“Fine,” he mutters. “But if anything happens?—”
“I’ll call. I promise. And don’t forget to put some clothes on.”
That seems like a valid reminder, all things considered.
Especially with Sean.
“Roger that,” Rowan mutters.
“How the hell does Villeneuve shift with his clothes on, anyway?” Sean demands.
“The guy shifts into a dragon the size of a small house andthat’swhat you’re concerned with?” Micah asks dryly.
“Hey, it’s a valid question!”
Rowan helps Sean to his feet, draping the burly alpha’s arm around his shoulder to steady him. They both look back at Killian, who’s still unconscious, still barely breathing in stasis on that stone table.
“Take care of him,” Rowan says quietly.
“I will.”
They leave. The laboratory feels emptier without them, bigger and colder and full of shadows.
Micah moves to stand beside me, his shoulder brushing mine. We both look at Killian.
“He’s going to be okay,” Micah says. It sounds more like a question, though.
“He has to be.”
Villeneuve has retreated to another part of the mansion, giving us space. Or maybe conserving his energy. I don’t know and I’m not sure I care right now.
I have a fuckingloton my mind.
I cross to the table and sit on its edge, as close to Killian as I can get without disturbing the stasis field. My hand finds his fur again, stroking gently.
“You have to fight this,” I whisper, so quiet even Micah probably can’t hear. “You can’t leave us.”
Through the bond, distant and muffled by the stasis, I feel the faintest pulse of acknowledgment.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Chapter
Four
ROWAN
“Would you get your arm out of there and tell me what your fucking middle name is already?”
Sean’s entire bicep is wedged in the vending machine, his face pressed against the glass like he’s trying to merge with it. “This thing ate my dollar, Rowan. And I want my Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.”
I set aside the clipboard full of intake paperwork and pinch the bridge of my nose. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Besides,” Sean adds, wiggling experimentally and achieving nothing, “I’m stuck.”
Of course he is.
The waiting room of Stormvale General’s supernatural wing is not the place I expected to spend my evening. Then again, I also didn’t expect to watch a dragon incinerate a werewolf or discover that said dragon is actually the professor who has it out for our entire pack, so clearly my expectations need recalibrating.
