Chapter 164: Cured
Erica woke with the kind of smile that strains at the edges— he kind meant to distract, to deflect, the kind a person wears when they're trying to hide the bruise beneath it.
The hospital room was washed in pale morning light, soft enough to pretend things were normal.
But then she saw her parents.
Her mother's eyes were swollen, rimmed red like she'd been crying for hours and only stopped because her body demanded it.
Her father looked even worse—not loud in his worry, but hollowed out by it, as if one more scare might snap something inside him.
And in the corner, trying to look smaller than he ever could, stood Lucas. He looked like he hadn't dared to breathe all night. His shoulders were tense, fingers curled into fists he kept hidden in his pockets.
The smile on Erica's face shattered. It didn't fade—it broke.
"I… did it again," she whispered, voice thin as tissue. "Collapsed. Scared everyone. Made everything worse—again."
Her mother was on her in a heartbeat, moving with a hush-soft urgency, brushing Erica's hair off her forehead like she was afraid it might hurt her.
Her father followed, his touch gentler than he usually allowed himself to be, as though he were holding something fragile and sacred.
Lucas didn't step forward.
He didn't need to.
He could feel the guilt radiating off her, sharp and invisible, crawling across the room like static.
She kept talking anyway, because once the guilt started, she never quite knew how to stop it.
"I just… I thought I was getting better," she said, forcing the words out through a tightening throat. "I thought maybe this time I wouldn't ruin everything. And then—" She swallowed hard. "Then it happened. Again. And you all had to—"
Her breath hitched. Emotion sharpened like a sudden blade.
And for the briefest flicker of a heartbeat—her eyes burned gold.
Only Lucas saw it.
Her parents didn't so much as flinch. They kept fussing, kept comforting, kept drowning out the truth humming beneath her skin.
"You didn't do anything wrong," her mother murmured, fierce in her softness.
"You're safe," her father whispered, as if saying it enough times would make it permanently true.
"You're here," Lucas added—but quieter, steadier, and weighted with a promise he wasn't sure he deserved the right to make.
Erica's lips trembled. And something in her began to ease, just a fraction. Their certainty wrapped around her, layering over the guilt like soft blankets, one brittle piece falling away at a time.
Her father cleared his throat—trying for a smile, one carved from fear and relief in equal measure.
"And… we have good news."
Erica blinked, caught between disbelief and exhaustion.
"Good…?"
"The doctors tested you again," her mother said. Her voice cracked on the relief she couldn't quite contain. "They can't explain it, but—your sickness is gone. Completely."
Erica went still.
Every muscle.
Every breath.
Like her body was afraid to move in case the moment shattered.
"What?"
"You're cured," her father said, with a reverence usually reserved for miracles. "Truly. Completely."
The words hit her like sunlight breaking through a storm.
For the first time since her eyes opened, her joy wasn't painted on—it burst out of her, raw and bright, a laugh tangled with a sob she tried (and failed) to hide behind her hands.
Lucas felt it ripple through the new bond rooting quietly beneath her ribs—weak, still forming, but undeniably alive.
She clung to her parents and they clung back like they'd almost lost her. Nurses drifted in and out. Time blurred into relieved tears and exhausted smiles, into Erica repeating the same refrain over and over like she was afraid it might vanish if she didn't:
"I'm cured… I'm actually cured."
Eventually her parents stepped out to speak with a doctor, leaving the room quieter, softer.
Lucas stayed by her bed, hands shoved into his pockets, watching the glow settle beneath her skin.
Erica leaned back against the pillows and exhaled, the sound long and shaky—like she'd finally outrun every nightmare that had chased her for years.
"Lucas… I had a dream," she said.
His pulse snapped to attention.
"What kind of dream?"
She frowned, looking down at her hands like the memory might be written across them.
"It was weird. I was… somewhere else," she said slowly. "It felt like me, but not me. There were these vines—chasing after me, pulling me down. Whispering things I didn't want to hear." She shivered. "But then someone grabbed me. Pulled me through all that darkness. Pulled me out."
Lucas held her gaze. The whole room seemed to tighten around the moment, around the unspoken truth hovering between them.
"It sounds like just a dream," he said gently. "You should focus on getting better."
She searched his face—looking for honesty, for reassurance, for the edges of something he wouldn't say.
He gave her calm.
He gave her steady.
She let out a slow breath.
"Yeah. Maybe."
A beat.
"I don't want to be in a hospital ever again after this. I swear, I've spent way too much of my life in places that smell like bleach."
"You won't," Lucas said, the words firm as stone.
She relaxed at that—fully, without hesitation. Trust settling her like a hand pressed gently between her shoulder blades.
Lucas stayed silent.
But inside him, he felt it:
the faint thrum of a newborn wolf stirring in her veins…
and the shadow of the thing that had nearly taken her life.
Erica had no idea how close her dream had been to the truth.
And Lucas had no intention of ever letting her find out.