Chapter 285: It worked

Kaden snapped out of his battle-ready trance. His shoulders relaxed as he smoothly pulled the knife back.

"I thought it was someone else," he muttered. His voice was raspy from lack of sleep.

"Clearly," Killian sneered, rolling his neck to stretch out the tension. His sharp gaze immediately swept past Kaden and settled onto the room’s other occupants.

Yuki was fast asleep in the centre of the large bed, buried beneath a thick duvet and wearing an oversized man’s T-shirt. On the far side of the room, Kieran was sprawled awkwardly across a velvet couch, completely out cold. It was a bizarre sight. Normally, Kieran’s trained instincts would have had him on high alert the moment anyone stepped within a mile of the property.

Killian’s brows pulled into a tight knot.

"Care to explain why the doctor is completely knocked out," he asked, pointing a finger toward the couch, "and why she’s wearing his shirt?"

Kaden sheathed the blade into his belt with a soft clack and began to explain. His voice was low and rushed as He detailed everything, " Yuki had been injured by the rabid warrior during the ambush, and Kieran had noticed her wound refused to heal naturally." he started

" Kieran had whisked her away in secret before the hospital military could spot the anomaly. I, on the other hand, rushed to the villa straight from an emergency military briefing after learning of the situation. Still, Yuki’s condition had taken a sudden, violent turn for the worse shortly after arriving."

Killian’s eyes turned dangerously cold, but he remained quiet, listening intently.

"She was convulsing and burning up from the inside," Kaden whispered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "Kieran overexerted his core. He used his raw magic to draft a batch of specialised regenerative drugs on the fly."

Killian stopped mid-breath. Inside his mind, his wolf let out a quiet whistle. ’Isn’t that the exact same dangerous magical synthesis that got Kieran into that accident months ago?’ The wolf asked.

"When the hell did Kieran turn so reckless?" Killian hissed aloud. His fingers dug into his palms. He pinched the bridge of his nose and forced himself to take a slow, calming breath. "So he’s completely passed out because he drained his mana reserves to draft forbidden medicine," he summarised dryly..

He swung his gaze back onto Kaden, taking in the dark, bruised-looking circles under the boy’s eyes. "And what about you? What’s with those dark circles?"

Kaden crossed his arms defensively, shifting his weight. "I was awake all night keeping watch," he offered softly.

"Don’t lie to me," Killian snapped, stepping directly into Kaden’s space. "I’ve seen you awake for four days straight on an active battlefield, and you’ve never looked this worn out. What did you actually do?"

Kaden swallowed hard. He knew it was utterly impossible to hide anything from Killian when he was in this analytical mood. Lowering his gaze to the floor, he reluctantly admitted, "I used my magic on Yuki to help break the fever. Nothing was dropping her temperature fast enough."

"And?" Killian arched an expectant, sharp eyebrow, sensing there was more.

Kaden rubbed his wrist. His voice dropped into a barely audible mutter. "And... I absorbed a bit of her pain so her body wouldn’t go into shock."

Before Kaden could even finish his sentence, Killian smacked him hard across the back of the head.

"Ow! What was that for?!" Kaden hissed, wincing as he rubbed his head.

"Why on earth would you absorb her pain while attempting to cast healing magic?!" Killian barked at him, completely losing his cool as his voice echoed off the walls. "You were taking raw physical damage without actively healing your own body! Are you completely out of your mind?!"

Kaden opened his mouth to defend himself, but no words came out. He genuinely didn’t have a logical answer. In that moment of desperation, watching her suffer, he had just acted without thinking.

Killian’s frustrated outburst reverberated through the quiet room, instantly disturbing the two sleeping figures.

Kieran’s heavy eyelids fluttered open. Wincing against the morning light, he slowly lifted his head off the arm of the couch. His bleary gaze fell straight onto the bizarre scene before him. An enraged Killian furiously lecturing a surprisingly submissive, head-hanging Kaden..

A faint, tired smirk twitched at the corner of Kieran’s lips. *A rare sight indeed,* he thought, letting out a dry, scratchy cough as he pushed himself up.

Yuki was startled awake by the harsh noise as well. Blinking away the sleep from her eyes, she looked around the room in mild confusion. Kaden looked remarkably like a puppy caught chewing on a shoe.

"Killian...? Kaden...?" Yuki called out softly. Her voice was raspy and hoarse from the fever that had ravaged her throat all night.

Killian’s fiery anger evaporated in a single heartbeat. He snapped his mouth shut and turned toward the bed. His stern expression softened as he looked at the bewildered girl.

The moment her voice registered, Kieran pushed himself off the velvet couch, ignoring the heavy exhaustion dragging at his limbs, and rushed straight to her bedside.

"Yuki," he said gently, hovering over her with concern laced in his eyes. "How are you feeling? Does it still hurt?".

Instinctively, Yuki reached up to touch her temples, expecting the agonising, throbbing migraine that had plagued her for hours. But to her utter shock, her head was completely clear. The oppressive heat, the nausea, the burning pain. All of it had vanished.

"I... I don’t hurt," she whispered in disbelief.

Her gaze drifted down to her hand, remembering the deep, jagged laceration she had sustained during the fight. She frantically began unwrapping the thick layer of white gauze wrapped around her palm and forearm. As the final layer of cloth fell away, she gasped.

The stitches were still there but the skin underneath was completely smooth, with no signs of even a scratch If not for the thread still in her skin, it was entirely impossible to tell that her skin had been sliced open just hours before.

"It’s... it’s completely gone..." Yuki muttered. Her voice trembled with a mixture of awe and immense relief.

Standing right beside her, Kieran let out a long, shuddering breath. The intense tension that had locked his shoulders rigid all night finally melted away, replaced by a weary, triumphant smile.

"It actually worked," Kieran murmured softly. His voice was thick with relief.

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