The car pulled into the emergency lane of the Upper District Hospital, its brake calipers squealing faintly under the sudden deceleration. The neon-blue accent lights of the medical pavilion cast reflections across the hood of the vehicle as the engine settled into a rumbling idle.

Dorrent and Shadron stepped out into the chilly night air of the sector, the car door shutting with a pressurized thud behind them.

As they began walking toward the sliding glass doors of the main entrance, Shadron suddenly slowed his pace. He grabbed Dorrent’s forearm, his eyes burning with an intense, unyielding curiosity that had been eating away at his composure for a while.

"Wait a second, Dorrent," Shadron said, his voice dropping into a tense, questioning whisper as they stood beneath the overhang of the hospital facade. "Why on earth does Jannah want you dead? What could you have possibly done to a common swamp herbalist to make her harbor that kind of vicious, deep-seated hatred for you? Is that one of the primary reasons you don’t want to tell me the whole truth yet?"

Dorrent stopped, his massive frame locking into a rigid, defensive line. He didn’t look at his friend, his gaze fixed instead on the glowing digital sign of the critical care wing ahead. The winter-frost pheromones around him flared briefly, tight and bitter with frustration.

"Yes, Shadron," Dorrent murmured, his deep voice carrying a trace of exhausting torment. "That is precisely the reason I asked you to deploy your networks and look into her family background first. The truth is... myself don’t even know why she hates me that much. Every time I touch her, every time I look into her eyes, there is a burning, lethal malice in her gaze that makes absolutely no sense to my mind. I need that file to understand what ghost from her past is pointing a gun at my chest."

Without waiting for Shadron to digest the weight of the confession, Dorrent broke away and pushed through the glass doors of the facility. They navigated the pristine, sterile white corridors with rapid, aggressive strides, completely ignoring the startled glances of the nocturnal nursing staff.

The moment they entered the private critical condition patients’ room, the clinical atmosphere hit them like an icy wave. Jannah was lying still beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, hooked up to a complex array of monitoring grids that beeped in weak, erratic patterns.

She looked devastatingly pale. Although she naturally possessed a delicate, fair complexion, her skin now carried a translucent, ghostly quality that made her look like porcelain on the verge of shattering. Her right hand was encased in a new plaster cast, and her torso was heavily wrapped in bandages to stabilize her rib cage. The poison was visibly eating her system up from the inside; she didn’t look okay at all. Even in her deep, unmoving unconscious state, her small frame was continuously shivering against the sterile hospital sheets, her lips tinged with a faint blue.

Dorrent’s silver eyes swamped with an immediate rage at the sight of her degradation, but he forced his mind to remain dominant. He stepped to the bedside desk, roughly grabbing the legal release forms and signing his signature across the lines, legally releasing her into his private care despite the frantic warnings of the attending staff.

Within minutes, Jannah was carefully hauled out of the room on a mobile stretcher and rolled down to the loading zone. Dorrent bypassed the medical handlers, using his arms to gently lift her fragile, shivering form from the gurney. As he laid her across the wide leather expanse of the SUV’s backseat, he noted the violent tremor running through her shoulders.

Without a second thought, Dorrent stripped off his expensive outer coat—imbued with the protective warmth of his own Alpha pheromones—and carefully draped it over her small body, tucking the edges around her bandaged torso. He slammed the door shut, climbed into the driver’s seat, and slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The high-performance engine let out a feral roar as the vehicle tore out of the hospital grid, heading back toward the Grefo estate at a lethal speed.

As the city skyline became a blur of streaking neon lights through the windshield, Dorrent’s grip on the steering wheel tightened until the leather groaned.

"My rut period is in exactly a week’s time, Shadron," Dorrent confessed suddenly, his deep voice dropping into a rasp that filled the dark cabin with an intense gravity. "And Jannah has not even woken up yet. The timing is a complete disaster. If only another woman, or even my official girlfriend Joanne, could make me hard... I honestly would not mind this much. I wouldn’t have to humiliate my pride like this."

Dorrent’s silver eyes narrowed into bitter slits as he stared at the dark road. "I seriously wonder what that Mafia’s son’s treatment of her will last for. I wonder how many long weeks Damian intends to drag this volumetric dosing out just to occupy my house."

He let out a low, self-deprecating growl, the vulnerability of his words cutting through the hum of the tires. "For the last five years that I have suffered from this curse, I have always used the highest-grade medical suppressants during my rut periods. And let me tell you... those chemical blockers only made me completely mad. They turn my mind into a chaotic, burning hell, destroying my cognitive functions for days. I am a sovereign, S-tier Alpha, Shadron. My pride cannot handle another cycle locked in an isolation vault like a defective animal. I want—no, I completely need—the omega in that backseat to relieve my system when that time comes."

Shadron shifted in his seat, turning his head to look back at the pale, unmoving girl wrapped in Dorrent’s coat before looking back at his friend.

"We just have to hope Damian will speed up the chemical process, brother," Shadron muttered quietly, though his eyes carried a doubt. "But to be honest with you... I doubt that Damian will accelerate the cure. Think about the psychology. He genuinely thinks she is his woman. He misses his girlfriend, and he will naturally want to delay the recovery timeline just so he can stay close to her and play the protective lover for a while longer under your roof. You’ve given a wolf a key to the sheep’s pen."

"It doesn’t matter a single damn what that doctor wants," Dorrent hissed through his teeth, his expression turning into a smooth, terrifying mask of malice. "I will find a definitive, structural way to separate them. It doesn’t matter whether Damian will be staying at my house or monitoring her bed twenty-four hours a day. I will break their little shield into pieces."

Shadron let out a sharp breath, crossing his arms over his chest as he evaluated the impossibility of the situation. "And how the hell do you plan on doing that, Dorrent? After all, Damian and Jannah are dating in the eyes of the household. If you aggressively tear them apart without a logical reason, Joanne will see right through your cover."

"There are so many ways to destroy a fake bond, Shadron," Dorrent replied flatly, his tone dropping into a freezing register that made the short hairs on his friend’s neck stand up.

"Which ways, Dorrent?!" Shadron demanded, leaning closer as the car crested the hill, the distant iron gates of the Grefo estate finally pulling into view under the moonlight. "What exactly are you going to do the moment that girl opens her eyes?"

Dorrent’s lips curled into an arrogant smirk, his silver eyes flashing with a sudden fire that signaled the end of his patience as his final words cut through the cabin.

"I’ll just have to bite her neck, marking her as my permanent property forever."