The Prison-Made Queen novel Chapter 854

As the standoff threatened to boil over again, a deep, commanding voice barked from the back of the group.

"Stand down, all of you. Get out of her way."

The mercenaries instantly snapped to attention, parting like the Red Sea.

It was Bason.

Though not the tallest man in the unit, he possessed the sharp, predatory eyes of a hawk. He strode over, taking in Konrad's critical condition with a deep frown, before shifting his intense gaze to the silver needles in Leilani’s hands.

It was hard to blame his men for their skepticism. Most of them were Western-trained combat medics; they had never seen a life-or-death crisis tackled with something as seemingly delicate as acupuncture. It looked wildly unreliable.

But Callahan was right. It was a desperate gamble, but it was their only play.

"Dr. Sloan," Bason began, skipping the pleasantries. "If you treat him right now, what are his actual odds?"

Leilani met his piercing gaze without flinching. "Seventy percent." She paused, her voice hardening. "But if you keep wasting my time, it’s going to drop to zero."

Every second they spent arguing was a second Konrad was slipping closer to death.

Then, miraculously, Konrad’s horrific wheezing began to ease. His breathing smoothed out. The terrifying blue tint of his skin slowly began to fade, replaced by a pale but undeniable flush of life. He still looked awful, but the suffocating shadow of death had clearly lifted.

Tate’s jaw practically hit the mud. He stared, completely stunned, stuttering over his words. "Konrad... he... he's actually breathing?"

"That's a miracle," another mercenary whispered.

Tate couldn't wrap his head around it. In under ten minutes, a handful of little silver needles had dragged his best friend back from the brink. The sheer effectiveness of her holistic methods had just slapped him right in the face.

Bason’s rigid posture relaxed. When he looked at Leilani again, the heavy skepticism in his eyes had been entirely replaced by profound respect.