Ila POV:
Blaise's face was a canvas of panic. His eyes, wide with disbelief, darted from my disheveled form to the heavy candlestick lying on the floor. A flicker of guilt, quickly suppressed, crossed his features.
I blinked, letting my eyes slowly adjust to the light. I put on my best performance of a frightened, confused victim.
"Blaise?" My voice was a weak, raspy whisper. "What... what am I doing here? The ceremony..."
He rushed forward, his movements jerky and unnatural. "There was an accident, Ila. You felt unwell. We brought you here to rest." He grabbed my arm, his grip too tight, and pulled me to my feet. "Don't worry. It's all over now."
A clumsy lie, I thought, a cold sneer forming in my mind. But outwardly, I sagged against him, playing the part of the weak, trusting woman who believed his every word. I let my full weight lean on him, forcing him to support me.
He glanced nervously down the hallway. He knew he had to get me out of sight, and fast.
"Keep your mouths shut," he hissed at the two terrified maids, Holly and Ivy. "Take her to... to the Alpha Apparent's wing. Tell anyone who asks that she got lost."
The Alpha Apparent. Amos.
So, the charade was to continue. I was to be quietly shuffled off to the dying man's bedside. I let my head loll against Blaise's shoulder, feigning a near-faint.
He practically dragged me through the silent corridors of the manor. We moved through back hallways and servant's passages, avoiding the main areas where guests might still be lingering. The scent of victory clung to him, a sickeningly sweet mixture of expensive cologne and Asha's triumphant perfume. It made my stomach churn. I fought back the urge to gag.
We finally stopped before a set of imposing oak doors at the end of a secluded wing. This part of the manor was eerily quiet, isolated from the life and warmth of the main house. It felt like a tomb.
Blaise pushed the door open and shoved me inside. He didn't let go until I was fully in the room.
"Stay here tonight," he commanded, his voice low and urgent. "I'll explain everything to Father in the morning. Trust me, this is for the best."
He didn't wait for a reply. The heavy door clicked shut, the sound of the bolt sliding home echoing in the cavernous room. I was locked in.
The moment I was alone, the weakness vanished. I stood up straight, my back rigid. I took a moment to survey my new prison. The room was vast and opulent, decorated in dark woods and rich, heavy fabrics. A fire lay dead in the massive stone fireplace. The air was still and cold, thick with the silence of a place untouched by life.
My gaze was drawn to the center of the room, to the enormous four-poster bed that dominated the space.
And to the man lying in it.
Amos Greer.
He was as still as the marble statues I'd seen in the main hall. His face, even in the dim light, was strikingly handsome, with a strong jaw and high cheekbones. But it was a face devoid of color, pale and waxy, like a sculpture carved from alabaster. His chest rose and fell in breaths so shallow they were almost imperceptible.
I walked to the bedside, my surgeon's instincts taking over. I leaned closer, observing him. His breathing was faint, but regular. I gently placed my fingers on the side of his neck, searching for his carotid artery.
The pulse was there. Thready, weak, but steady. It didn't feel like the pulse of a man whose soul was "fading."
I carefully lifted one of his eyelids. His pupil was fixed and dilated, showing no reaction to the change in light. A deep, unresponsive coma.
A strange conflict churned within me. I needed him to live. I couldn't survive here as a widow. But a life shackled to a man trapped in a vegetative state was its own kind of death sentence.
I pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat down. The silence was suffocating.
"Hello, Amos," I said, my voice sounding loud in the quiet room. It felt less like I was talking to him and more to myself. "I'm Ila. Your new, hand-me-down mate. It's a joke, isn't it?"
The words started to pour out of me then, a calm, clinical recounting of the evening's events.But as I finished, my voice cracked. A single tremor of the fear and loneliness I'd been suppressing.
"They all say you're going to die," I whispered, my gaze fixed on his still face. "They're just waiting for it to happen."
I reached out and took his hand. It was cool to the touch, his skin smooth and dry.
"But I don't believe them." My voice grew stronger, the doctor in me resurfacing with a vengeance. My grip on his hand tightened. "I'm a surgeon. People don't just die on my watch. Not without a fight."
As the last word left my lips, I felt it.
A flicker.
A tiny, almost imperceptible pulse of warmth that bloomed from his palm into mine, then vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
I froze, my breath catching in my throat. Was it my imagination? A trick of my own overwrought nerves?
I squeezed his hand again, concentrating, searching for that spark of life.
Nothing. His hand remained cool and inert.
But I knew what I had felt. It wasn't a hallucination. It might have been a simple muscle spasm, a deep, involuntary reflex. But to me, it was a sign. A spark of nerve activity in a body the world had given up on.
He wasn't an empty shell.
My heart, which had been a cold, heavy stone in my chest, began to hammer against my ribs. A wild, fierce hope ignited within me.
I leaned close to his ear, my voice a low, intense promise. "I will not let you die, Amos Greer. And you are not allowed to give up. Do you hear me?"
