Chapter 4 – Rowan
Chapter
Four
ROWAN
“Would you get your arm out of there and tell me what your fucking middle name is already?”
Sean’s entire bicep is wedged in the vending machine, his face pressed against the glass like he’s trying to merge with it. “This thing ate my dollar, Rowan. And I want my Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.”
I set aside the clipboard full of intake paperwork and pinch the bridge of my nose. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Besides,” Sean adds, wiggling experimentally and achieving nothing, “I’m stuck.”
Of course he is.
The waiting room of Stormvale General’s supernatural wing is not the place I expected to spend my evening.
Then again, I also didn’t expect to watch a dragon incinerate a werewolf or discover that said dragon is actually the professor who has it out for our entire pack, so clearly my expectations need recalibrating.
The fluorescent lights make even the healthier-seeming patients look like they’re auditioning for a zombie movie.
A sprite in the corner is having some kind of magical hiccups, little sparks shooting out of her ears every few seconds while her giant friend pats her back uselessly. More sparks shoot out with every heavy thump.
A partially shifted squirrel shifter two seats down is clearly tweaking on something, his tail twitching in rapid, erratic patterns as he stares at the wall. Everyone’s trying to avoid making eye contact with him and drawing his attention, including me.
And in the far corner, a vampire girl bent over slightly and clutching her stomach sits surrounded by what I assume is her coven. Four other pale, bored-looking vampires who are either preening in their phone cameras or scrolling. Guess that doesn’t count as a mirror. Huh.
The girl herself looks disgusted with all of us in spite of her green shade, which is fair. I’m pretty disgusted with all of us too.
Sean grunts, pulling harder. The vending machine rocks ominously.
“Stop,” I say, crossing the room. “You’re going to tip it over and crush someone. Probably yourself.”
“Good. Then they’ll have to give me my Cheetos as compensation.”
I crouch beside him, examining the situation. His arm is wedged in the retrieval slot at an angle that defies basic anatomy. The Cheetos bag is visible through the glass, dangling tantalizingly from the spiral dispenser, clearly stuck.
Not as stuck as Sean is.
“How did you even get your arm in this far?”
“Determination.” Sean grins, though it’s lopsided given that half his face is covered in a blood-soaked compress. “And rage. Mostly rage.”
“You have a head injury. You shouldn’t be rageful. You should be sitting quietly and filling out your own damn paperwork.”
“I’ll worry about paperwork when I’m done being robbed by corporate snack machines. The man has my balls in his greedy capitalist vice grip, Rowan.”
The vampire girl looks up from her phone and cocks an eyebrow at us.
“That’s it, no more econ class for you,” I mutter.
I grab his bicep and try to angle it toward freedom. The machine groans. Sean yelps.
“Ow, ow, ow—wrong way, wrong way—”
“Hold still.”
“I am holding still! You’re the one yanking!”
“I’m not yanking, I’m maneuvering your fucking—”
“Mr. Brewer?”
We both freeze. A nurse stands in the doorway to the treatment area, clipboard in hand, looking at us with the expression of someone who’s seen too much and is paid too little.
Sean looks around the waiting room in confusion. “My dad’s here?”
I stare at him. “No, you idiot. That’s you.”
“Oh.” He blinks. “Right. Brewer. That’s me.”
The nurse’s voice has gone flat. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I give Sean’s arm one final, strategic twist, and it yanks free of the machine with a sound like a cork popping out of a bottle.
He stumbles backward, flexing his fingers.
“Ha! Freedom!” He turns toward the vending machine, looking betrayed as he points. “This isn’t over.”
“Let’s go.” I grab his shoulder and steer him toward the nurse before he can officially declare war.
The treatment area is somehow even more depressing than the waiting room. Curtained cubicles line both walls, and the smell of antiseptic barely masks the stench of a nearby lich with some kind of infection. The nurse leads us to a bed in the corner and gestures for Sean to sit.
I settle into the plastic chair beside him and return to the clipboard. “Okay. Middle name.”
Sean blinks at me. “Don’t have one.”
“What?”
“My parents ran out of names by the time they got to me.” He shrugs like this is perfectly normal. “I just pick a random initial for paperwork. My favorite is X. Doesn’t get enough love.”
I stare at him for a long moment, then groan and write “X” in the appropriate box. Sean Brewer, middle initial X.
Sure. Why not.
Nothing about this day makes sense anyway.
The nurse returns and gestures for Sean to step on the scale. He does, and when the numbers settle, he stares at them for a few seconds, then pats his stomach with his good hand.
“Just too good of a cook,” he announces.
“Debatable,” I mutter.
