"Sign the discharge papers," I said, leaning my weight against the nurse’s station.
Brenda frowned, tapping her pen against the clipboard. "Maeve, you have three cracked ribs and twelve stitches in your calf. You're supposed to stay under observation until tomorrow."
"I can walk. Give me the pen."
I signed the slip with a trembling hand, dropped the plastic stylus on the counter, and walked out the back doors.
I didn't turn up the hill toward the private cottage beside Kieran’s residence—the secluded house where he had tucked me away for three years under the promise of secrecy. Instead, I grabbed my spare duffel from the armory locker and hauled it straight to the service quarters behind the pack nursery. The room was tiny. A single cot, a metal locker, and a window facing the gravel alleyway.
I threw my bag onto the mattress.
Heavy footsteps pounded down the narrow hall outside. The cheap plywood door rattled in its frame before Kieran filled the threshold.
"What is your gear doing down here?" he demanded.
I kept my back to him, unzipping the canvas bag. "I live here now."
"You live in the west cottage. Pack your things."
"The west cottage is reserved for the Alpha's personal guard," I said, pulling out a folded gray shirt. "I stepped down from the guard twenty minutes ago."
Kieran stepped into the cramped room, closing the distance between us until the heat of his chest pressed against my uninjured shoulder. "You don't step down without my sign-off, Maeve. You know how this pack works."
"Then consider it a reassignment to the reserve unit."
"Stop this nonsense." He grabbed my wrist, his fingers clamping hard over my pulse point. "You're angry about the tunnel. I get it. But moving into the nursery barracks like a common laborer? It looks pathetic. The elders are already whispering about your attitude."
"Let them whisper."
"Maeve." His voice dropped into that low, authoritative cadence he used to bend soldiers to his will. His Alpha aura spiked, filling the tight room with suffocating static. At the same time, he nudged the dormant mate bond between us, sending a heavy, commanding hum straight down my spine. "You are coming home. Now."
The invisible leash tightened around my chest. My wolf whined, instinctively wanting to bare its throat to the pack leader.
I clamped my teeth together until my jaw ached, planted my feet flat on the linoleum, and forced my head up.
I stared straight into his dark eyes.
"Do you remember my aunt Elena?" I asked.
Kieran’s eyes flickered with irritation. "What does your aunt have to do with this?"
"Eighteen months ago," I said, my voice steady, stripped of all warmth. "Her funeral. The rain had washed out the cemetery road. We were standing in the mud. Her casket was still suspended above the hole in the ground."
Kieran exhaled sharply, looking toward the ceiling. "Maeve, don't dig up ancient history."
"Your phone buzzed," I continued, cutting him off without raising my voice. "Serena had spotted a stray fox near her garden gate. She was hyperventilating on the phone. You handed me the funeral umbrella, told me I was strong enough to finish the service alone, and jogged to your truck."
"She was terrified—"
"I stood in the downpour for two hours, Kieran. Just me and two gravediggers shoveling wet dirt over the woman who raised me." I pulled my wrist from his grip. This time, he didn't fight to keep it. "You have always left. The only difference is that now, I'm done waiting for you to walk back."
"I am your mate," he growled, the anger finally cracking through his smooth exterior. "You can't cut those ties because of a bruised ego."
"Watch me."
I stepped past him, walked out into the corridor, grabbed the outer door handle, and pulled it shut from the inside, clicking the heavy deadbolt firmly into the brass strike plate.
"Maeve!" Kieran hammered his fist against the wood. The thin panel shuddered. "Open this door! We are not finished talking!"
I didn't answer. I leaned against the locked door, feeling the vibrations of his shouts through the wood, until his boots finally turned and stomped away down the hollow hallway.
***
By two in the afternoon, the swelling in my lower leg had grown hot enough to throb through the thick bandages.
I walked back into the clinic through the rear triage bay. The smell of surgical soap and rubbing alcohol stung my nostrils. Two Frosthaven warriors sat on the edge of an examination table, their dark winter coats slung over a bench while a medic wrapped sterile gauze around a claw wound.
Dax Mercer stood beside them.
