Moving grew easier with each day, though if I thought about it for too long, none of it made sense. I should have been lingering on the edge of death for far longer, or at least laid up in traction with broken bones, but instead there was just a lot of discomfort and the occasional sharp pain. They brought in a physical therapist to help me move around and walk and stretch. It was probably a good thing Dodge wasn’t there because I always ended up crying. Most of the time it was frustration more than pain, but the end result was the same: collapsing in bed, exhausted, and sleeping for at least half a day.
At least the nurses were generous with the pain medication, which made it easier to accept that Dodge didn’t visit me at all. I didn’t know how I felt about his disappearing act. He’d been terrifying in his wolf form as he fought everyone in the entire hospital. Every time I imagined the weight of his gold gaze on me, no hint of the man in its depths, my heart sped up and my palms grew sweaty and clammy.
And yet my mind always circled back to the possibility that he’d been protecting me. He’d stood over me in the bed, then charged at whoever tried to get into the room. Maybe if his wolf side took over... I shook my head and concentrated on staying upright as one of the nurses brought in a wheelchair.
They were discharging me, finally. I still wasn’t sure what day it was, but Deirdre assured me it had been two weeks since that night at the sanctuary. It felt like it should have been longer, based on how my bruises looked. Mercy, the bright-eyed younger wolf who’d nearly steam-rolled me with hugs at Deirdre’s house, bounced along beside Deirdre to help me get dressed in the new clothes they’d brought. My sides ached by the time I finally maneuvered my stiff limbs into a sweatshirt and amazingly soft yoga pants, then crawled into the wheelchair.
I thanked all the nurses for taking such good care of me, and tried not to react to seeing more of their pack in the hall, apparently guarding me. Still more lingered outside the hospital on the way to the doors. They drifted away to other vehicles once Deirdre helped me into the sedan that idled at the curb. Outside, it finally occurred to me that the hospital wasn’t one that I recognized from the city. We were definitelyinthe city and it was definitely a hospital, but it was smaller and not well-identified as such. I craned my neck, trying to sort it out, but then the car pulled away and Deirdre cleared her throat to get my attention.
Todd drove the sedan and Mercy sat up front, so it was Deirdre and I in the back. The witch held out a small pouch. “A gift for you, Percy. Just a small token of my appreciation for helping figure out how to help Silas.”
“Is he – is he fixed? I mean, is he back to normal?” I peered into the pouch before spilling its contents into my palm. A delicate silver linked bracelet slid cool and solid against my fingers. A few charms glittered in the sunlight that gleamed through the window. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks,” she said a little absently, her attention on the bracelet. Deirdre reached out to tap one of the charms with the tip of her finger. “Silas is at least in his right mind, though his form is still stuck as the wolf. I think we’ve found a way to fix that, as well, but it has to wait until I can figure out the right spell. In the meantime, I wanted you to have this. If you press the oak leaf between your thumb and forefinger, it will send a message to me that you need to talk.”
I lifted the bracelet to examine the charms more closely. “How?”
“Magic,” she said. It didn’t even sound sarcastic when she said it. Deirdre helped put the bracelet on my wrist, then leaned back in the seat. “I’ll know where you are and can either come immediately myself or send someone in my stead.”
“Wow.” I glanced out the back window at where the hospital had long since disappeared, and gnawed my lower lip with worry.
“What’s wrong?” the witch asked, dark eyebrow arched. “Do you need your pain medication already?”
“No, it’s not that.” I took a deep breath. “It’s just... that was a private hospital, wasn’t it? And I was in a private room and they did tons of tests and... It must be really, really expensive.”
The last came out in a whisper as I struggled to find a way to say outright that I couldn’t afford the bill, whatever it ended up being. I knew with a hundred percent certainty the cut-rate health insurance I paid for wouldn’t help at all.
Deirdre must have sensed my concern because she waved the comment away absently. “Don’t worry about it, dear. Miles has a standing retainer with the hospital to cover the injuries that inevitably happen in a pack. There’s no cost to you.”
“That’s impossible,” I said, shaking my head. “I was there forweeks, in a private room, and from what you said, they had to give me a few whole people worth of blood just to keep me alive.”
My voice broke and I had to stop talking so I didn’t free the tears that threatened every time I thought too much about how close I’d come to dying. It was something I couldn’t think about without feeling like I might be sucked back into the darkness. I needed an anchor. And every time I looked around for someone to keep me rooted in reality, I didn’t see the one person I was certain could do it: Dodge.
Deirdre squeezed my hand gently, careful of the bruises and the bandages over where the IVs had bitten into my skin. “I promise you don’t owe anything. All of the shifters in the city pay to support that hospital. It’s the only one that their kind can go to without possibly exposing their existence to humans. It’s fully funded at all times, for all patients. There isn’t a bill. There’snevera bill.”
It made me feel a little better, although it did raise a series of related questions: how often did shifters end up at the hospital, if they needed their own fully staffed all the time?
Deirdre checked her phone and went on. “Miles will meet us at your apartment, with some friends we want you to meet. You’re on their territory, so if you ever need help and I’m too far away,” she patted the bracelet to remind me of the charm. “Then they’ll be in a position to help you.”
More kindnesses that I didn’t feel I really deserved. I cleared my throat. “I don’t want to impose.”
“It’s not an imposition,” she said. She arched a dark eyebrow and gave me a sideways look. “As I’ve said many times, and will continue to say – we dragged you into this world and it’s our responsibility to keep you safe. This is part of that. The lions can be a little hoity-toity and self-important – they’re cats, after all – but they mean well and they’re fierce when it comes to protecting those weaker than them. Plus they all have mates and young ones, so none of them will be interested in you.”
It hadn’t even occurred to me that that might have been a consideration. She must have noticed my consternation, because Deirdre laughed. “Okay, so that part might not be a serious issue for you, but there are others who wanted to make sure you weren’t surrounded by single men.”
“Others?” My heart stuttered, since the only person I could imagine would care about a thing like that was Dodge. But if he hadn’t bothered to visit me at all in the hospital after that terrifying fight, what difference did it make?
“It’s nothing,” she said. Deirdre frowned as she looked out the windshield, as Todd maneuvered the car onto a side street and pulled up in front of an enormous high-rise with a beautiful lobby and a semi-circular drive out front. “Mercy will stay with you for the first few days until you’re settled; she can cook and help clean up, change the bandages, make sure your balance is okay, all of that stuff.”
Mercy beamed at me from the front seat, then hopped out of the car as a doorman opened her door and reached for mine. “It’ll be fun, Percy.”
I stared at the dude who stood next to my door, offering a hand like I was some fancy lady who needed help getting out of the car. “Where are we? I thought we were going to my apartment.”
“We are,” Todd said. He got out as well, then the three of them waited on the sidewalk as a valet climbed into the driver’s seat. Todd bent slightly at the waist to peer at me, a hint of a smile on his normally stoic face. “It’s a new apartment. Your old one... had some issues. So we arranged something else.”
Deirdre and Mercy got tired of waiting and caught my arms to haul me out of the seat. Mercy looped her arm through mine and dragged me into the lobby while I was still distracted by staring at everything around me. “It’s really nice here, Percy.Realnice.”
“But...” I started, taken aback by the concierge desk staffed by a man and a woman, both of whom rose as we approached through the lobby. My heart thudded harder against my ribs as everything spun out of control around me. It was like being back in the sanctuary, trapped in the tiger enclosure. I couldn’t get out, couldn’t stay, couldn’t figure out what to do as nothing felt safe.
