Chapter 5 No.5

KAELEN POV:

Consciousness returned in fragments, a murky haze of pain and whispered voices. I was in the Pack's medical wing, the scent of antiseptic and healing herbs filling my senses. Though my body was unresponsive, my mind was horribly, acutely aware. Through the fog, I could hear Seraphina's voice, a low murmur near my bedside. She was speaking to her friend, Cassandra, through a private Mind-Link, but my own powerful senses could pick up the faint echoes.

"...the plan is working perfectly. The car crash makes my story even more believable. Another twenty days, maybe less. I'll let him see me 'regain' my memory. He'll be so relieved, so full of guilt for ever doubting me. He'll love me more than ever."

A wave of cold fury washed over me, so intense it almost broke through my paralysis. She was orchestrating this entire tragedy, using my pain as a set piece in her twisted drama.

"He'll never know the truth," Seraphina's mental voice continued, dripping with smug confidence. "I've covered every track. When I'm ready to come back to him, it will be as a hero who fought her way back from the darkness for his love."

I felt her hand on my forehead, cool and gentle. She dabbed my skin with a damp cloth, her touch filled with a possessive tenderness that felt both real and utterly false. It was the touch of an actress playing a role, and it made my skin crawl.

When my eyes finally fluttered open hours later, she was sitting in a chair by the window. The moment our gazes met, she flinched, pulling back like a startled animal. Her expression shifted instantly into one of wary confusion, the perfect mask of an amnesiac facing a stranger. The performance was flawless. A bitter, silent laugh echoed in my soul.

"The Healer," I rasped, my throat raw. "Who... who has been looking after me?"

The Healer, a kind-faced woman named Lyra, glanced nervously at Seraphina. Under that intense, warning gaze, Lyra stammered, "Just... just the junior caretakers, sir. We've all been taking turns."

A lie. I had felt Seraphina's presence the entire time. I glanced at the calendar on the wall. Three days. I had been unconscious for three days. In all that time, not a single genuine message of concern had come from her through our bond. Only the calculated whispers of her deceit.

My only thought was of the exile papers. I prayed the Elders would approve them quickly.

Seraphina didn't visit again. But Lian's taunting Mind-Links resumed as soon as he was conscious, a daily dose of poison. I ignored them all.

The day I was discharged, my arm wrapped in silver-laced bandages to draw out the last of the toxin, I met a female Warrior in the hallway. We had fought side-by-side against a rival pack last year. We nodded to each other, a silent acknowledgment of mutual respect.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed my good arm, yanking me back. It was Seraphina. Her eyes were blazing with a fire that had nothing to do with amnesia and everything to do with raw, undiluted jealousy.

"What were you talking to her about?" she demanded, her grip tightening. For a moment, she forgot the game she was playing.

I looked down at her hand on my arm, then back to her face. My voice was glacial. "A person with no memory has no right to ask who I speak to."

I pulled my arm from her grasp, the brief contact feeling like a brand. I turned and walked away, not looking back, leaving her standing alone in the sterile white hallway, her carefully constructed reality beginning to crack.