The rhythm of the ward became my rhythm. I knew which nurses moved quietly and which ones slammed supply cabinets at two in the morning. I knew the hum of the ventilation system changed pitch around midnight. I knew the exact angle of light that meant dawn was still two hours away and I had time for one more cup of terrible coffee before the day shift arrived.
And I knew that Zayd Wagner would be there.
Not every night. But most nights. He'd appear in the doorway of room 304 with a ward report or a blanket from the supply closet or nothing at all, and he'd settle into the chair on the other side of my father's bed like he'd been doing it all his life. We didn't talk much. We didn't need to. He'd read. I'd review wolfsbane formulas. Barnaby would sleep against his boot. The monitors would beep their steady rhythm. And underneath it all was the scent — wild sage and woodsmoke — that wrapped around me every time he leaned closer to check my father's vitals.
I didn't name it. I didn't let myself.
But it was there.
---
Three weeks in, during a 3 a.m. watch when the hospital felt like the only place left in the world, I asked him why.
We'd been comparing notes on a wolfsbane compound I was testing — a barrier variant with longer hold-time but slower activation. Zayd had questions about the absorption rate. I had questions about whether Lycan physiology metabolized it differently than standard wolf biology. We'd filled two pages of a legal pad with formulas and crossed-out calculations when the conversation died into one of those comfortable silences that only happens when you've spent too many nights in the same fluorescent-lit room.
I set my pen down. Looked at him across the bed. My father was asleep, breathing steady, the monitors quiet.
"Why do you volunteer here?" I said.
Zayd looked up from the legal pad. His expression didn't change. "I told you. I spent time in a ward like this when I was twelve."
"I know. But you're a Lycan Prince. You could be anywhere. Doing anything. Why here?"
He set the pen down. Leaned back in his chair. For a moment I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he did.
"Because I know what that specific fluorescent-lit loneliness feels like," he said. His voice was quiet. Deliberate. "Three weeks. Twelve years old. Nurses moving around me like I was furniture. My uncle didn't know where I was. Nobody sat with me. Nobody asked if I was okay." He paused. "I remember the exact quality of the light at 3 a.m. The way the linoleum smelled. The sound of the ventilation system. I remember all of it."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't.
"So when I grew up," Zayd continued, "I came back. Not as a patient. As someone who could sit in the chair. Because nobody should have to do that alone."
Silence. Long and heavy. My throat closed. My hand went to my neck — to the cold blank place where the mark used to be — and I pressed my thumb against it without thinking.
"So did I," I said. My voice came out rough. "Just — a different kind."
Zayd looked at me. Really looked. His gaze was steady and patient and I felt something crack open in my chest that I had been holding closed for months.
"Eight years," I said. "In a pack house where I healed warriors and brewed barriers and kept the whole thing standing. And nobody sat with me either. They just — took. Until there was nothing left to take. And then they stepped over me."
I stopped. Swallowed hard. Zayd didn't move. Didn't offer comfort or pity or any of the things that would have made me shut down. He just listened.
"I know what that feels like too," I said. "The loneliness. The fluorescent lights. The knowing that you're doing it alone because nobody thinks you're worth sitting beside."
Another silence. Longer this time.
Then Zayd said, very quietly: "You're not alone now."
The wild sage and woodsmoke of his scent was stronger than it had ever been. It wrapped around me like a physical thing, pulling at something low in my chest that I didn't have words for. Not the bond. The bond was dead. This was something else. Something new. Something that terrified me and steadied me in equal measure.
I pressed my thumb harder against the blank place on my neck.
For the first time, the gesture didn't feel like mourning.
It felt like letting go.
---
Across the bed, Barnaby shifted in his sleep. My father's breathing stayed steady. The monitors beeped their quiet rhythm. And outside the window, the sky was still black — hours yet before dawn.
Zayd picked up his pen. Went back to the wolfsbane calculations like nothing had happened.
But something had happened.
We both knew it.
I picked up my own pen. Focused on the formulas. Tried to ignore the way my hand shook just slightly as I wrote.
And in the chair across from me, Zayd Wagner — Lycan Prince, orphan, the man who had chosen to sit beside grief because he knew what it felt like to survive it alone — kept working.
No performance. No rescue. Just presence.
And for the first time in eight years, I let myself believe that might be enough.
