The emergency call came through at two in the morning.
"Head Healer Watson." I kept my voice level even as I swung out of bed, already reaching for my coat. "Report."
"Rogue ambush on the northern border." Marcus Reid's voice crackled through the phone, tight with urgency. "Silverfang patrol. Multiple casualties. Alpha Xavier is critical. They're bringing him here—closest facility with a high-ranking Healer."
My hand stilled on the coat sleeve.
Xavier.
Five years. Five years since I'd heard that name spoken aloud in my presence. Five years since the formal rejection that had torn through me like claws through silk, since the exile that was supposed to kill me, since the girl who worshiped an Alpha's attention died in the wildlands and something colder took her place.
"ETA?" I asked.
"Fifteen minutes."
"Prep OR-2. I'm on my way."
I ended the call and stood in the dark of my quarters, breathing carefully. My wolf stirred beneath my skin—not with longing, not with the phantom pull of a severed bond, but with the particular alertness of a predator scenting old danger. She had no name for Xavier anymore. The Moon Goddess had seen to that when Kingston marked me, when the true bond sealed over the rejection scar and rendered the first connection void.
I pressed two fingers to my collarbone, just above the mark. Kingston's scent—dark cedar and winter storm—threaded through my awareness like a steadying hand.
Then I went to work.
The medical hall was controlled chaos when I arrived. Moonveil's night-shift Deltas moved with practiced efficiency, prepping the operating room, laying out instruments. Marcus stood near the entrance, his Beta aura projecting calm authority even as his eyes tracked every moving piece.
"Healer Watson." He nodded as I approached. "They're two minutes out."
"Injuries?"
"Severe lacerations to the torso and left shoulder. Possible internal bleeding. He's been unconscious since they pulled him out."
I nodded and moved into the OR, snapping on gloves. The familiar ritual centered me—check the equipment, verify the medications, position the lights. My hands were steady. They had been steady through worse.
The doors burst open.
They carried him in on a stretcher, and the scent hit me before I saw his face: pine and cold earth, the particular signature of Silverfang lineage. Blood soaked through the field dressings wrapped around his chest. His breathing was shallow and labored.
I looked down at Alpha Xavier for the first time in five years.
He looked older. Harder. The boyish edges I remembered had sharpened into something more brutal. But unconscious, with his face slack and his Alpha aura dampened by blood loss, he looked almost—
I cut the thought off and moved to the head of the table.
"Vitals," I said.
One of the assisting Deltas rattled off numbers. Elevated heart rate. Dropping blood pressure. I lifted the dressings and assessed the damage with clinical precision. Three deep lacerations across the torso—rogue claws, judging by the tearing pattern. The shoulder wound was worse: a bite that had torn through muscle and nicked the subclavian artery.
Sloppy. Rogues usually went for the throat.
"He's lucky," I said aloud. "Another inch and he'd have bled out before they got him off the field."
Marcus, observing from the doorway, made a low sound of agreement.
I worked quickly. Cleaned the wounds. Sutured the artery. My healing gift threaded through my hands as I worked, knitting torn tissue faster than it had any natural right to heal. It was the rarest gift a wolf could carry—rarer even than an Alpha's aura—and it had awakened in the wildlands after Xavier threw me away.
Irony, I thought distantly, has a sense of humor.
Two hours later, I stripped off my gloves and stepped back. Xavier's breathing had steadied. The color was returning to his face. He would live.
"Monitor him overnight," I told the attending Delta. "If his vitals spike, page me immediately."
"Yes, Healer Watson."
I turned to leave.
"Estelle."
The voice was rough, barely a whisper, but it stopped me cold.
I turned slowly.
Xavier's eyes were open. Unfocused, still hazy with blood loss and medication, but open. He was staring at me like he'd seen a ghost.
"You..." His voice cracked. "You're here."
I kept my face neutral. "You're in Moonveil Pack's medical facility, Alpha Xavier. You were critically injured. I'm Head Healer Watson. You'll make a full recovery."
His brow furrowed, confusion threading through the haze. "Estelle," he said again, like the name was a question.
"Healer Watson," I corrected, voice flat.
He tried to sit up. Winced. His hand moved to his chest, then reached—instinctively, automatically—toward me.
I stepped back.
Something flickered across his face. Confusion deepening into something sharper. He was reaching inward, I realized. Reaching for the bond.
He wouldn't find it.
The rejection had severed it five years ago. Kingston's mark had sealed the wound. There was nothing left for Xavier to grasp.
I watched the realization move across his features like a shadow. His hand dropped.
"I don't..." He swallowed, and for a moment he looked genuinely lost. Then his eyes sharpened. The Alpha surfaced through the confusion. "We need to talk."
"You need to rest," I said. "Recovery will take approximately three days. Follow the attending Delta's instructions. I'll check on your progress tomorrow."
I turned and walked toward the door.
"Estelle—"
"Healer Watson," I said without turning around.
I left him staring after me and closed the door quietly behind me.
Marcus was waiting in the hall. He studied my face for a long moment, then nodded slowly.
"That," he said quietly, "is going to be complicated."
I pulled off my surgical cap and met his eyes.
"No," I said. "It really isn't."
I walked back to my quarters, locked the door, and only then—only in the privacy of my own space—did I let out the breath I'd been holding since the moment they'd carried him through the doors.
My phone buzzed.
Kingston: How did it go?
I stared at the message for a long moment. Then I typed: He's alive. I saved him.
Kingston: Of course you did.
A pause. Then: Are you all right?
I pressed my fingers to the mark on my collarbone and felt the bond hum beneath my skin—warm, steady, unshakeable.
I'm fine, I typed. Just another patient.
But we both knew that was a lie.
