Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 18

Chapter 18

BIANCA

I drove back to the hospital with the unsigned papers burning a hole in my bag. My hands were steady on the wheel, but inside I was screaming, replaying that fertility clinic email over and over until the words were seared into my brain.

Conception is certainly possible with proper management and monitoring.

I pulled into my parking spot and sat there for a moment, forehead pressed against the steering wheel, trying to remember how to breathe. Then I shoved everything, the pain, the anger, the betrayal deep down into a box into my chest and locked it away.

I had patients who needed me. I had work to do. I could fall apart later.

The hospital’s familiar hallways helped in steadying me as I went on my rounds. Mrs. Adelson’s blood pressure was improving. Mr. Park was complaining about the food, and how bland it was, which meant he was recovering well. Little Emma was going

home today, her nasal disease finally under control.

These were victories. Small ones, but mine.

I saved Louis’s room for last, needing something positive to end my rounds, needing to see his sweet smile and remember why I’d become a healer in the first place.

But when I pushed open his door, my medical training kicked in with an urgency that made my stomach drop.

Louis was worse. Way worse than how I left him yesterday.

His skin had taken on a grayish color that showed that he was having difficulty breathing. His breathing was slow and laboured and he couldn’t even move, too weak to sit up.

The curse was accelerating.

“Hey, Dr. Bianca,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “I don’t feel so good today.”

I was at his bedside immediately, my hands going to his pulse points, his heartbeat was irregular, and his temperature was dropping instead of spiking. His body was shutting down.

“I know, sweetheart. I know.” I smoothed his hair back, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. “But I’m going to help you, okay? I know what’s wrong now, and I’m going to fix it.”

“Promise?” His eyes were glassy, unfocused, staring at the ceiling, rather than at me.

“I promise.”

But even as I said it, I was trying hard to force down the panic that was clawing at my throat. Breaking a curse this powerful required resources I didn’t have access to as a mere healer. This wasn’t conventional medicine. This was dark magic, and fighting it, required help to books that was forbidden in the first place.

I needed help. I needed someone who understood curse–breaking, who knew the old ways, the forbidden arts that most healers had abandoned or forgotten.

And then I remembered.

My mother’s journals.

She’d been cast out of her pack for practicing “forbidden” healing arts, my mother had insisted that understanding darkness was the only way to truly fight it, that knowing how curses worked was essential to breaking them.

She’d died when I was seventeen, and I’d kept her journals in a storage unit ever since, unable to throw them away but too afraid

to study them. Afraid that if anyone discovered I had knowledge of curse–breaking, I’d be cast out too. That Matthew would reject me as well just as my previous pack had.

But Louis was dying. Right now. And I was the only one who could see it.

“I’ll be back soon,” I told him, squeezing his small hand gently. “I’m going to get something that will help you. Just hold on for me, okay? Be brave.”

“Always brave,” he whispered.

I left his room at a near run, my mind already making a list of what I’d need, where the storage unit was, how quickly I could get there and back. I was so focused on planning that I didn’t see the person in front of me until it was too late.

We collided hard, and this time we both went down in a tangle of limbs.

Strong hands caught me instinctively even as we fell, cushioning my impact, pulling me against a solid chest that smelled like pine and something wild.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” a deep voice said, and I looked up into the face of the mysterious Alpha I’d crashed into yesterday.

He was even more striking up close, with dark eyes that seemed to see too much and a slight smile that didn’t quite reach those eyes. His hands were still steadying me, and where his skin touched mine, I felt an unexpected jolt run down my spine as I felt my face heating up.

“I’m fine,” I lied, shoving my phone back into my pocket. “I have to go.”

“You’re not fine.” It wasn’t a question.

“I said I’m fine.” My voice came out sharper than I intended, as I immediately regretted it. Losing my cool at someone who had saved me from being injured twice.

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