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The room tilts. There’s a sudden wrongness in the angle of everything, the floor making a bid for my attention. I’m aware of my hand still raised between us, the cut already closing, my body doing all the correct biological things while my brain attempts to locate itself.

I don’t find it in time.

My knees buckle first. Then the rest of me follows.

The last thing I’m aware of before the floor arrives is Marcus already moving to make sure I don’t smash my head against the chair.

And then I pass the fuck out.

16

MIA

One moment, Nash is standing before Grey, bleeding and expressionless. The next, he’s on the floor. It happens fast; his knees buckling, then the rest of him folding. Marcus is already moving but not quite fast enough to catch him fully, and the sound of it, the specific, terrible sound of Nash hitting the floor, does something to my chest that I am going to examine later when I have the privacy to lose my shit.

“Get him off the floor,” I say. It comes out sharper than I intend, and I don’t care. “Dutch. Razor. Now.”

To their credit, neither of them asks a single stupid question. Dutch gets his shoulders, Razor gets his legs, and Marcus is already directing them toward the door with the quiet efficiency of a man who has clearly had contingency plans for this exact situation filed somewhere accessible.

“Wait. Where are you taking him?” I ask, suddenly horrified that Marcus will shove him into an SUV and drive out of town to protect his alpha.

“His room,” Marcus says like he’s asking permission.

I exhale, dizzy with relief. “Right. Go.”

I’m about to follow them into the hall when Grey steps in front of me. I frown at the sight of him blocking my exit. Then of Lexi’s hand on Grey’s arm. Both of them watching me with expressions I don’t have time to catalog.

Grey catches my arm briefly as I pass. “Mia.”

“Don't tell me he’s fine,” I say without stopping.

“He’s fine,” Grey says anyway. “But⁠—”

I’m already through the door.

Nash’s guest room is one of the estate’s nicer ones. High ceilings, good light, a bed large enough that Dutch and Razor manage to deposit him onto it without the indignity of his feet hanging off the end. Marcus pulls a chair to the bedside with the practiced calm of someone who has done this before, and I file that away to ask about later because, right now, I’m cataloging the rise and fall of Nash's chest and counting the seconds between each breath and telling myself this is a purely tactical assessment.

“Do you know what’s wrong with him?” I ask.

“Judging from the well of power I felt inside your alpha, I’d say he ventured a little too close to the sun during their little psychic interview,” Marcus says.

“Merda.” The blood drains from my face as I realize the enormity of what Nash must have encountered. “Grey’s alpha power is…more than normal.”

Marcus snorts. “No shit.”

“We need to call the doctor.” I pull out my phone.

Marcus gives me a strange look. “I am a doctor.”

“Seriously?”

“I only practiced for a couple of years before I left to work for Nash, but…” He shrugs. “Yeah. Now I strictly practice for the pack.”

“Well, that’s good for us,” I say, exhaling as relief lightens the lead weight on my chest. I watch as Marcus performs a cursory exam on the still unconscious alpha sprawled across his bed.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I ask, the words coming out in a choked whisper.

Marcus glances at Nash. I do the same and note that his color is already returning. “Yeah. He’ll wake up embarrassed.”