Don't Poke the Luna (Xena and Ryder)

Chapter 265 Xena's POV Three figures in medical scrubs burst through the door, carrying toolboxes that clinked ominously with each step. Two warriors grabbed my arms and draggedtoward a cold metal surgical table. Alpha Wiley stood expressionless in the corner, his eyes following my every movement.

The medical team worked with clinical efficiency, their gloved hands securing leather restraints around my wrists and ankles. The straps bit into my skin as they tightened them, ensuring I couldn't move even an inch. My heart hammered against my ribs as one of the doctors approached with a large syringe.

"Anesthesia won't work on werewolves," the lead doctor said. "She'll be conscious throughout the entire procedure." Terror clawed at my throat as the reality hit me. My breathing becrapid and shallow as panic threatened to overwhelm me.

The first needle pierced my arm, and I bit back a scream. They inserted tube after tube, turninginto nothing more than a blood bank. I could feel the warm liquid leaving my body, flowing through transparent tubes into collection bags that hung like macabre decorations around the table.

Ryder. I closed my eyes and tried to picture his green eyes, the way they crinkled when he smiled, the warmth of his arms around me. I had to survive this. I had to get back to him. We were supposed to have a future together, children, a life filled with love instead of this nightmare.

The extraction continued, and my strength ebbed away with each passing minute. My father's face flashed before my eyes - Dad, who had just sacrificed everything to free us from Martha's tyranny. He had died believing Logan and I would be safe, that we would build something beautiful from the ashes. I couldn't let his sacrifice be meaningless.

My pack needs me. The thought gavestrength even as my vision began to blur. Ryder was newly Alpha, still finding his footing. William was broken and bleeding in this hellhole. They all depended onto survive, to fight, to find a way out of this madness.

But as more blood left my body, I felt myself growing weaker. The world seemed to tilt and spin around me. I could hear my heartbeat slowing, becoming irregular. Am I going to die here? The question terrifiedmore than the physical pain.

Tstretched endlessly. I had no idea how long they'd been draining me, but it felt like hours. My lips were dry and cracked. The bags hanging aroundwere full to bursting with my blood.

Through my haze of weakness and pain, I heard raised voices. Arguments. Alpha Wiley's voice cut through the chaos with cold authority. Then cthe sharp sound of a door slamming, followed by heavy footsteps retreating down the hallway.

The sudden quiet was almost more frightening than the chaos had been.

"Xena, are you okay?" William's voice cut through the fog in my mind, weak but unmistakably him.

I wanted to answer, to tell him I was alive, but my consciousness felt like it was floating just out of reach, Sleep called to me, promisin It would be so easy to just let go, to drift away into that peaceful darkness.

end to the pain.

But William's voice kept pullingback, an anchor in the storm of my fading awareness. Xena, stay with me. Don't you dare give up. Fight, damn it!" The word resonated through my dying body. I had always been a fighter. Even as a child, when Martha's cruelty threatened to break me, I had fought back. When the shop exploded, when they kidnappedthe first time, when everything seemed hopeless - I had fought.

Una stirred weakly in my mind, her presence barely a whisper but still there. I forced my eyes to focus, to take in my surroundings despite the exhaustion that threatened to dragunder. The three doctors were hunched over computer screens, their fingers flying across keyboards as they analyzed my blood.

My attention turned to the IV stand beside me, still connected to my arm by a thin tube. The blood bags hanging from it were swollen, containing what looked like far more than the standard 600 milliliters they took during normal blood donations. The realization hitlike ice water: they weren't just taking what they needed for their serum. They were planning to draincompletely. To kill me.

Terror and rage warred in my chest. I reached out through our mind link, my mental voice barely a whisper.

"William." "Thank god, his relief flooded through our connection. I thought I'd lost you." Chapter 265

"We need to get out of here." Una stirred again in my mind her howl of fury givingstrength. Stay calm.

1 studied the room with new focus, my mind beginning to work despite my physical weakness. The doctors were absorbed in their work, their backs turned to us. The equipment aroundcould be weaponized if I was clever about it. "William, I reached out through our mind link again. "I have an idea." His voice cback strained but alert. "I'm listening." 'I'm going to create a distraction. When I do, I need you to take out the other two doctors." "Xena, we're both too weak for this," William's concern bled through the link. "It's too risky."

I looked at the blood bags again, at the pale skin of my arms where a.m needle marks dotted my flesh like a connect-the-dots puzzle. 'We're dead if we don't try. This is our only chance." Silence stretched between us through the mind link. Finally, William's voice cback. "Okay." Chapter Comments 52 POST COMMENT NOW