When My Alpha Crushed My Hand, the Lycan Prince Woke

The wolfsbane-neutralizing compounds worked faster than I expected.

I sat beside Arthur's bed in the small hours before dawn, watching the monitors. His heart rate had stabilized. His blood oxygen levels were climbing. Small changes. Incremental. But real.

I pressed my thumb against my pulse point. My own heart was racing.

My wolf stirred in my chest. Still silent. Still collapsed. But present. A faint whisper of awareness that hadn't been there three weeks ago.

I looked at Arthur's still face. Two years. Two years of lying in this bed while his nephew dosed him with wolfsbane and his grandfather avoided the room and his pack forgot he existed.

Two years of me sitting here. Brewing tinctures. Checking vitals. Waiting for something I couldn't name.

"I'm tired," I said aloud.

My voice sounded strange in the quiet room. I hadn't spoken to Arthur before. Not like this. Clinical updates, yes. Vital signs and medication schedules. But not real words.

"I'm afraid I'll run out of time," I continued. "Before I run out of strength. The vote is in three days. Liam's going to revoke the Accord. And I don't know if I can finish this before—"

I stopped. Pressed both hands flat against my thighs.

"You're the only patient I have left," I said quietly. "The only one who didn't choose to forget me. And I think you're the only reason I'm still standing."

I reached out. Placed my palm flat against the back of his hand. Not a healing gesture. Just contact. Skin against skin.

Something shifted under my palm.

Not his vitals. Not his aura. Something older. Deeper. A pulse that had nothing to do with heartbeat and everything to do with recognition.

I held very still.

The sensation faded. Arthur's chest rose and fell. The monitors beeped their steady rhythm.

I stayed until dawn.

Derek Moss found Barnaby at the border just after dusk.

I was restocking supplies when Barnaby walked into the medical wing. His face was tight. His shoulders were rigid.

"What happened?" I asked.

He set down the herbs he'd brought. "Derek delivered a message from Liam. Said if I keep helping you, I'm out. Rogue status reinstated. Permanent expulsion."

I set down the jar I was holding. "Barnaby—"

"I'm not stopping."

I looked at him. This scarred wolf who had survived alone before Ironridge took him in. Who knew exactly what expulsion meant. What it cost.

"You could lose everything," I said.

"I never had anything to lose." His voice was flat. "Liam made that clear the day he accepted me into the pack. I'm Omega labor. Disposable. The only person who ever treated me like I mattered is you."

I pressed my thumb against my pulse point. "I'm adding this to the file. Your testimony. Derek's threat. All of it."

Barnaby nodded once. Then he left.

I pulled out my cipher journal and recorded everything. Date. Time. Exact words. The escalation from resource restriction to direct intimidation.

Evidence.

Then I returned to Arthur's bedside and continued the treatment protocol.

The anomaly appeared at three in the morning.

I woke from a brief, restless sleep to the sound of Arthur's monitor alarm. Not the steady beep. A sharp, urgent warning.

I was on my feet instantly.

His heart rate had dropped. Suddenly. Dramatically. His blood oxygen levels were plummeting.

I checked the IV line. The flow rate was correct. The medication was unchanged. But something was wrong.

I pressed my hands against his chest and reached for his Lycan aura pulse.

It was there. But weaker. Hammered back down. Like something had deliberately suppressed it.

My stomach went cold.

I ran to the security terminal and pulled up the corridor footage. Rewound to the shift change two hours earlier.

There. A figure entering the medical wing. Hooded. Moving quickly. The build was familiar. The gait—slightly favored right side, old training injury—was unmistakable.

Derek Moss.

He'd accessed Arthur's room during the gap between Barnaby's departure and the night healer's arrival. Thirty seconds inside. Then out.

Long enough to increase the wolfsbane dose.

I locked the footage. Copied it to my personal drive. Added it to the evidence file.

Then I looked at Arthur.

His Lycan aura pulse, which had been strengthening for three weeks, had been deliberately crushed. The progress I'd fought for—the incremental gains, the stabilizing vitals, the faint flicker of awakening power—was collapsing.

He was running out of time.

I was running out of time.

I pulled out my mother's journal. The one with the emergency protocols written in her own hand. The techniques she'd marked with warning symbols. The ones she'd told me never to attempt unless there was no other choice.

I found the page I needed.

Hands-on cleansing ritual. Direct hereditary gift transfer. Blood contact required.

Dangerous. Potentially fatal to the healer if the patient's system rejected the transfer. My mother had written a single note in the margin: *Only for those you cannot afford to lose.*

I looked at Arthur's still face. His chest rose and fell. The monitors beeped their failing rhythm.

I had three days until the vote. Three days before Liam revoked the Accord and expelled me from pack lands.

Three days to wake a Lycan Prince who had been comatose for two years.

I closed the journal. Pulled the emergency ritual supplies from the locked cabinet. Laid them out on the counter with shaking hands.

Then I returned to Arthur's bedside, placed both palms flat against his chest, and began to prepare.