Sean gives an indignant cry that echoes off the walls and makes the nurse clap her hands over her pointed ears in agony.
“My nachos are fucking legendary, bro!”
“Your nachos gave Killian food poisoning.”
Sean opens his mouth to argue, but then closes it like he’s considering this.
The nurse is checking Sean’s vitals now. Blood pressure, temperature, the basics. Sean, being Sean, starts drumming on his knees. A rapid, irritating rhythm that fills the small space.
The nurse pauses, cuff still on Sean’s arm. “Do you mind?”
“Oh, sure.” Sean stops the drumming to add an air cymbal. “Ba-dum, dum, tsss.”
The nurse closes her eyes for a brief moment. When she opens them again, her expression has achieved a level of blankness that probably took years to develop.
“The doctor will be in soon,” she says, handing Sean a fresh compress for his eye. “Keep this on the wound.”
She leaves. The curtain swishes closed behind her.
Sean presses the fresh compress to his face and immediately winces. “Shit. That stings.”
“Leave it on, Sean.”
The wait goes on forever, but then again, five minutes away from our mate feels like an eternity under the best circumstances. I can feel Sean’s anxiety beneath all the jokes and deflection.
He’s worried about Killian.
We both are. The thread connecting us to our pack alpha feels thin and distant, muffled by whatever the fuck Villeneuve did to put him in stasis.
And now, he and our mate are in a literal dragon’s lair.
I thought not knowing what Villeneuve was made him more unnerving.
Knowing is way worse.
“Do you think he’s gonna be okay?” Sean asks, quieter now.
I want to lie. Want to tell him everything’s going to be fine, that Killian will wake up any minute now and crack some joke about sleeping through all the excitement.
But Sean would feel the lie through the bond.
And he deserves better than that.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But if there’s a way, Regina will find it.”
Sean nods slowly. “Yeah. She’s brilliant. Like, scary brilliant. Did you see what she did to that blond guy with the stupid tattoos? One spell and he just—“ He makes an exploding gesture with his free hand. “Gone.”
“I saw.”
“Our mate is a badass.”
“She is.”
Sean perks up suddenly, his eye going wide. “And seriously, can you believe Villeneuve turned into a—”
I’m across the small space before he can finish the sentence, my hand clamped firmly over his mouth.
Sean makes a muffled sound of protest.
“You can’t talk about that here,” I hiss.
He pulls my hand away. “Why not? It’s not like—“
“Villeneuve was clearly keeping it a secret for a reason.”
“Yeah, but since when do we care about keeping his secrets?”
“It’s not for his sake.” I glance toward the curtain, lowering my voice further. “There’s no telling what he’ll do if it gets out. And if people start sniffing around what happened in that meadow, they’re going to know Killian was bitten by a—“
The curtain swishes open.
I snap my mouth shut so fast my teeth click.
The doctor who enters is a pear-shaped older man with long white-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. He’s wearing a bowtie—purple with little gold stars—and his glasses are perched on the end of his nose like he’s about to start grading term papers.
Cat shifter. Probably a Persian, if looks and general aura are any indication.
He looks between me and Sean—me still hovering close, my hand just now dropping from Sean’s face—and chuckles.
“Sorry to intrude on you two lovebirds.”
My face contorts into a grimace at the mental image I’m going to have to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind right out of my skull. “We’re not—“
“Oh, no, we’re definitely not—“ Sean starts at the same time.
We both stop. Look at each other, then back at the doctor.
“Yeah, no romo, bro,” Sean says, recovering first. “I mean, I love the guy, but like a bro-bro, not a ho-bro, you know?”
The doctor’s eyebrow rises slightly.
Sean glances at the bowtie, then back at the doctor’s face, and his expression shifts to panic. “Not that that’s a problem! I’m totally down with the LGBTQ community. My sister works at Home Depot!”
I drag a hand down my face. “I’m so sorry. He does have a head injury, but this is honestly probably not related to that.”
The doctor chuckles, but his left eye twitches a bit. “I see. Well, let’s have a look at what brought you in—“
Sean lowers the compress.
“Holy shit!” the doctor cries, stumbling back a step.
Wow. Professional.
Sean cringes. “Is it that bad?”
“Your eye is gone.” The doctor’s professional composure has completely evaporated.
He stares at Sean’s face with the kind of horror usually reserved for crime scenes.
Then his gaze drops to Sean’s shirt—a Lupe Tau fraternity tee, because of course Sean grabbed the most obvious thing from the pack house on our way here—and his expression shifts to suspicion.
“I thought the fraternities had toned things down after that little minotaur incident last Hell Week.”