Caelan had left me a number. Before he went. “If anything happens,” he’d said. “Call this. Ask for Aedan. He’ll help.”
I found the number, dialed, and waited. Each ring stretched endlessly.
“Hello?” A gruff, irritated voice. Clearly I’d interrupted something important.
“Aedan?” My voice came out weak. Pathetic. “This is Riley. Caelan’s... Caelan gave me this number. He said if anything...”
“Where are you?”
I gave him my address. He hung up without another word.
An hour later, there was a knock on my door. I’d managed to drag myself to the couch by then, wrapped in a blanket, shivering despite not being cold. The heat under my skin was getting worse, not better. I felt feverish and frozen at the same time.
“It’s open,” I called.
Aedan walked in. The grumpy doctor from before, the one who’d diagnosed my “cold” and said humans got them. He looked exactly as I remembered: severe, no-nonsense, perpetually annoyed at the universe for existing.
“You look terrible,” he said.
“Thanks. I feel terrible.” At least we agreed on that much.
He knelt beside me, pulled out medical equipment from a bag I hadn’t noticed he was carrying. Took my temperature, checked my pulse, shined a light in my eyes. His movements were efficient, clinical.
“I know what you are,” I said while he worked. “Caelan told me. You’re a wolf. From Duskmere.”
Aedan paused. Looked at me with new interest. “He told you everything?”
“Everything.”
“Ah.” He resumed his examination. “That explains some things.”
“What’s wrong with me? Is this wolf-related?”
“Tell me your symptoms. All of them. From the beginning.”
I did. The nausea that started weeks ago. The fatigue that wouldn’t go away. The heat that had been building gradually, burning beneath the surface. The way the bond felt stretched and wrong. The constant ache in my chest that I thought was just missing Caelan.
Aedan listened, his expression growing more concerned with each symptom I described.
When I finished, he inhaled deeply. Then leaned closer and inhaled again, near my neck, my hair.
“What are you...”
“FUCK.”
He pulled back, cursing loudly. His eyes had gone wide, his composure completely shattered.
“We need to go to Duskmere,” he said. “Now. Right now.”
“What? Why? What’s wrong with me?”
“You never told me you were a wolf,” he said accusingly.
“We discovered it after we saw you. After Caelan claimed me.”
“He claimed you.” Aedan’s voice was flat. “He claimed you, and then he left for two months. Without you.”
“Yes? There was a war...”
