Mated To The Alpha King (Raven and Ethan) novel Chapter 224

Chapter 224

Alpha Ethan’s Pov

I left the doctor’s office, his words still echoing in my head like a curse I could never escape. We tried our best… but she couldn’t make it alive.

The hallway stretched before me like an endless tunnel, pale lights flickering overhead.

I wheeled down the corridor like a man without a soul, each step heavier than the last, as if the floor itself wanted to drag me down into the earth with her. The voices around me were muffled, distant. Nurses murmured.

People bowed their heads as I passed. But I didn’t hear them. I didn’t see them. My vision had narrowed to a dark tunnel, my body moving on instinct alone, guided only by grief.

The door to her room was half open when I reached it. My hand hovered over the handle, trembling violently. For a long heartbeat, I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. The metal felt like ice against my palm, but somehow I pushed it fully open.

The smell hit me first iron, antiseptic, and something worse: silence.

Ava lay on the bed.

Her body still. Her chest unmoving.

Her skin was pale, almost translucent, her lips drained of the rosy warmth I loved to kiss. She looked like she was only sleeping too still, too cold to ever wake again.

My heart cracked wide open, the pain so sharp it stole my breath.

I staggered forward until I was standing at her bedside. My fingers trembled as I reached out, brushing over her face.

The warmth I had known, the softness of her skin that used to spark fire under my touch, was gone. She was cold.

So very cold.

And she wasn’t breathing.

That could only mean one thing.

She was gone. Forever.

My chest tightened, my lungs squeezed as if the same sickness had taken hold of me. I dropped to my knees beside her, clutching her limp hand to my lips, pressing frantic kisses into her frozen skin.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice cracked, hoarse and broken. “Why didn’t you tell me you had that kind of sickness, Ava? You knew I would have stopped this; I would have protected you. I wouldn’t have let you get

12:46 Tue, Sep 30

Chapter 224

pregnant, not like this, not with your lungs so weak.”

The words tore out of me like glass shards, each one cutting deeper than the last.

Stageners

“And now…” My forehead pressed against her arin, the sobs shaking through my body. “Now you’re gone. You left me… you left me alone. And with a child to look after.”

Tears that I had fought with every ounce of strength since the waiting room finally broke free. Hot, unrelenting, they streamed down my face, soaking her hospital gown.

I wept like a man who had lost the only thing that tethered him to life.

I remembered her smile then, unbidden. The way she used to curl into my chest on quiet nights, whispering about the future she dreamed of a home filled with warmth, laughter, and maybe a child or two.

She had wanted this so badly, wanted to give me a family, even when I never asked. Even when she was the family I needed.

Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. Time had no meaning anymore.

I stayed there, clinging to her hand as if my grip could anchor her soul back into her body. But she remained cold. Silent.

The door opened behind me. Soft footsteps entered the room. But I didn’t move, didn’t lift my head, and didn’t care.

“All I want is to cry my heart out,” I whispered to myself, my voice breaking.

“Alpha…” a voice called gently.

I didn’t answer.

“Alpha,” the voice tried again, closer now. “Do you… do you want to see the child?”

The words sliced through me like a blade. My shoulders stiffened, but I still didn’t raise my head. My throat burned with the bitterness of bile and grief.

“Leave,” I muttered.

“But Alpha,” the voice persisted softly, “the baby needs your presence. She hasn’t stopped crying since she was born. She’s looking for you.”

My grief exploded into fury. My head snapped up, my face wet with tears, my eyes red and burning.

“I don’t fucking care!” I roared, my voice shaking the walls. “Get out! I don’t want to see the baby!”

The person flinched, silence filling the room again, thick and suffocating.

After a long pause, the voice returned, lower, hesitant. “Alpha… she’s your daughter. She“.

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