Chapter 202: The Only way
Third Person POV
The seer stepped closer, pointing a thin, frail finger toward Kaden’s unconscious body.
"When he wakes up, he will be back to himself," she continued. "He will remember everything. He will remember everyone, his rank, his duties, his pack—everything. But any memory associated with her will be completely wiped clean. We can lie to him. We can tell him he went crazy for a few days because of the lingering grief over his lost mate. Trust us, Lord Logan. If we do this, Alpha Kaden will be fine and back to normal. But if we don’t... then we are all bound to die, and trust me, it won’t take long."
"No... no... no..." Logan muttered, shaking his head frantically as he paced back and forth across the blood-stained floor.
He ran both hands through his hair, gripping his head as if it might split open. The thought of doing this to Kaden made his stomach turn upside down. Kaden had fought so hard, bled so much, and opened his closed, cold heart to love Rebecca. To tear Rebecca out of Kaden’s mind felt like betraying the very man he had sworn his life to protect.
"We can’t do this to him," Logan whispered, his voice cracking with emotion as he looked at Kane. "Kane, say something! Tell them no! You know how much she means to him! When we bring her back—and we will bring her back—how is he going to look at her? He won’t even know who she is! He’ll treat her like a stranger!"
Kane stood frozen beside the bed, his hands trembling at his sides. He looked down at Kaden’s pale, motionless face, then at the bruised neck of the head seer, and finally at the cracked stone floor where ten strong warriors had barely managed to hold Kaden down.
Kane swallowed hard, his voice barely a whisper. "And if we don’t do it, Logan... he won’t live long enough for us to bring her back. His wolf will burn him from the inside out."
"No!" Logan snapped, his angry voice echoing through the walls of the room. "I said no! No one touches his mind! Not today, not ever!"
He pointed a sharp, threatening finger at the head seer, his eyes blazing with fury.
"We are going to find Rebecca and bring her back," Logan said, his voice absolute and unyielding. "And when Kaden sees her, when he smells her scent and feels her in his arms, his wolf will calm down. He will get himself back! I am not letting you wipe away the only light he has found in months!"
The head seer shook her head, tears of frustration in her old eyes. "Lord Logan, you are setting us all up for death! You are choosing a dream over his survival! When he wakes up again, he will tear this room apart, and none of us will survive!"
"Then leave!" Logan shouted back, stepping forward aggressively. "If you are so scared, pack your things and leave! Get out of this packhouse! But I am not doing this to Kaden. Never!"
Silence fell over the room, thick, and suffocating. The seers looked at one another, terrified and helpless, while Kane closed his eyes, leaning heavily against the bedpost in utter defeat.
Just as Logan turned back to check on Kaden, the heavy wooden doors burst open. Logan’s head warrior rushed into the room, out of breath and holding up a phone.
"Sir!" the warrior panted, rushing over. "A call for you, Lord Logan! It’s urgent!"
Logan snatched the phone, pulling it tightly to his ear. "Speak to me. Is it about Kane’s Beta? Have you captured him?"
On the other end of the line, the Alpha of the Snow Pack let out a heavy, defeated sigh. "Lord Logan... I am so sorry, sir. We failed. We raided the hotel, but he was already gone. He must have had a spotter on the perimeter. We lost him... we don’t know how he slipped through our net."
"Bastard!" Logan roared into the phone, his face turning dark with rage.
"I truly apologize, Lord Logan," the Snow Pack Alpha pleaded desperately over the static line. "We are searching every road, every forest path, but the snow is heavy and his trail is completely gone—"
Before the Alpha could finish his apology, Logan cut the connection, shoving the phone back into the head warrior’s chest with a violent push.
Logan stood frozen in the middle of the room, his breathing heavy as his mind raced frantically.
The phone call had shattered their only remaining lead. The trail was dead, the Beta was gone, and the rogue tigers were hidden behind magic so deep that even the finest trackers in the realm couldn’t smell a trace of them. The last hope of finding Rebecca anytime soon had just slipped right through their fingers.
Kane slowly looked up, his face devoid of color. "Logan..." Kane whispered, his voice trembling with helplessness. "He’s gone. My Beta escaped. We have no leads. No location. No way to track Rebecca."
Logan stared straight ahead, his hands clenched into tight fists. Every instinct inside him screamed to refuse, to fight, to tear down the world until they found her. But the harsh, brutal reality began pressing down on his shoulders like a mountain.
Finding Rebecca wasn’t going to take hours. It could take weeks. It could take months.
And Kaden didn’t have months. He didn’t even have hours.
On the bed, a dangerous, low rumble vibrated deep within Kaden’s chest. Even in his forced sleep, his powerful body began to strain against the invisible weight of the magic. Thick black veins pulsed violently across his neck and jaw. His dark eyebrows pulled together in a terrible scowl as his wolf fought frantically against the spell holding him down.
The head seer stepped forward slowly, her old voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Lord Logan, look at him! His soul is tearing itself apart. When he wakes—and he will wake soon—his wolf will consume his mind completely."
Logan closed his eyes, his heart hammering against his ribs as a wave of cold terror washed over him.
He didn’t just have to worry about Kaden’s mind breaking—he had to worry about the entire realm. Kaden was the Alpha King. If rival packs, rogues, or enemy territories found out that King Kaden had lost his mind to dark, unhinged madness, they would strike without mercy. War would break out across every border. Thousands of innocent pack members would be slaughtered.
And worse... what if Kaden’s body gave out first? What if the agonizing pain literally tore his heart apart? If the King died, everything they had built would crumble into blood and chaos.
Logan ran both hands violently over his face, gripping his jaw tightly. He paced back and forth, stepping over shattered wood and stone, his mind caught in a suffocating trap.
If I say no, Kaden dies, or he kills us all and loses his mind forever. If I say yes, I steal the woman he loves right out of his head.
It felt like a dirty, unforgivable betrayal. Kaden had fallen in love with Rebecca. He had opened his cold, broken heart to her after months of living in total darkness. To wipe her existence from his mind was like murdering the best part of him.
"Logan, please..." Kane choked out, stepping closer, his eyes filled with worry. He didn’t want to lose his brother. "Look at him. If we lose him, everything will be gone. We have no choice."
Logan stopped pacing. He stared down at Kaden’s pale, agonized face, watching the King gasp for air as if he were drowning in his own sleep.
Logan’s voice cracked, trembling. "If we do this... if you touch his mind... will he truly be safe? Will his wolf stop killing him from the inside?"
"He will be safe," the head seer promised solemnly, raising her hands. "The black rage, the pain, the agony—it will all fade. He will wake up as King Kaden, whole and calm. He will remember his reign, his power, his grief for his late mate... but he will not feel the soul-crushing weight of this girl’s absence. Because to him, she will never have existed."
A heavy, painful tremor ran through Logan’s broad shoulders. Every fiber of his being hated this, but the risk of losing Kaden entirely left him with no ground to stand on.
Logan sucked in a deep breath. "Do it," he choked out, turning his back to the bed because he couldn’t bear to watch. "Do it before I change my mind."