Jade
The sickness hit me like a freight train.
One minute I was sitting at my desk, trying to focus on a paper I couldn’t care less about, and the next, I was shivering so hard I could barely hold my pen. My head ached, my throat burned, and every muscle in my body throbbed like I had been hit by a truck. I stumbled over to my bed and collapsed into it, too weak to do anything else.
I told myself it was just a normal fever. Just exhaustion catching up to me. It had nothing to do with the bond or with Zade. It couldn’t possibly be that.
But even as I tried to convince myself, the burning mark on my neck pulsed in time with the pounding of my heart, reminding me that denying it wouldn’t make it go away.
I must have drifted in and out of sleep because when I heard the knock at my door, I barely registered it at first. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, hoping whoever it was would go away. I didn’t have the energy to pretend I was fine.
But the knock came again, gentler this time, almost hesitant.
Forcing myself upright, I dragged my blanket around my shoulders and stumbled to the door. I cracked it open just a few inches, fully prepared to snap at whoever was on the other side.
And there he was.
He stood in the hallway, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, his dark eyes scanning my face with such deep concern that it made my chest ache.
“You’re sick,” he said softly, not a question but a statement.
“I’m fine,” I croaked, my voice barely audible and completely unconvincing.
His brow furrowed, and he shook his head slowly. “You’re not fine, Jade. Let me help.”
I should have slammed the door in his face. I should have told him I didn’t need him, that I could take care of myself. But standing there, shivering and weak, the last thing I wanted was to be alone.
Without a word, I opened the door wider and let him in.
Zade stepped inside carefully, like he was afraid he might break something if he moved too fast. He glanced around the small room, taking in the rumpled blankets and scattered tissues without saying anything. His eyes came back to mine, filled with a tenderness that made me want to cry.
“I brought some things,” he said, holding up a small plastic bag I hadn’t noticed before. “Tea, soup, medicine. Stuff to help.”
I blinked at him, unsure how to process the fact that Zade—the fierce, dangerous Alpha who had terrified me with his strength—was standing in my room holding a bag of grocery store supplies like some kind of guardian angel.
He moved to the desk and set everything down, then turned back to me. His hands hovered for a second, as if he wanted to touch me but didn’t know if he was allowed.
“Come on,” he said gently, guiding me back toward the bed with nothing more than his voice. “You need to rest.”
Too tired to argue, I let him help me settle under the covers. The bed dipped slightly as he sat down on the edge, keeping a respectful distance.
For a few minutes, we just sat there in silence. I closed my eyes and focused on the sound of his breathing, steady and calming, grounding me when everything else felt like it was spinning out of control.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered, my voice raw with exhaustion and emotion.
There was a long pause before he answered, and when he did, his voice was low and heavy with something deeper than just concern.
“Because I care about you,” he said simply. “Because the bond is real. And because… I know what it’s like to need someone and not have them there.”
I opened my eyes slowly, turning my head to look at him. His face was shadowed, his jaw tight like he was holding something back.
“My father died when I was fifteen,” he said quietly, his gaze fixed on some distant memory I couldn’t see. “He was the Alpha before me. When he died, everything changed. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know how to lead, how to carry all that weight.”
I swallowed hard, my heart aching at the pain etched into his voice.
“I had to grow up overnight,” Zade continued. “Had to become something bigger, stronger. I couldn’t afford to be weak. Not even for a second.”
The raw honesty in his words cracked something inside me.
I had spent so much time building up walls to protect myself from him, from the bond, from the fear of losing control. I hadn’t stopped to think that maybe he had walls too. Maybe he was just as scared of all of this as I was.
“You don’t have to be strong all the time,” I said before I could stop myself, my voice barely a whisper.
He finally looked at me then, and the vulnerability in his eyes made my throat tighten painfully.
“I don’t know how to be anything else,” he said, and there was something so heartbreakingly real in his words that I had to look away.
I didn’t want to care. I didn’t want to feel this pull toward him growing stronger with every heartbeat. But I did.
I couldn’t deny it anymore.
Zade wasn’t just some dominant, dangerous Alpha who had forced a bond on me.
He was a boy who had lost too much too young. A leader who carried the weight of everyone around him. A man who, despite everything, was willing to be gentle for me.
And for the first time since this nightmare began, I found myself wanting to reach for him instead of pushing him away.