Third Person POV
King Vaden sat in the sterile hospital room, a towering figure diminished only by the sterile stillness around him. His eyes were fixed on the unconscious woman lying beneath a sea of tangled wires and quietly beeping machines. Queen Sofia, his mate, the woman who had once tamed the beast in him, was now pale and motionless, her chest rising and falling with the help of monitors and enchantments that kept her from slipping away.
He was holding her hand—clutching it, really—as if by sheer strength of will he could keep her tethered to the world of the living. But it wasn’t just strength he was channeling. It was love. Pure, undiluted, soul-binding affection. Through their bond, he poured everything he had left. Pain. Guilt. Rage. But above all, hope. The hope that she cou