He had shed his heavy parka, wearing only a black thermal shirt that showed the brutal breadth of his shoulders. His arms were crossed over his chest, his gray eyes tracking every motion of the clinic staff with quiet vigilance.
I kept my gaze forward, limping toward the curtained cubicle where the pack physician waited.
"Maeve," Dr. Finch said, waving me toward the padded table. "Let’s see what we’re dealing with. Sit up."
I hoisted myself onto the paper-covered mattress. Finch produced a pair of medical shears, cutting through the blood-crusted tape around my calf and shin.
When the gauze fell away, Finch sucked in air through his teeth.
The skin from my knee down to my ankle was an ugly mosaic of ruptured capillaries—deep purple, bruised yellow, and jagged black lines where the concrete edge had ground into the bone. A ragged row of twelve black nylon stitches held the split flesh together over my shin.
Across the room, the low murmur of conversation abruptly stopped.
I glanced sideways. Dax had turned away from his injured warrior. His sharp, scarred face was dead still, his gaze fixed entirely on the ruined skin of my leg.
"Well," Finch muttered, poking gently around the edges of the wound with gloved fingers. "The bone stayed aligned. The regeneration is doing its job, though the wolfsbane residue is slowing the cell division. You're lucky you didn't lose the foot."
"I can walk," I said automatically. "It's fine."
"I'll take the top three stitches out to relieve the tension," Finch said, reaching for his forceps. "The rest stay until Friday."
The doctor snipped the first thread. A sharp, burning sting flared down the nerve path. I grabbed the edge of the examination table, digging my fingernails into the vinyl, keeping my expression flat and neutral.
"How does that feel?" Finch asked.
"Fine," I repeated, the word flying out on reflex. "I don't feel a thing."
"Does fine mean it doesn't hurt?"
The deep, gravel-rough voice cut through the sterile room like an iron blade.
I froze.
Dax stepped away from his men, walking toward my cubicle. He didn't look at Finch. His pale gray eyes remained locked on my face, entirely unreadable, heavy with an intensity that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
"What?" I managed to ask.
Dax stopped two paces from my table. He didn't offer a patronizing smile. He didn't look down at me like I was a broken soldier who needed a lecture on endurance.
"You said it twice," Dax stated plainly. "You told Finch it was fine. Then you said you don't feel a thing while your knuckles are turning white against the mattress frame."
Finch paused with the forceps in midair, glancing between us. "Alpha Mercer, pack protocol requires—"
"I'm not asking pack protocol," Dax interrupted, not taking his eyes off mine. "I'm asking her."
He stepped closer, his shadow falling across my lap. "Does fine mean it doesn't hurt, Maeve?"
The question hung in the quiet room.
No one had ever asked me that. For five years, the answer had always been decided before I opened my mouth. *Maeve can take it. Maeve has high endurance. Maeve doesn't break.* Kieran had repeated those phrases until they were carved into my bones, a shield he used whenever he needed to walk away without feeling guilty.
My throat tightened. A sudden, strange pressure gathered behind my eyes, hot and unfamiliar.
I stared at the scar cutting across Dax's cheekbone. My fingers slowly uncurled from the vinyl mattress.
"Yes," I whispered.
The word was barely louder than a breath, but it shattered the silent room.
"It hurts."
Dax didn't nod. He didn't tell me I was brave for admitting it, and he didn't tell me to push through the pain.
Instead, he turned toward the corner of the room, picked up a heavy, cushioned rolling stool with one hand, and dragged it over to the side of my table. He lined it up with my knee, reached out, and carefully cupped the heel of my uninjured foot, guiding my legs so they rested completely flat and elevated on the padded surface.
The agonizing pressure in my lower shin immediately dropped by half.
"Take out the stitches, Doctor," Dax said calmly, resting his forearm against the adjacent counter, keeping his broad frame planted firmly between my table and the open hallway. "She's ready."
I looked at him—really looked at him—and the cold, steady weight in his gray eyes made something shift permanently beneath my ribs.
Before Finch could snip the next thread, the double doors of the clinic flew open with a violent bang.
"Maeve!" Kieran's voice echoed through the ward, sharp with fury. "Get out here! Serena's fever just spiked, and the council needs your signature on the incident report!"
