Lucian's POV
Her scream pierced the chamber like a blade, raw and filled with terror. Evelyn's body convulsed violently, thrashing against the black silk sheets as though she were battling some unseen enemy. Her voice cracked, desperate, every word laced with torment.
"Stay away from me! Stay away from me, you monster!"
The words struck me harder than any blade ever could. Monster. I had been called that countless times, by Alphas, enemies, wolves and humans alive, but the way it fell from her lips, the way her trembling body recoiled from my presence, left a sting I hadn't anticipated.
"Aveline…." The name slipped before I caught myself. My chest tightened. No. She was Evelyn. Not Aveline. And yet, those eyes, that face, that stubbornness. The resemblance clawed at my sanity. I cleared my throat and forced my voice to steady. "Evelyn, it's me."
But she wasn't hearing me. Her eyes weren't even seeing me. Instead, she flung a pillow at my chest, her sobbing voice breaking as she screamed again.
"Don't come near me!" she begged, shaking her head violently, eyes wild with fever. "Please…. don't rape me again, uncle… please…. I can't take this anymore. Please…"
The sound of that single word, rape, ignited something inside me. Fury, sharp and vicious, clawed its way up my throat. Who was this uncle that had carved such fear into her? Who was this bastard that had left her so broken she could not even distinguish me from him in her delirium?
But the rage had to wait, because Evelyn had collapsed into the corner of the bed, curling in on herself like a terrified child. Her hands trembled as they clutched at her head, her tears soaking the sheets as she cried into them. I could see it, she wasn't crying because of me, not truly. She was trapped in a nightmare I couldn't reach, fighting ghosts I could not kill.
I spun toward the doctors, my voice a growl sharp enough to make the nearest one stumble back. "What the hell is going on? What's wrong with her?"
One of the older healers dared to meet my gaze, though his hands trembled. "My Lord… it's the fever. It's extremely high. She's hallucinating, lost in her mind. Her body is weak, and her mind is confused. If we don't calm her fever, the hallucinations will worsen. She may…. she may not survive."
The idea of her slipping away, the image of those eyes closing forever, filled me with a panic I hadn't felt in centuries. "Then fix it!" I roared. "What are you imps waiting for? Do whatever it takes to make her better!"
The youngest among them, his hands shaking as he gripped a small syringe, stepped forward. "We need to sedate her, my Lord. If she doesn't calm down, her heart might give out from the strain."
I turned back to her, my Aveline, her cries echoing in my skull. She was still muttering between sobs, begging some phantom uncle not to hurt her again, her voice breaking into whimpers that twisted something deep in my chest.
Carefully, I moved to the bed. The moment I touched her arm, she thrashed violently, striking me with her fists, her nails scraping against my skin. She screamed so loud it rattled the chambers. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!!"
I could have overpowered her in a heartbeat, but I didn't. Not like that. Instead, I wrapped my arms around her gently yet firmly, holding her against my chest as she fought me with every ounce of strength her frail body could muster.
Her heat seared against me, her sweat soaking through my shirt. Her small frame shook, trembling violently like a bird caught in a storm. I tightened my hold, pressing her head against my chest, caging her wild thrashing in the prison of my embrace.
"Shhh.…" I found myself whispering, though the words sounded foreign on my tongue. "No one will touch you. Not while I'm here. No one."
Her fists slowed against me, her screams still sharp but growing weaker, her body losing the strength to resist.
"Now!" I barked at the doctor.
The healer stepped forward quickly, driving the syringe into her arm with precision. Evelyn flinched, her cry rising for a moment before her body slackened against me. Slowly, gradually, her thrashing turned into twitching, then into stillness. Her eyes fluttered, half lidded and dazed, until at last they slipped shut.
I held her there, limp in my arms, her breath shallow against my chest. She felt so small, so fragile, as though the faintest wind could shatter her. I looked down at her face, tear streaked, bruised, exhausted. She looked like she had been fighting battles long before I had even found her.
"Good," one of the healers muttered softly. "She'll sleep now. Her fever will need time to break, but the sedation will give her body a chance to fight it."
I barely heard them. My eyes were on her, on the rise and fall of her chest, on the way her lashes still glistened with tears. My Aveline. No... Evelyn. She cannot be Aveline. And yet, holding her like this, I couldn't deny it. She was dragging ghosts out of me I had buried centuries ago.
I stroked a damp strand of hair from her forehead, ignoring the healers watching in fear. "Sleep, little one," I murmured, my voice so low I wasn't sure if I was speaking to her or the phantom of Aveline. "You're safe now. I'll kill them all before I let anyone touch you again."
I lowered her to the bed with a care that surprised even me. My hands, used to crushing bone, used to tearing flesh, moved as if guided by someone else's memory, soft and deliberate. I paused for one ragged breath, looking down at the woman who had been the cause of a sunrise of fury and the undoing of the cold armor I'd worn for centuries.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow, feverish pulls. Tiny noises escaped her even in that stupor, half sob, half whimper, and each one was a blade made of silver. I had not known that sound could wound me, I had not known that anything could make me feel helpless. For the first time in a very long time I felt small in the face of another's suffering.
She stared up at the dark ceiling, lashes damp and stuck together. When her lashes fluttered and her eyes tracked me for the smallest instant, the confusion in them was raw and childlike. For a panicked heartbeat she seemed to look through me to and then the fever gauntness closed her gaze again.
I wanted to curl around her and guard whatever thread of her life was left. I wanted to rend every breath from every throat that had cursed hers. I wanted to tear the world apart until there was nothing left but the two of us and the blood on my hands.
The healers muttered and moved at the edge of the room, performing ittle rituals and herbs and tinctures. I ignored them mostly. My fingers brushed her hair back from her forehead and for a moment I tasted a memory I had buried so deep centuries ago I had no idea it still existed.
Aveline had screamed for me and against me. She had flung pillows and screamed of uncles and of a horror I could not erase with force. Her terror had bared a wound inside me I thought long dead. It did something to me, made me feel what I never thought I could feel again, hurt.
"Everyone of them that hurt you, my Aveline," I said, my voice low and raw, "I am going to make each of them pay tenfold. I promise you."