Axel POV:
The doctor's words hit the reinforced glass of the observation room like a physical blow. For a second, I couldn't process them. They were just noise, meaningless and insane.
"That's impossible," I snarled into the intercom, my fist clenching. "I saw her medical report myself. It was flawless. She's lying again, trying to get out of it."
Even as I said it, a cold dread began to coil in my gut.
"Save the kidney she *does* have," I commanded, my voice dropping to a low growl. "Kyleigh needs it. I don't care what you have to do."
Inside the operating room, the frantic movements stopped. The nurses and doctors stepped back from the table, their shoulders slumped in defeat. A nurse I didn't know made a note on a chart and then, with a final, somber gesture, pulled a white sheet up over Jana's face.
The flatline tone was finally silenced. The silence was worse.
And then, something changed.
A scent.
It was faint at first, cutting through the sterile, antiseptic smell of the hospital. It slipped through the vents, under the door, a fragrance so pure and intoxicating it defied description. Rain on pine needles after a drought. The clean, crisp air of a mountain peak at dawn. It was the scent my wolf had been searching for, starving for, my entire life.
It was the scent of my Mate.
My wolf, the beast that had been restless and discontented for years, rose up within me with a roar of pure, unadulterated joy. *Mate! She is here! Our Mate!*
My human mind reeled, fighting it. *No. Impossible. Kyleigh is my mate.*
But my body didn't lie. Every cell, every nerve ending, vibrated in response to that scent. A profound sense of rightness, of coming home, washed over me, so powerful it buckled my knees. This was what I had been missing. This was the other half of my soul.
The scent was coming from the operating room.
From *her*.
Suddenly, I understood. The years of feeling… incomplete. The subtle, cloying sweetness of Kyleigh's perfume that pleased my senses but never, ever touched my soul. The drugs Kyleigh had her on, supposedly for anxiety. They weren't for anxiety. They were to mask this. To hide her from me.
Dr. Sanchez's frantic words echoed in my head. *She only has one!*
The scent of my true Mate, released only in death.
The two facts collided in my brain with the force of a supernova, obliterating everything I thought I knew. The truth was a physical agony. My wolf, recognizing that our Mate was found only to be lost in the same breath, let out a howl of such profound grief and rage that the lights in the hallway flickered. The Alpha power inside me surged, a tidal wave of pain looking for a release.
My mind was screaming *no*, but my body was already moving.
My fist shot out, connecting with the observation window. The reinforced glass, designed to stop a bullet, spiderwebbed under the force of my blow. I hit it again, and it shattered, exploding inward in a shower of glittering shards.
The Beta guards at the door flinched back, their eyes wide with terror at my uncontrolled display of power.
I ignored the blood streaming from my knuckles. I ignored their shouts. I launched myself through the broken window, landing in a crouch inside the operating room.
I had to see her. I had to breathe her in. I had to know for sure.
My wolf was screaming a single, desperate plea.
*Tell me it's not true.*
