Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 112

Chapter 112

Chapter 112

RIVERA

I was in my study reviewing Elijah’s latest security assessment–the one that placed Thorne’s movements at four separate locations connected to Louis’s school route over the past ten days–when my phone lit up with an unknown number.

I almost let it go to voicemail.

“Mr. Rivera?” A woman’s voice, professional but with an edge of controlled alarm underneath it. “This is Diane Walsh, school administrator at Greenbrook Academy. I’m calling about Louis.”

My pen stopped moving.

“Louis has collapsed. He’s conscious but disoriented, and he keeps asking for his mother.” A brief pause, as if she was choosing words carefully. “We’ve called an ambulance. They’re with him now. I wanted you to know before they-”

“I’m coming.” I was already standing, my chair scraping back. “Don’t move him until I get there. Tell them–tell the paramedics

“Mr. Rivera, they’re already assessing him. He needs-”

“Five minutes,” I said. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

I didn’t remember the drive. I remembered my keys in my hand and then I was in the parking lot of Greenbrook Academy, abandoning the car at an angle that would certainly earn a note from the front office, and running.

The ambulance was there. Of course it was already there. The blue and white of BloodMoon emergency services, its rear doors open, two paramedics visible inside.

And Louis.

My son was lying on a stretcher that was still on the ground, not yet loaded, his face turned toward the sky with his eyes half- open. His skin. God, his skin.

The purple discoloration started at his fingertips and had worked its way up both forearms, faint but unmistakable to anyone. who’d spent five years watching it come and go.

The curse. Something had reactivated the curse.

“Sir, are you family?” One of the paramedics stepped toward me.

“I’m his father.” I was already at Louis’s side, dropping to my knees, my hand finding his. His fingers were cold. “Louis. Louis,

I’m here.”

“Daddy.” His voice was wrong–thin and reedy, like something was pressing on his chest from the inside. “It hurts.”

“I know, buddy. I know.” I kept my voice even with an effort that cost me considerably. “I’m right here.”

“I want Mummy.”

“We’re going to get you to Mummy.” I looked up at the paramedic, who was watching me with the careful assessment of someone deciding whether the father was going to be a problem. “Which hospital?”

“BloodMoon General. Trauma unit, Sir, we need to load him now-

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“I’m coming with him.”

“That’s not standard-

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Chapter 112

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“I’m coming with him.”

Something in my voice settled the question. The paramedic nodded and stepped back, and I helped them guide the stretcher into the ambulance, my hand never releasing Louis’s.

While the paramedic worked–vitals, oxygen saturation, a notation into his tablet that I could see was flagging the magical presentation as unusual–I pulled out my phone with my free hand and called Klaus.

He answered on the second ring.

“I need you to check every piece of security footage from this morning,” I said without preamble. “Louis’s school, the route there, the park on Greenbrook. Every camera, every angle. Someone got to Louis.”

A beat of silence. Klaus had known Louis for his entire life. He’d been there the night Louis was first cursed, five years ago, when

we’d had no idea what we were dealing with. He understood what I was saying.

“You’re sure it’s the curse?”

“The purple discoloration is back. He collapsed at school. He was completely stable this morning–Bianca checked him herself before he left.” My voice stayed steady. I’d learned to keep it steady in crises. The steadiness was a choice I made and then paid for later. “Someone triggered a reactivation.”

“I’m on it. Where are they taking him?”

“BloodMoon General.”

Another pause, this one freighted with meaning.

“Bianca’s shift,” Klaus said.

“Yes.”

“Lucian-

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“I know.” I watched Louis’s face, his chest rising and falling with small, effortful breaths. “One crisis at a time.”

“I’ll call you when I have footage.” A pause. “He’s going to be okay. Bianca will-

“Call me when you have footage.”

I ended the call and put my phone in my pocket and gave Louis my complete attention for the twelve–minute drive to the hospital.

He drifted in and out. Not unconsciousness–his eyes stayed partly open, his responses remained present–but something between waking and sleep, the way he got when his magical system was working too hard. I’d seen it before, in the worst months before we’d understood what we were dealing with. Before the treatments that had pushed it back into dormancy.

“Stay with me,” I told him, keeping my voice low enough that the paramedic working at the other end of the ambulance couldn’t quite hear. “Stay with me, Louis. Tell me something. Tell me about your day.”

“We did reading,” he said, his words slightly slurred. “I read the one about the bear.”

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