I turn on the water and start scrubbing my hands while letting the heat sting my skin. “I wasn’t afraid.”
“That’s not what the bond told me.”
“Then the bond is wrong.” I scrub harder and watch the pink-tinged water swirl down the drain. “I was focused.”
“Felt like more than that to me.”
I shut off the water and snatch a paper towel to dry my hands. “I’ve been doing this job for years, Bryan. I’ve treated wounds a lot worse than this without falling apart. I don’t need you rushing in every time I feel something through this bond.”
Sera returns with the blood bags before Bryan can respond. She glances between us and clearly senses something off, but she’s smart enough not to comment. Instead, she hands the bags to Fern and moves to check on Landon while brushing his hair back from his forehead with a gentleness that speaks to her own experience as a healer.
“Vitals are stabilizing,” Fern reports as she connects the transfusion line to Landon’s IV. “He should be okay to move to recovery in about an hour.”
“Good.” I look away from Bryan and return my focus to my patient. “Dylan, can you stay with him until he’s ready to be moved? I want someone here in case his condition changes.”
Dylan nods. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Sera, you should get some rest. You’ve been on your feet for hours, and you look exhausted.”
“I’m fine,” Sera insists, but she doesn’t argue when Dylan puts a hand on her shoulder and steers her toward the door. They’ve been through enough trauma to last several lifetimes, those two. I’m glad they found each other, even if their path to happiness was just as rocky as everyone else’s in this pack.
The room slowly empties out. Fern is the last to go, with a squeeze to my arm as she passes and a look that says, "We’ll talk later." Then she slips past Bryan and disappears down the hallway. Her footsteps fade, and then it’s just the two of us and the steady beep of Landon’s heart monitor.
“You can go now,” I tell Bryan without looking at him. I busy myself with tidying the instrument tray and organizing the leftover supplies that Fern didn’t put away. “Crisis averted. Patient stable. No need for you to stand guard anymore.”
“I wasn’t standing guard.”
“Then what would you call it?” I walk to the supply cabinet and start restocking the items we used during treatment. It gives me something to do with my hands, something to focus on besides the way my pulse quickens every time he’s near. “You show up uninvited, position yourself at the door like you’re expecting an attack, and watch me work without saying a word. That’s guard behavior.”
“It’s mate behavior.”
I fumble the box of gauze I’m holding and nearly drop it before I catch myself. The word shouldn’t affect me like this. I’ve heard it a hundred times since the ceremony. But something about the way he says it makes my skin prickle with awareness.
“We’re not—”
“We are.” His voice is closer now, and I realize he’s moved away from the door. “Whether you like it or not, Skylar, we are mated. The bond is real. What I feel through it is real. And pretending otherwise isn’t going to make it go away.”
“I don’t need a shadow following my every movement.” I shove the gauze onto the shelf and add, “I don’t need you rushing to my rescue every time the bond gives you a little tingle. I’ve been taking care of myself for ten years without any help from you, and I’ve done just fine.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because it seems like you think I’m some fragile thing that needs protecting.”
“That’s not what I think.”
“Then what do you think?” I spin around to face him and find myself ready to unleash every ounce of frustration I’ve been holding back since the ceremony.
The words die in my throat.
He’s standing less than a foot away, which makes me yelp. I didn’t hear him move. I was too busy ranting to notice him crossing the room, and now he’s right there, filling my space with his presence and his scent and the magnetic pull of the bond that never stops demanding more.
“I think,” he begins, “that you’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. You’ve built something incredible here, something that matters, and I think you did it all without any help from anyone.” He takes another step closer, and I back up instinctively until my spine hits the supply shelf. “I think you’re brilliant and stubborn and so goddamn beautiful it makes me forget how to breathe.”
The cold metal bites against my back. Bryan is right there, not quite touching me but close enough that his body heat scorches me.
“I also think,” he continues with his voice turning rough and husky, “that you feel this thing between us just as strongly as I do. And it’s driving you crazy that you can’t make it stop.”
“You don’t know what I feel,” I squeak out.
