Chapter 100: Caught in the Act

Adeline’s pov~

Exhausted. The pain in my chest. The heat on my body, like I have been set on fire. I’m burning up.

I sat on the mattress clutching my hoodie. Without a word, Keiran stepped up to the side of the bed. Before I could ask what he was doing, he brought his own palm to his mouth. With his sharp teeth, he tore open the skin of his hand in one sharp, ruthless movement. Fresh, crimson Lycan blood welled up, dripping down the side of his palm.

He is gonna feed me his blood.

He extended his bleeding hand toward my face, his voice dropping into an unexpectedly soft, low murmur. "Drink, Adeline."

"No..." I tried to shake my head, recoiling slightly. "Lord Keiran, no—"

"It will heal the tearing and stop the bleeding immediately," he insisted, his tone unyielding yet surprisingly gentle. "Your body is completely exhausted. Drink."

I wanted to refuse. I wanted to push him away and demand he leave my room. But my wrecked, utterly exhausted body had nothing left to fight with. Every limb felt like lead, and the raw, throbbing pain beneath my clothes was unbearable. I couldn’t walk down to the infirmary to get a healing salve, not looking like this, and certainly not smelling like Raven.

But I have that sick feeling after what happened with Raven. I threw up his blood, completely healed, and that meant I was his mate, or so that is what he said.

Lycan’s blood is pure, ancient, powerful. They can heal any type of wound in seconds. It doesn’t matter whether it is a cut or scratch or internal bleeding. It cures anything and anybody. That is all everyone knew, including me, but after hearing what Raven said in the Vault that night, I came to know about the mate bonds. If the Lycan fed a woman his blood and her body gets healed but throws up his blood means they are mates fated by the moon goddess, and the blood rejection is because the bond asks for physical interaction to heal, and not just blood.

That sick thought brued his way up. So, if I’m already fated to Raven and if that is true, then drinking Keiran’s blood is no harm, and it is better this way instead of using a healing salve which takes at least an hour.

But I still don’t believe I am fated to Raven’s mate, and it is impossible.

Breathing out a shaky, desperate sigh, I leaned forward. My trembling hands reached up, cupping his wrist, and I pressed my lips to the wound on his hand, letting the warm, iron-rich Lycan blood coat my tongue.

I swallowed, the liquid sliding down my burning throat like liquid fire.

"Good girl," Keiran murmured softly, his thumb gently grazing my cheekbone, wiping away a stray smear of crimson from the corner of my lip. His voice was laced with a strange, possessive gentleness that made my skin crawl even as the magic in his blood went to work.

Within seconds, the agonising, tearing pain in my arm, which had also happened when I had jumped from the first floor of the headquarters building earlier, began to recede, replaced by a soothing, cooling numbness. The throbbing bruise on my knee melted away, and the leaden heaviness in my limbs lifted. My body was healing, rapidly, efficiently, exactly as ancient Lycan lore promised.

Keiran pulled his hand back, watching me closely as the jagged tear across his palm stitched itself back together, leaving behind unblemished skin.

"What happened to you, Adeline? What Raven did to you?" Keiran asked, his dark eyes narrowing as he leaned closer, his voice dropping into a demanding, rigid command.

"Nothing," I breathed out, my head throbbing as I squeezed my eyes shut against the overwhelming pressure in the room. "I’m just tired and I want to—"

Before I could finish the sentence, the door of my dorm swung open with a sharp click.

Sierra rushed into the room, her eyes wide with panic, followed immediately by a towering, broad-shouldered shadow. Sierra didn’t even register Keiran or the suffocating tension in the air. She bolted straight toward the bed and threw her arms tightly around my shoulders.

"Girl, I was worried sick!" Sierra gasped, burying her face against my neck for a second before pulling back to inspect me. "Are you alright? Everyone has been looking everywhere for you!"

"I’m alright," I managed to say, my voice trembling as I offered a weak, tight-lipped nod.

Over Sierra’s shoulder, my gaze lifted. Blake stood framed in the open doorway, his massive frame completely filling the entrance. His jaw was clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek, his dark eyes locked onto mine with a fierce, burning intensity.

I met his gaze for a fraction of a second, the heavy, suffocating weight of everything pressing down on my chest. I quickly looked back down at Sierra, who had already pulled away and was staring at me with wide, sharp eyes. She had clearly caught it. The thick, unmistakable scent of Raven’s dominance wrapped around my hoodie like a second skin. But to her credit, she didn’t push or call it out in front of them, at least not at a time like this.

