that. Someone touched my shoulder, and I jumped, then realized it was just Kiara to my right. She slid her hand down my arm, over my elbow, over my forearm, and from my wrist to my hand. When she took it, threaded her fingers with mine, and squeezed with all the life inside her, everything in the world came to a standstill. Nothing was right, and nothing was wrong. It was simply her holding my hand for comfort, seeking strength in connection.

Clancy took a step toward the bed. “We call it demon sickness.”

I shook my head. “Isn't all of it demon sickness?”

Clancy turned to face me and pushed his hands into his pockets. “No, this is different. It's not just being possessed. I can't exactly study it. It's hard to observe.”

I glanced at him and nodded. It was harder than ever to look at this.

Kiara kept squeezing my hand. “Can you tell us what's wrong?”

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, realizing the way she asked Clancy that question. While I wanted to acknowledge the fact that she had referred to us as a collective unit, I wasn't sure that I should say anything yet. Besides, Kirk was on the bed, looking like he was about to release a death rattle.

Clancy took a sharp breath. “I can't exactly say what's wrong, but it seems like the infection has spread to his blood. I've seen something similar to this when bacterial infections go untreated for too long. They infect the blood, and then the rest of the body starts shutting down.”

I cringed. That sounded terribly painful.

Clancy looked back at Kirk with a mountain of sympathy in his eyes. “I think the same thing is happening here.”

I ran my free hand over my head, trying to get the hair out of my face as I stared at the ground. “What can we do?”

Clancy gestured to Kirk, who was starting to have another seizure. “I think a blood transfusion would help thin out the demonic presence in his blood. It's what we would probably do in another situation.”

I released Kiara’s hand and held up my arm. “I'll do it.”

Clancy shook his head and hesitantly pointed to Kiara. “It has to be someone who isn't possessed, someone who doesn't have a demon inside of them.”

I traded looks with Kiara. She visibly swallowed hard, and I could tell that she was thinking hard about this. She was probably trying to weigh the pros and cons of the situation, which was exactly what I wanted her to do. My alpha mode was failing me. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I couldn’t help. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to ask Kiara for her assistance.

Somewhere inside of me, my demon laughed, mocking me. It horrified me with images of Kirk dying. But when Kiara grabbed my hand again, the images faded, and it felt like my body eased with reassurance, although I wasn't sure what the reassurance was for exactly.

I clutched her hand tightly. “You don't have to do this.”

Kiara looked offended. She tilted her head back to look up at me. “Isn't this exactly what you wanted me to do as your mate?”

I ignored the word that she used. I ignored the magical allure of the idea that she was giving in to me, that she was accepting her place in my life and my pack so quickly.

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