5. Ryoch
5
RYOCH
I never went to this part of the hospital. It was best if I only interacted with patients briefly in the ER, stabilized them, then moved on. The outpatient wing was where friendships were formed, and I couldn’t risk any attachments. I’d made that mistake before.
But I’d scented her , and I couldn’t stop my feet from moving in her direction. Charlotte was my center of gravity now, pulling me in.
And if she was here, something was wrong. I was practically running down the hall when I nearly bumped into a volunteer leaving the transfusion waiting room.
“Slow down there, Doc.” She gave me a sly half-smile, as if she was in on a secret, and kept walking briskly past me.
I’d seen the woman before, offering kind words and support to worried loved ones in the ER waiting room. Her scent was…different. I couldn’t quite place it. But right now, my sole focus was on the fragrance of gosca berries that suddenly strengthened as I neared the doorway.
I heard a voice I didn’t recognize and slowed my steps. When I got to the door, I stopped and hovered, listening.
“Are you Char? Naomi Byrne’s friend?”
“Yes. How is she?”
“She’s doing fine. She wanted me to let you know it’ll be another hour if you want to leave and come back.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks. I might go to the cafeteria.”
“Try the muffins, they’re fabulous. We get them from Out of This World Bakery.”
“Ooh, love that place. Okay, I’ll be back.”
I didn’t want to scare her again, and finding me standing outside the door would probably do that. Despite all my instincts screaming to get closer to her, not farther, I forced myself to turn and walk casually down the hallway, as if I’d just been strolling by.
The door opened behind me, and I heard her intake of breath. I kept walking without breaking stride, without turning to look. It cost me.
“Ryoch?”
I halted mid-step, heart thundering in my chest. The sound of my name from her lips triggered a reflexive physical response, and my skin rippled under my clothes. I needed to wrap her, hold her, and protect her. Mark her.
Not here, not yet.
I turned, every ounce of my willpower going into keeping my form.
“Charlotte. I’m surprised to see you here.” The words were abrupt, formal. I tried to smile to soften them, but I was fairly sure it looked like I’d just eaten something sour. No, no, no.
She frowned. “Yeah. I’m…here. I didn’t know you worked at the hospital.”
Say something. I couldn’t ask her why she was here, that wasn’t professional. Holding my form took monumental effort. The chance to connect with her, even to learn her full name, was slipping away from me as I struggled not to shift.
“It’s good to see you again.” That was what I should have said first. