Vengeance in His Bed

"Then you should be happy," Shadron delivered coldly, his voice a flat, freezing line that carried no emotion. "Because he is surely dying right now, Jannah."

Jannah’s heart shattered against her ribs. Her breath died in her throat, her eyes widening into horror as she stared at the side of Shadron’s face. "What... what do you mean he’s dying?" she choked out, her voice dropping into a desperate, trembling whisper. "Stop joking about such things, Shadron! He was just talking to me a second ago! He was just mocking me!"

"I am not joking with you, girl," Shadron muttered. "The bullets were poisoned. It’s eating him up. There is no antidote, Jannah. None."

Jannah’s mind went blank, a suffocating static roaring in her ears. "No... no, you’re lying," she whispered, her hands frantically dropping to Dorrent’s wrist, her fingers pressing into the pulse point. "Diagnose him yourself if you think it’s a lie," Shadron added flatly.

Jannah’s healing instincts took over, her shaking fingers tracking the radial artery. Her breath hitched. The pulse was incredibly faint, a sluggish, irregular thready skip that felt like a dying ember. His skin—the skin that had felt like a molten furnace against her body last night—was rapidly losing its warmth. It felt slick with a cold, clammy sweat.

"If he is dying... if his system is collapsing right now, why the hell aren’t you doing anything?!" Jannah screamed at Shadron, her voice cracking with a strange desperation that she couldn’t rationalize. She gripped Dorrent’s cold face between her hands, her thumbs brushing against his sharp cheekbones. "Why are you just driving?! Turn the car around! Take him to medical centers!"

"Because there is absolutely nothing those medical centers can do, Jannah," Shadron countered, his voice dripping with a bitter, exhausted finality. "The top geneticists in the city have already analyzed him. If the highest multi-billion-credit resources couldn’t flatten the toxin, how am I—a standard mechanical engineer—supposed to fix his neural pathways? He’s done. His system has finally reached its biological limit."

Jannah couldn’t stay still. A wild madness flared behind her eyes as she stared down at the unconscious, handsome face slumped beside her. The sharp, arrogant lines of his jaw, the heavy brow that usually carried an untouchable authority—everything was perfectly still, like a magnificent piece of broken marble.

He can’t die, her mind shrieked in , chaotic panic. He cannot die like this.

A sudden torrent of conflicting emotions rushed through her chest, choking her logical thoughts. She looked for any structural excuse to justify the terrifying terror griping her heart. He can’t die yet because we haven’t found the truth about my parents! her mind reasoned frantically. Yes... that’s why. If his heart stops functioning, the case of the black cycle slaughter will be buried forever! I will never know if he was the executioner! But deep below the excuses, a much more terrifying reality was clawing at her nerves. The mark on her neck was throbbing in agonizing sync with his failing pulse. He had just made her his mate last night. He had forced her into the bond, locking their frequencies together permanently.

If he dies... who am I supposed to remain with in this world? she thought, a sudden sob rising in her throat as she gripped his shirt. I am still so young... my body has been completely branded by his frequency. No other Alpha in this city will ever accept a woman who bears the permanent mark of another man. I will be left entirely alone, stranded in this golden cage with nothing but his ghost! He can’t just force his way into my body, break my pride into pieces, make me call him husband, and then leave me behind this easily! It’s unfair!

She pressed her palm against his broad chest. The heat was completely gone. His torso was turning freezing cold, a rapid biological cooling that indicated his internal matrix was shutting down its metabolic functions to protect his core.

"Shadron, his temperature is dropping too fast!" Jannah cried out, her voice weeping openly as she shook the seat. "Adjust the air conditioner right now! Turn the heater to its maximum level! The coldness in this carriage is going to kill his remaining cells! Do it now!"

"The air con is broken, Jannah," Shadron muttered through the glass, his tone completely flat. "The system short-circuited when we crossed the perimeter. There’s no heat coming through the vents."

"Then what the hell can be done to stabilize him?!" she screamed, her hands frantically rubbing Dorrent’s cold arms, trying to create friction to wake his skin. "You are his best friend! Tell me what the protocols say about S-tier thermal collapse!"

"There’s only one structural method left when the internal core freezes, Jannah," Shadron said, his eyes shifting slightly in the rearview mirror. "Direct, full body heat transfer. The S-tier neural paths need to absorb the biological frequency of a compatible mate to jump-start the metabolic cycle. Otherwise, his heart will stop within ten minutes."

Jannah’s breath hitched, her eyes widening as she processed the data. "Then stop the car right now!" she yelled at Shadron. "Pull over and come to the back seat to stabilize his body! Use your own heat to save him!"

"Are you fucking insane, girl?" Shadron let out a sharp, disgusted scoff, his shoulders tightening. "That is incredibly gross. How the hell am I supposed to strip completely naked and lie next to a fellow man? I don’t care how handsome Dorrent is—I am absolutely not into men. I am a standard Alpha, not his romantic partner."

"Must you strip?!" Jannah wept, her voice cracking with frustration as she looked down at Dorrent’s pale lips. "Can’t you just hold him with your clothes on?! Why should you care about your ridiculous pride and preferences when your best friend is literally dying right next to you?!"

"Yes, I must strip," Shadron delivered flatly, his voice carrying an unshakeable authority. "It requires full skin-to-skin contact. Clothing blocks the neural frequency transfer completely. And besides... why the hell are you looking at me to do it anyway? You are his mate. You two have already done a thousand times more than simply sleeping together. Your skin is already locked to him."

Jannah’s jaw tightened, her face turning crimson as doubt pierced through her panic. She looked at the flawless, still face of the tycoon. What if... what if he is faking it? her mind questioned, her healing logic fighting against her rising emotions. What if this is just another one of his unhinged, calculated strategies? A disgusting perverted method to force me to strip my clothes and crawl into his arms because he knows I am stubborn? He is an S-tier beast; he is capable of manipulating his own metrics just to break my defenses!

"How do I know he isn’t faking this collapse?!" Jannah hissed at Shadron, her fingers trembling against Dorrent’s cold collarbone. "How do I know this isn’t just a trap?!"

"The choice is entirely yours, little physician," Shadron muttered, his voice dropping into a low, detached murmur as he accelerated the car further into the dark perimeter of the industrial zone. "You can sit over there and watch his heart stop completely. Within five minutes, his brain paths will go dark, and you will finally have the permanent execution you’ve been wishing for since you arrived at his place. The decision is yours."