Chapter 8 Fenris #2
“Good girl,” I whispered and grinned when her shoulders shook.
She took the food, chewed, and swallowed before opening for another bite.
I obliged, this time taking some fruit and placing it on her delicate tongue.
“Now, listen to me while you digest. I’m not mad about the marking.
I’m not furious that you broke the rules or that you upset my very… delicate sensibilities.”
I barely said the last part with a straight face.
She glared at me while I gathered eggs and brought them to her mouth. Holding her focus on me, she took them and chewed.
“I am upset that I have to keep repeating myself,” I continued. “Nearly a week of trying to make you take better care of yourself, and I still have to feed you myself. Tsk, tsk.”
“Oh, give me that.” She snatched the fork out of my hand and forced the prongs into an undeserving melon. “I don’t need you to do this. I don’t want you to.”
I ignored the stab in my chest at hearing, I don’t want you, but soldiered on.
“Well, tough.” It came out more aggravated than I intended, and she stuck her tongue in the side of her cheek. “Your wolf chose me, like it or not. And here I am.”
Somehow, this had spiraled out of my control faster than I could manage. Her irritation flared in my blood, threatening to amplify my own. I took a deep breath and clenched my jaw.
“What if I don’t like it?” she said. “What if I wish it had been anyone else outside the Yule party?”
I let that settle in between us like the loaded grenade it was and stood to take a step back.
“Is that what you’re saying?” She couldn’t mean it. She didn’t mean it. I’d seen the look in her eyes last night, the way she’d come under me again and again, the comfort and safety in her wolf when it had just been the two of us. She’d liked it, and she wanted more, even if she couldn’t admit it.
“Fen, I…” She dropped the fork to rub her hands over her face. “I need some time to think about this. I don’t have space in my life for you, and you’ve never been one to stay around.”
“So that’s the problem?” I shook my head and forced air out of my lungs. “You think because I haven’t been serious about anyone else that I’m not serious about you?”
She didn’t answer, just stared up at me with those big pleading eyes, but that was confirmation enough.
“You think I bring anyone else homemade breakfast? You think I worry about anyone else in this pack the way I worry about you? You think—”
Two knocks at the door sounded before Briggs popped their head in. “Wyn? We’ve got a code blue coming in.” Their eyes shifted to me and back to Wyn before settling on me again. “It’s Lyra.”
Lyra?
But my girl was already moving. She was up and around the desk before I had a chance to process what that meant. What was my sister doing here? What was—
Her screams cut off my line of thought, the desperate cry I’d recognize anywhere.
I followed Wyn out of her office and into the triage area, where my sister clutched at Caelum’s bloodied shirt while he carried her in his arms. Blood oozed from her nose, mouth, and ears, and fuck, they both were covered in it.
There was so much, I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Okay, okay, I’ve got you,” Caelum said, placing her on the gurney. Wyn, Briggs, and the other nurses dove into action, shouting terms at each other that I didn’t understand.
“What happened?” I murmured, my brain struggling to catch up to reality. When white noise only flooded my senses, I reached out to grab Caelum’s shirt and yanked him toward me. “What happened?!”
“I don’t know.” Caelum ran his crimson-coated hands back through his hair and blinked as his frantic eyes struggled to focus. “We were on patrol and she just…she seized and—”
“Seized?” I grit my teeth and shook him harder, my inner beast tearing at his restraints, threatening to sink into this little shit. They were on patrol together. They were supposed to look out for each other. “What the fuck were you doing that she started having a seizure?”
“I—I—I kissed her and—” Caelum stammered, hardly able to get the words out.
“Hey, hey, hey,” came a familiar voice from my side as a strong hand wrapped around my wrist. “Fenris, let him go.”
“I didn’t hurt her. I tried to—”
“Gods damn it, Fenris. Let him go!” Mill shoved my shoulders away from his little brother and put his body between us. “He got her here. She’s going to be okay. Look, Wyn’s healing her now.”
Logically, I understood that. Wyn was the best, and she’d figure out what was wrong with my sister.
She’d fix it, she would. But standing there, watching everyone converge on Lyra, knowing I could do nothing to help, made me want to claw off my own skin.
Briggs attached equipment to her chest while another nurse cut off her clothes, and Wyn barked orders.
