Lennox’s POV
The air in the room was thick with the scent of fear. Levi looked like he wanted to punch the wall, and Louis looked like he was about to collapse. Seeing them like this—seeing my brothers, my lieutenants, my family, shattered—was worse than the diagnosis.
"I have to see a doctor first," I said, my voice cutting through their panic with the last of my Alpha authority. "A human specialist. Soone who knows how to fight this without a wolf’s help."
"Lennox, we have to tell Olivia," Louis choked out, his eyes red. "We promised her no more secrets. This is the biggest secret there is."
"No," I snapped, then winced as a sharp pain flared behind my eyes. "Not yet. I have my reasons. If I tell her now, she’ll spend the rest of the day mourning while I’m still standing. I want to know exactly what we’re facing before I break her heart again. We see the doctor first."
Levi rubbed his face with his hands. "How are we supposed to get you to a specialist in the city without her knowing? She may not be your mate, Lennox. She feels your every move."
"I’ll handle it," I said grimly. "Just back up."
The door opened, and Olivia walked in carrying a tray. The scent of the homade soup hit , and for a second, my stomach turned. She looked at , her eyes searching for any sign of the truth we had just buried.
"You look a little better," she lied, though I could see the tremor in her hands as she set the tray down on my lap. "Martha? What’s the verdict?"
I caught Martha’s eye in a silent warning.
"Severe exhaustion and a dip in his blood pressure, Luna," Martha said, her voice remarkably steady for soone who had just delivered a death sentence. "He needs rest and nourishnt."
"I’m fine, baby," I said, forcing myself to take a spoonful of the soup. It felt like swallowing lead, but I smiled at her. I ate as much as I could, acting strong, acting like the man who had held this pack together for years.
Once the tray was empty, I set it aside and started to stand. Olivia imdiately moved to stop .
"Where do you think you’re going? Martha said rest." "I have an ergency eting at the pack hospital," I said, reaching for my jacket. "There’s a dispute with the dical supply borders. I need to be there to sign off on the new shipnts. Levi and Louis are coming with ."
"Lennox, you’re sick," she argued, her brow furrowed. "Let your brothers handle it."
"I’m okay, Olivia. Truly," I said, leaning down to press a lingering kiss to her forehead. I held it a second longer than usual, morizing the scent of her skin. "I’ll be back before the kids wake up from their nap. I promise."
I dressed quickly, my hands shaking so much I could barely button my shirt. Louis helped with my coat, his face a mask of grief. We walked out, past the nanny and the kids, and got into the back of the black SUV.
"Drive," I told the driver. "Fast."
The pack hospital was a gleaming building of glass and white stone. When we stepped through the doors, the atmosphere shifted instantly. The head doctor, Dr. Vance, and a team of healers were already waiting. They had seen the Alpha’s car pull up.
Dr. Vance bowed low, but his eyes were wide with confusion as he looked at . He was a shifter, and he could tell sothing was wrong.
"Alpha Lennox," he said, his voice hushed. "We weren’t expecting—"
"We need to talk," I interrupted, my breath coming in short, shallow hitches. "In private. Now."
I walked past him toward his office, my legs feeling like they were made of water.
I told him my condition, and he began to work. He worked in a frantic silence, running scans and checking monitors while Louis and Levi stood behind like two statues of grief.
Vance stepped back from the screen, his face ashen. He pointed to a dark mass on the imaging—a jagged shadow nestled deep within the tissue.
"It’s aggressive, Alpha," Vance said, his voice barely a whisper. "It’s pressing directly against a major artery in the brain. If we had your wolf, the regeneration would keep the artery wall strong while we operated. But right now? The tissue is paper-thin."
"What does that an, Vance?" Louis demanded, his voice filled with fear. "In plain English."
"It ans surgery is almost impossible," Vance replied, looking down at his tablet. "If we cut, and that artery ruptures without a wolf’s healing factor to seal it instantly... you’ll bleed out on the table in seconds."
Levi stepped forward, grabbing the edge of the doctor’s desk. "Then what? We just sit and watch him die? Give us a number. How much ti does he have?"
Vance hesitated, his eyes flicking to with a look of pure tragedy. "Without treatnt? You have maybe two weeks of lucidity left. With imdiate, aggressive human treatnt—chemotherapy and targeted radiation—we might be able to shrink it enough to risk a surgery."
"And if we do that?" I asked, my voice surprisingly steady. "How long?"
Vance let out a long, slow breath. "At most? A month. Maybe six weeks if we are lucky."
"We have to start today," Vance continued. "But I have to be honest, Alpha... the treatnt itself is brutal. It will strip what’s left of your strength. You won’t be able to hide this from the Luna for more than a few days. You’ll be too weak to stand."
Louis turned away, his shoulders shaking as he finally broke, sobbing silently into his hands. Levi just stared at the scan, his eyes burning with a mixture of helplessness and rage.
"A month," I whispered, the words tasting like ash. I looked at my brothers. "I need you to listen to . If I only have a month, I’m not spending it in a hospital bed. We start the treatnt, but I do it at ho. You set up a wing. You bring the machines. I will be with my children and Olivia until the very second I can’t be."
"Lennox, you can’t—" Levi started.
"I can," I snapped, the last of my Alpha fire flickering in my eyes. "Because if I’m going to die as a human, I’m going to die surrounded by the people who made my life worth living. Now, get the equipnt ready. We’re going ho."
The silence in the SUV on the way back to the mansion was suffocating. Louis was staring out the window, his jaw tight as he tried to keep his composure. Levi was vibrating with a silent, restless fury.
But my mind was already sowhere else.
I looked at my hands. They were steady for now, but Vance was right—the treatnt would change that. Within days, I’d be a shell. Olivia would see wasting away, and she would pour every ounce of her soul into trying to save a man who was already a ghost.
I couldn’t let her do that. I couldn’t let her last mories of be filled with the scent of sickness and the sound of my failing breath. If she loved when I died, the grief would destroy her. It would break the bond in a way she might never recover from.
"I need to find a woman," I said, my voice cutting through the silence like a blade.
Louis snapped his head toward , his eyes wide. "What? Lennox, you’re delirious. The cancer is—"
"I’m not delirious," I hissed, leaning forward. "Listen to . If I die while Olivia is deeply in love with , the mate loss will kill her too or leave her so broken she can’t mother our boys. I need to make her hate . I need to make her want to leave."
"You want to fake an affair?" Levi asked, his voice rising in disbelief. "Now? After everything we just fixed? That’s insane."
"It’s rcy," I argued, a sharp pain blooming behind my eyes. "I’ll find a woman. Soone who can play the part. I’ll tell Olivia the bond was a mistake, that I’ve found my ’true’ mate, or that I simply don’t want her anymore. I’ll push her toward you two. You’ll be her comfort. You’ll be the ones she leans on when I’m ’gone’ with this other woman."
"She’ll never believe it," Louis choked out. "She knows you."
"She knows the Alpha. She doesn’t know a dying man’s desperation," I replied. "I’ll make it convincing. I’ll be cold. I’ll be cruel. I’d rather she spend her life angry at my mory than wasting it mourning a corpse. If she hates , she survives. That is the final duty of an Alpha."
Levi shook his head, tears finally spilling over. "You’re asking us to help you break her heart. Again. We just got her back, Lennox."
"I am asking you to save her life!" I roared, then imdiately doubled over as a coughing fit seized my lungs. I tasted iron. I pulled my hand away from my mouth; it was stained with dark, crimson blood.
I showed it to them.
"See this? This is reality," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I have thirty days. I’m not spending them watching her cry for . I’m going to spend them making sure she’s strong enough to live without ."
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