When she stubbornly refused again, I sighed and stood to walk around her desk, standing next to her. I picked up the fork, cut into the pancake, stabbed it, and held it to her face.
“Eat,” I said again, this time using my wolf’s voice. He didn’t like seeing her reject our offering. He didn’t like knowing she was trying to work on an empty stomach, that despite all we’d done to take care of her, she wouldn’t take care of herself.
She licked her lips, stared up at me, and opened her mouth.
“Good girl,” I whispered and grinned when her shoulders shook. She took the food, chewed, and swallowed before opening for another bite. I obliged, this time taking some fruit and placing it on her delicate tongue. “Now, listen to me while you digest. I’m not mad about the marking. I’m not furious that you broke the rules or that you upset my very…delicate sensibilities.”
I barely said the last part with a straight face.
She glared at me while I gathered eggs and brought them to her mouth. Holding her focus on me, she took them and chewed.
“I am upset that I have to keep repeating myself,” I continued. “Nearly a week of trying to make you take better care of yourself, and I still have to feed you myself. Tsk, tsk.”
“Oh, give me that.” She snatched the fork out of my hand and forced the prongs into an undeserving melon. “I don’t need you to do this. I don’t want you to.”
I ignored the stab in my chest at hearing, I don’t want you, but soldiered on.
“Well, tough.” It came out more aggravated than I intended, and she stuck her tongue in the side of her cheek. “Your wolf chose me, like it or not. And here I am.”
Somehow, this had spiraled out of my control faster than I could manage. Her irritation flared in my blood, threatening to amplify my own. I took a deep breath and clenched my jaw.
“What if I don’t like it?” she said. “What if I wish it had been anyone else outside the Yule party?”
I let that settle in between us like the loaded grenade it was and stood to take a step back.
“Is that what you’re saying?” She couldn’t mean it. She didn’t mean it. I’d seen the look in her eyes last night, the way she’d come under me again and again, the comfort and safety in her wolf when it had just been the two of us. She’d liked it, and she wanted more, even if she couldn’t admit it.
“Fen, I…” She dropped the fork to rub her hands over her face. “I need some time to think about this. I don’t have space in my life for you, and you’ve never been one to stay around.”
“So that’s the problem?” I shook my head and forced air out of my lungs. “You think because I haven’t been serious about anyone else that I’m not serious about you?”
She didn’t answer, just stared up at me with those big pleading eyes, but that was confirmation enough.
“You think I bring anyone else homemade breakfast? You think I worry about anyone else in this pack the way I worry about you? You think?—”
Two knocks at the door sounded before Briggs popped their head in. “Wyn? We’ve got a code blue coming in.” Their eyes shifted to me and back to Wyn before settling on me again. “It’s Lyra.”
Lyra?
But my girl was already moving. She was up and around the desk before I had a chance to process what that meant. What was my sister doing here? What was?—
Her screams cut off my line of thought, the desperate cry I’d recognize anywhere. I followed Wyn out of her office and into the triage area, where my sister clutched at Caelum’s bloodied shirt while he carried her in his arms. Blood oozed from her nose, mouth, and ears, and fuck, they both were covered in it. There was so much, I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Okay, okay, I’ve got you,” Caelum said, placing her on the gurney. Wyn, Briggs, and the other nurses dove into action, shouting terms at each other that I didn’t understand.
“What happened?” I murmured, my brain struggling to catch up to reality. When white noise only flooded my senses, I reached out to grab Caelum’s shirt and yanked him toward me. “What happened?!”
“I don’t know.” Caelum ran his crimson-coated hands back through his hair and blinked as his frantic eyes struggled to focus. “We were on patrol and she just…she seized and?—”
“Seized?” I grit my teeth and shook him harder, my inner beast tearing at his restraints, threatening to sink into this little shit. They were on patrol together. They were supposed to look out for each other. “What the fuck were you doing that she started having a seizure?”
“I—I—I kissed her and—” Caelum stammered, hardly able to get the words out.
“Hey, hey, hey,” came a familiar voice from my side as a strong hand wrapped around my wrist. “Fenris, let him go.”
“I didn’t hurt her. I tried to?—”
“Gods damn it, Fenris. Let him go!” Mill shoved my shoulders away from his little brother and put his body between us. “He got her here. She’s going to be okay. Look, Wyn’s healing her now.”