Lyra shook and bled and…fuck, I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t lose my little sister. I couldn’t watch her die. I couldn’t—I couldn’t—
“What the hell is he doing here?” Kodiak said when he walked into the medical bay, his dark gaze raking over both of us. “Mill, take him to the hallway. Caelum, go get cleaned up.”
“Kodiak, please,” Caelum said. “I didn’t hurt her. Please, let her be okay. I didn’t do anything, I swear.”
“Hey.” Kodiak put his hands on Caelum’s shoulders and leaned down to stare him in the eyes. “Right now, I need you to shower and get her blood off you. When she wakes up, she’ll feel worse if you’re still a mess. Can you do that for me?”
Caelum gulped and nodded before heading to the hallway leading back to the dorms.
“Mill?” Kodiak raised an eyebrow and nodded at me, but I was stuck staring at my only remaining family member, struggling to stay alive.
My best friend grabbed my shoulders and guided me out of the infirmary to the hallway, leading me down to a sitting area we’d designated as the waiting room. He pushed me onto a couch and plopped down next to me with a sigh.
“She’ll be okay, Fen,” he said. “Whatever it is, Wyn will figure it out.”
I rested my elbows on my knees and hung my head, praying to whatever Gods or ancestors listening that he was right.
Hours…days…centuries passed while he sat with me in silence.
Maeve came to check on us and bring us coffee, but he sent her away with a kiss and told her to let everyone know Lyra was still alive.
I couldn’t shake the image of seeing her writhing in pain, leaking from every orifice, her life pooling on the floor of the med-bay quicker than she could recover. And with that came memories of my parents.
Two decades ago, our enemies, the Bloody Scorpions, had snuck onto our territory during a full moon, attacked during the shift, when we were our most vulnerable. They’d taken out damn near half the pack before we realized what had happened, my parents among them.
At twelve years old, I’d stood over their mangled corpses and burned the images into my brain so I’d never forget. Their hands joined together, even in death. Their blood mingling on the grass underneath them. Their flesh torn and their insides exposed to the elements. Their white, lifeless eyes.
I didn’t truly understand death until then. I’d heard of it, of course. The random elder or two who passed away warm and content in their bed, surrounded by their family.
But standing over what remained of my parents, surrounded by countless others in the same position, I’d learned death could come for any of us at any time.
It had no qualms about children or lives yet to be lived.
It didn’t care about age or gender or love.
It took what it wanted and gave no thought to the consequences.
Then I’d gone home to my two-year-old sister, scooped her into my arms, and swore I’d never let anything happen to her.
I’d promised to live my life for my parents, to protect Lyra, to raise her the way they would have wanted, and find life anywhere I could.
Had I taken it too far? Was Wyn right? Did I not take myself seriously up to this point because I knew all of it could be snatched away at any moment?
“Did you know they were…” Mill asked, breaking me from my dark train of thought.
“Of course.” I sighed and leaned back in the chair. “You?”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “They were trying to keep under wraps, but nothing stays secret for long in this place.”
“Don’t I fucking know it.” It had been less than a week, and word had spread like wildfire about Wyn and me. Hell, the whole pack already knew what we were, even if we didn’t.
Mill huffed a laugh and reached over to finger the bite on my neck, raising an eyebrow. “This is new.”
I covered the bite and winced. “Yeah.”
“She got one matching it?” He raised his eyebrows.
I shook my head. “We didn’t get that far, yet.”
“She bit you first?”
I put my face in my hands. “It’s complicated.”
He blew out a disbelieving breath. “Well, fuck.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to beat my ass and burn my life down.”
Mill laughed and shook his head, and I smirked at the sound. Before Maeve, he’d gone through a rough patch where all he did was sulk around and brood. I’d forgotten how much he used to laugh before that, how much I enjoyed the sound.
“Gods know I can’t tell her what to do,” he said. “I’ve spent my whole life trying, and all she does is snap at me and force me to do whatever she wants. Half the time, I’m following her orders before I even realize what the hell I’m doing.”
“She’s been bossing us both around since we were kids,” I admitted as visions floated to my mind of a much younger version of Wyn with her hands on her hips and an assertive glint in her eye. “She says I’m not serious about it…about her.”
“Are you?”
My immediate response was to say “Of course,” and “Fuck yes.” But I held back. If my own best friend was asking, maybe Wyn had a point. I only growled in response.