CHAPTER 137: HEART STROKE ( EMILIANO’S POV )

"Luther!"

F-ck.

He’s awake. Why is he awake? Did he fake taking the pills?

His vitals are unsteady.

He will begin withering soon.

This is a headache. I’ve been trying to be good to him since I found out what is causing his flower to lose petals.

I can’t lose that Belladonna. I need to act.

Now.

Should I just sedate him and say it was a dream?

Would he believe me?

Should I explain?

What exactly should I explain?

It’s exactly what he saw.

I shut off the pheromone flux. The dial clicked as I turned it hard to the left. The last of the mist hissed through the tube, then stopped.

Inside the glass chamber, Luther was already reacting. His body jerked. Muscles pulled against the bonds. His wrists twisted, his ankles shifted. His head moved slightly, even with the strap pressed across his forehead.

The drug was wearing off.

I ran.

The lab door slid open for me and I crossed the threshold. The air was thick, full of my scent despite the low concentration of pheromones into the air. My shoes hit the floor hard.

Luther was on the surgical table, shaking. I saw the tremors in his thighs, his shoulders, his jaw. His breathing was loud and uneven. I checked the monitor. The sedative levels were low. His body had already processed most of it.

So he hadn’t lied. He took the dose. He was just adapting to it faster than I’d calculated.

I reached the table.

His eyes locked on me.

Bloodshot.

Furious.

Terrified.

He will surely ask for a divorce after this.

He tried to move again, twisting hard, the veins in his arms pushing against the skin. I reached for the wrist straps first, fumbling with the buckles.

My fingers were shaking.

The strap snapped open, and his right arm flung upward before I could grab it. I dodged the swing and moved to his other wrist. Then his ankles.

Each one took longer than it should have.

By the time I reached the forehead strap, he was yelling.

Not words—just noise.

Loud, panicked, angry. I unlatched the last strap and stepped back as his body came free.

He didn’t sit up right away. His chest heaved. He curled slightly to one side, holding his arms close, like every muscle hurt.

I moved to him.

I didn’t know what else to do.

I dropped to my knees beside the table and pulled him close.

His skin was burning. His heart was racing. He kept yelling, pushing at me, hitting weakly with open palms.

I wrapped my arms around him and held tighter.

I wasn’t thinking clearly.

The flower—his flower—only had two petals left.

I could feel the stress building in him like heat under pressure. His system couldn’t handle this much strain.

If one more petal dropped, we’d lose too much ground. Stabilizing him had to be the priority.

F-ck.

When I injected my blood into Luther, I thought it would give me control over his body — not by force, but by biology.

My pheromones, altered and concentrated, should have triggered submission in his secondary gland.

That’s how the process works. His system should’ve registered me as an alpha, recognized the scent, and started softening. I expected regression: less resistance, easier handling, a half bond in progress.

But that’s not what happened.

Luther’s body didn’t see me as an alpha because of his hatred for me at that moment.

His secondary gland picked up on something deeper, something truer.

It didn’t read me as dominant.

It read me as what I used to be — an omega.

No amount of chemical alteration could hide that from a fully developed gland, I guess. And instead of falling into alignment, his system rejected the input entirely.

That rejection started to show up almost immediately.

That is why his flower was wilting.

A new flower was taking its place.

Wolfsbane. My previous flower.

The only solution was to mate with him.

To overpower the omega nature of my pheromones with what I am now. An alpha.

But I can’t force a bonding.

Not when Luther is this unstable.

So I started developing his feelings for me in the hope that he would initiate the mating.

That’s why I’ve been calm this entire week, no matter how hard he pushed.

I didn’t respond to the insults or the games. I didn’t raise my voice. I let him feel like he had the upper hand. Because I knew if I pushed back — if I acted like that and scared him or upset him — it would make everything worse.

And now—

It can all end.

My revenge.

My plans.

My perfect society.

My marriage.

I did what I thought would calm him. I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t gentle.

It was instinct. It was an attempt to trigger anything that would reduce his heart rate. It only made things worse.

He shoved me back with surprising strength.

I lost balance and fell onto one hand. In that second, he lunged forward and reached into my coat. I didn’t realize what he was doing until I saw the flash of metal.

The scalpel.

I tried to twist away, but it was too late. The blade drove into my leg, low and to the side.

A sharp shock of pain shot upward. I grabbed at his wrist, but he already let go and backed away.

I hit the floor hard, gripping the wound.

Blood was soaking through the fabric of my pants.

I pressed my hand against it, checking.

It wasn’t pulsing.

The artery was safe. He’d missed it. Just muscle damage.

Painful, but not fatal.

Luther stood a few feet from me, chest still rising and falling fast. He held the edge of the table with one hand, steadying himself. The scalpel clattered to the floor between us. He didn’t pick it up again. His legs looked unsteady. The adrenaline would burn out soon.

I stayed down, watching him. Ready to move if he tried again. He didn’t. He looked around, confused, like the rage had given way to disorientation. His eyes flicked toward the chamber wall. Then to me. Then down at himself. His hands trembled.

"It’s ok, puppy. It’s ok. Please, stay calm!"

"What the f-ck did you do to him?"

Luther extended his hand to show me subject 43.

The man was strapped to a restraint chair.

Wide leather bands held him in place — across the chest, the arms, the forehead. His face had been sliced open from one cheek to the other. Not cleanly. The cut was jagged, like it had been forced, just enough to keep his mouth stretched open unnaturally wide.

Inside, there was nothing left to hide.

His teeth were melting. Not cracked or broken — melting. Slumping down into his gums like soft plastic. His tongue was swollen, dark, discolored.

The inside of his mouth looked rotted through. Fungal, wet, eaten from the inside out. I could smell it, even through the air filtration — sweet, sour, rotting protein.

A suction device was mounted into his mouth, fixed tight around the cavity.

It pulled constantly, loud and mechanical. Each pass stripped away more tissue. Flesh tore with the suction, peeled from bone, collapsed into the tube.

I could see the spray of red and brown collecting in the hose.

He was still alive.

His body trembled in short bursts.

His legs jerked.

His hands twitched in place under the straps.

His eyes opened just wide enough to show the whites, then fluttered back again.

Foamy bubbles formed along his lips, mixing with blood and tissue fluid. His breath rattled through the remains of his throat.

"Is this what you do with my blood?"

"Puppy, you don’t understand!"

"Jesus, how many have you killed so far?"

"Luther, this is all—"

"For your stupid plan? What is wrong with you? What kind of society builds on this?"

"Nazi’s developed a human atlas with almost 99% precision still used by surgeons these days. Unit 731 discovered the proper approach when it comes to frostbite. Science craves sacrifice!"

"Call me stupid in my face! One was enjoying dissecting people like they were frogs and the other, God, freezing kids arms just so you can tell boiling them after doesn’t get results is not science. Science would have progressed just fine without the pointless cruelty. Want to be a deranged psychopath? At least don’t blame it on science, you b-stard!"

"Luther..."

"Justify that however you want!", he said pointing to the strapped man." You are nothing but a murderer. I would rather be in jail than with you! I hate you!"

F-ck. Another petal was drying out.

"I should kill you."

Luther’s eyes shifted.

The focus dropped from his face. Whatever tension had held his expression together slipped all at once. His gaze went glassy, unfixed — like he wasn’t seeing me anymore. His chest rose sharply. His shoulders twitched. I took half a step back, but it was already too late.

His hand closed around the scalpel.

He moved fast — faster than I’d seen him move since the restraints came off. The blade came up, aimed straight for my chest. Not random.

Not wild.

Precise.

He was going for the heart.