Instead, Blake took a slow, heavy step into the room, his nostrils flaring as the air hit him.

"You are literally dripping with Raven’s scent," Blake stated, his voice dropping into a rough, cold growl.

Sierra’s eyes darted down. Her sharp gaze caught a tiny streak of crimson dried at the corner of my lip.

"Wait-why is there blood on your..." Sierra started, her voice pitching up in alarm.

"She hurt her knee," Keiran cut in smoothly. "I fed her my blood. She’ll heal quickly."

"What?!" Sierra cried out, her panic instantly shifting targets. "Hurt your knee? How?! Oh, Goddess, show me, let me see!"

Before I could pull away, Sierra dropped to her knees on the floor in front of the mattress. Her hands moved swiftly, gently grabbing the hem of my jeans, which still carried a few dried drops of blood from earlier, and pulled the fabric up to inspect my leg. She stopped dead.

Right there, on my kneecap, was the ugly purple smudge of the bruise from when I had vaulted out of Raven’s headquarter’s window. But as we watched, the magic of Keiran’s Lycan blood went to work beneath the skin. The dark bruising dissolved rapidly, the scraped skin stitching itself closed in real time until the area was completely smooth and unblemished.

"Wow... that was really quick," Sierra whispered, blinking in sheer astonishment before gently smoothing my jeans back down. She stood up, looking at my pale, exhausted face. "Alright, you look like you’re about to pass out."

"I am tired, Sierra..." I murmured, using her distraction as my cue, heavily indicating that I needed them all to leave so I could finally sleep.

Keiran and Blake exchanged a long, silent, murderous look, two apex predators sizing each other up over my broken body, before they finally turned toward the door to leave.

The moment Blake’s broad back turned, and the heavy dread of their presence began to lift, a violent, scorching wave hit the back of my throat.

Seriously? Wtf?

The iron-rich blood I had just swallowed, the very blood Keiran had fed into my body to heal me, suddenly came rushing back up. My stomach violently twisted, convulsing with a merciless, sickening rejection that left me gasping for air as the hot, metallic taste flooded my mouth.

Sierra’s eyes widened in sudden panic as she saw me. "Adeline, are you okay?!" she cried out, dropping back down beside the bed.

I couldn’t answer. I could only give a frantic, jerky nod, my blurry vision shifting toward the doorway. Hearing Sierra’s panicked outcry, both Blake and Keiran had frozen right at the threshold. They turned their heads back, their sharp eyes locking onto me with heavy, assessing suspicion as I fought the violent convulsions in my chest.

Only when the heavy oak door finally clicked shut, sealing them out into the hallway, did my body completely give way.

I bolted off the mattress, my stomach twisting into a agonizing knot as the metallic, burning weight of Keiran’s blood rushed back up my throat. I tore across the room and threw myself over the bathroom sink, violently coughing up the crimson fluid as my head jerked with every wrenching heave.

"Girl, it’s fine, you’re okay, you’re okay..." Sierra murmured, rushing in right behind me. Her hands firmly cupped both sides of my head, gently holding my hair back out of the way as I retched up every last drop of Keiran’s healing blood into the white porcelain basin. "Breathe, Adeline. Just let it out."

Water, red and thick, swirled down the drain. Trembling from head to toe, I turned on the faucet, cupped my hands under the cold stream, and aggressively rinsed the bitter, metallic taste from my mouth. Sierra rubbed soothing, frantic circles into my back.

"Sierra, you cannot let anyone else know about this," I gasped out, my voice raw and urgent. "If they find out I rejected his blood like this, they will take it in a wrong—"

"Planning to hide something from me that I have already witnessed?"

A deep, velvet-smooth voice sliced through the small bathroom, from the doorway behind us. My heart completely stopped.

I whipped my head around, my breath catching in my throat as my eyes landed on the doorway. Keiran, Blake, and Zyran stood behind us. All three of them.

Their faces locked in an expression of absolute, terrifying realisation. They had seen it all.

The room began to spin violently, tilting wildly on its axis. The last thing I saw through the dark spots flooding my vision was all three of them lunging forward in a desperate sprint towards me.

"Adeline...!" Sierra’s voice screamed out, echoing far away as my knees completely buckled, and the world went pitch black.