When You Were My Mate (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 86

Chapter 86

Demetra

Contd

“Demetra, come on. Seth, come on!” Tiffany yells from the doorway.

Seth grabs my dress from the floor and pulls me toward the exit. Just as we’re about to move-

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Slade body flies past me. His body crashes into the wall with a sickening crack, plaster splintering around him like spiderwebs.

“SLADE!” 1 scream.

I look back at the monster who did that to him.

Emris.

He moves like a disaster given a body, one hand snapping out to slap two gammas aside at once, sending them smashing into the walls. He looks furious then Seth steps in front of me.

No.

No, no, no.

I’m not going to let an innocent person get caught in this!

Seth, no!” I grab his arm, trying to pull him back. “He’s going to hurt you!”

Emris starts laughing. Hysterically. Like thunder rolling through a storm cloud. The sound bounces off the walls, fills the oom, fills my chest with ice.

You should listen to my mate.” He growls the words.

Behind him, Slade rises from the rubble, bleeding from his forehead, and lunges. His claws slash across Emris’s back. Again. Again. Again.

Emris doesn’t acknowledge the wounds opening up on his skin. He just keeps staring at me, like he can’t feel pain. In a snap of finger, he turns and catches Slade by the neck.

Emris!” I yell, trying to push past Seth when-

Amira’s nanny bursts into the room like she’s been running for her life.

Miss Demetra! Miss Demetra-Amira-Amira is-”

Alpha Emris.

She.. I think she fainted.”

let go of Slade’s neck.

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I let go of Slade’s neck and turn toward the nanny, who flinches the second she sees my face. The mention of Amira does something ugly and sharp inside my chest. It’s strange, how a threat to that little girl can cut right through all my anger and leave only one thing behind: instinct.

“Fainted!?” I snap. “Did someone hurt her!?”

Demetra struggles to get down from where Seth has her. The moment she moves fast, her wedding gown trips her so she falls, hitting her knees on the ground with a crack that makes me flinch.

“Demetra!”

Everyone yells her name at once but I’m the one who rips her wedding dress with fury. I tear it until it’s shreds, splitting in at messy, ruined line so she can get to her daughter. Her wet eyes look up at me for half a second before she bolts past me and runs for her daughter.

Slade wipes blood from his mouth and goes after her.

I throw one last look at Seth.

Then I follow.

The Lion Pride gammas shadow me immediately like they expect me to throw myself back into a fight but I’m not paying them any attention. My eyes are fixed on where Demetra disappeared.

“Amira!?” I hear Demetra’s scream.

The way she sounds is something I’ve never heard from her before….it comes from her throat body and goes straight to the wolf. My chest tightens so violently I nearly snarl at the people around me for getting in my way.

The bond hits hard because I can tell that my mate is frightened and the fear she’s feeling comes through like a blade shoved between my ribs.

My wolf lunges against my ribs, howling to get to her as quick as I can. That’s what I do…I move faster until I find Amira’s room with Demetra on the rug, shaking her daughter’s small body and calling her name like the world itself is ending.

What I’m seeing stops me for half a heartbeat before I drop to my knees beside them.

‘Amira. Stop playing now, get up!”

Demetra is crying so hard it looks like rain spilling off her face. Her hands are shaking. Her mouth is trembling so badly she can barely speak. I have never seen her this terrified.

‘Let me see her.” My voice comes out rougher than I meant it.

She shifts Amira into my arms, and the second I hold the child’s little hand, I know something is wrong. There’s no strength in it. I can’t feel a proper pulse in her fingers.

“Amira!” Slade shouts.

“Emris… Seth… please, come help my baby!” Demetra screams, and something in my wolf fractures at the sound.

Seth goes down on his knees beside us. He presses two fingers to Amira’s neck, then her forehead, checking her temperature, watching for the signs that matter..

“High fever.” he says. “That’s a sign of Loo Fever.”

Demetra shakes her head and covers her face with one hand, sobbing so hard she can barely breathe.

