When I pushed through the doors to the waiting area, I was immediately surrounded by voices.
“Knox!”
“Son!”
“What is going on? Where did they take Lina?”
The words blurred together, overlapping and echoing in my ears. I lifted my gaze from the floor and saw them. Hunt, his face pale with worry. Noah, already moving toward me. My father, standing stiff and formal but with fear in his eyes. And Sarah, her hands pressed to her mouth, tears already streaming down her cheeks.
The twins must have stayed with my mother. I was glad. They shouldn’t see their mother like this. They shouldn’t see theirfather like this either, but I couldn’t control myself anymore. I couldn’t pretend to be strong.
“Lina...” My voice broke on her name. I couldn’t finish the sentence. The words stuck in my throat, choking me.
“What happened?” Noah asked, his hand gripping my shoulder. “Knox, talk to us.”
“She needs surgery,” I managed. “She’s bleeding. Internal bleeding. They have to operate.”
“Oh god,” Sarah whispered.
“Her pulse-” I stopped, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat. “It stopped. Her heart stopped. They had to... they had to shock her...”
I broke.
The tears came and I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t control them. I stood there in the middle of the hospital waiting room and sobbed, my whole body shaking with the force of it. Everything I’d been holding back, all the fear and terror and desperate love, it all came pouring out at once.
“The baby is okay,” I managed to grunt between sobs. “Our daughter... she’s okay...”
Noah pulled me into a hug, his arms wrapping around me tight. I buried my face in his shoulder and cried like I hadn’t cried since I was a child. My brother held me, not saying anything, just being there. Being solid. Being the anchor I needed to keep from flying apart completely.
Hunt moved to Sarah’s side, one arm going around her shoulders. She was crying too, silent tears running down her face as she stared at me with devastated eyes. This woman who had raised Lina, who loved her like a daughter, who had rushed back from her vacation because I’d told her something was wrong. Now she was standing in a hospital waiting room, learning that her girl might not survive the night.
“Everything will be alright, Knox.”
The words came from my father. I looked up, surprised by the gentleness in his voice. He stood there, awkward and uncomfortable with emotion as always, but there was warmth in his eyes that hadn’t been there a few years ago. Being a grandfather had changed him. Meeting his grandchildren, spending time with them, watching them grow. It had softened something in him that I’d thought was permanently hardened.
“She’s strong,” my father continued. “Lina is one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. She’ll fight through this.”
I nodded, pulling away from Noah and wiping my face with the back of my hand. I had to get a grip. I had to be strong for my family, for my pack, for my children who would need their father no matter what happened.
“She will be,” I said, forcing the words out. “They’re both strong.”
Then, despite everything, despite the terror and the grief and the uncertainty, I found myself smiling. It felt strange, using those muscles when my heart was breaking, but the words that came next were genuine.
“Our baby,” I said. “It’s a girl. We have a daughter.”
The mood in the room shifted slightly. Not happy, exactly. No one could be happy right now. But there was a glimmer of hope underneath the fear. A new life. A reason to keep fighting.
“A girl,” Sarah repeated, her voice thick with tears. “Another granddaughter. Lina’s going to be so happy when she wakes up.”
“She’ll get to meet her,” I said firmly. “She’ll wake up and she’ll hold our baby and everything will be fine.”
We moved to the waiting area and sat down. Hunt got coffee from somewhere. Noah sat next to me, a silent presence that I appreciated more than I could express. My father paced back and forth, unable to sit still. Sarah clutched a tissue in her hands, dabbing at her eyes every few minutes.
And we waited.
The minutes crawled by like hours. Every time a door opened, every time footsteps echoed in the hallway, I tensed. Waiting for news. Waiting for Dr. Hartley to appear and tell us whether my mate was going to live or die.
I tried to feel Lina through the bond, but the connection was muted. Faint. Like she was very far away, or like something was blocking us. The drugs, probably. Whatever they were giving her to keep her under during surgery. It made the bond feel strange and distant.