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Chapter 86

“Loo Fever?”

“Get me salt water. Now!” Seth barks.

“Amira, baby.” Demetra pulls her daughter’s hand to her face and presses it against her cheek.

Seth rips off his jacket. I grab his arm. “What are you about to do?”

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“The Loo Fever can’t survive in a high-salt environment. Usually I’d do this with an IV drip, but we don’t have time for that. I’m going to flood her system with saline to wake it up. The salt will draw out the infection, lower the fever for a few minutes, and tell me how far it’s progressed. There are three stages of Loo Fever. Stage one is treatable. Stage two is aggressive but manageable. Stage three-” He stops. “We’re hoping this isn’t stage three.”

A jug of salt water is brought quickly, and Seth starts working. He gets a small amount into Amira’s mouth, then massages her chest and back to help her lungs respond.

I can hear Demetra’s heartbeat through the bond.

It’s already deep in loss but then-

Amira coughs. Sputters. Her little chest rises on its own and I literally see the effect of that sound give Demetra her will to live again.

“Baby?”

Amira coughs again, and Seth lifts her gently, rubbing slow circles across her back until the fit passes. Then, to my surprise, Amira’s eyes flutter open and find mine first.

This little girl rises weakly, and she smiles at me.

‘Daddy?”

‘Hey, little one. It’s me.” I respond.

We need to take her to the hospital for advanced testing immediately. There are different stages to the Loo Fever. We’ve been seeing cases where patients show no reaction or change in body temperature until the very last minute. Stage three. We’re hoping this isn’t that. I need blood work, a full viral panel, and a temperature log every hour for the next twenty-four. If she stabilizes, we caught it in time. If the fever spikes again-” He doesn’t finish the sentence.

‘Quick. Slade picks Amira up.

I get up too.

Whatever was happening before this no longer matters.

I get in my car with Silver and we follow behind the vehicle carrying Amira. It’s only when I rest my back against the seat and my back throbs that I remember Slade put gashes across my back. Deep one but they’ll heal

We reach the Irish territory fast, and I see their hospital lights ahead. Slade is carrying Amira inside while Demetra follows in her ruined wedding gown, still running like she might outrun fear itself. I cut my engine, shove the door open, and get

out behind them.

“Sir, are you part of the family? Please, you cannot go in-”

“Get the hell out of my way before I blow your brains out,” I growl at the nurse.

This place is a nightmare. Looks less like a hospital and more like a battlefield after the fight is already over. Every sob, every

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Chapter 86

cough hits me in the gut, because all I can think is Amira…

St vouctions

A girl not much older than Amira is convulsing while two nurses try to hold her down and it makes me lose sight of where Seth took Demetra and Amira to.

I don’t see where they went when they entered the elevator, which means I’m already behind. I curse under my breath and push deeper into the hospital, following the steel elevators that stretch up to the cloud like they never end. This place is a damn skyscraper, which means too many floors, too many doors, too many chances to lose them.

I check the first floor. Nothing. Second floor…more sick patients, more crying, but no Demetra. Fourth. I’m shoving past. doctors, ignoring security-

I’m still moving when I catch part of a nurse’s conversation near the hall.

“Little girl, ICU, highest fever we’ve seen today. The doctor wants her on the upper floor-”

-the one with the Loo Fever?”

“Yes, poor thing. Dr. Seth gave strict instructions. Thirteenth floor, room 412. He wants blood work every thirty minutes.”

I’m in the elevator before they finish speaking.

When the elevator opens, Demetra is on the floor, backed against the wall while her wedding dress spread around her like. Slade is there too withblood at the corner of his mouth, and the second he sees me, his expression turns murderous.

“What happened? Where’s Seth?” I ask.

The nurse beside Slade hands him a ice pack and looks at me with confusion.

“How is Amira?” I ask again, already done with everyone in this hallway who isn’t Demetra.

“Sir, if you are not her guardian-”

“Shut up. I press my lips together and walk forward until I’m standing in front of Demetra.

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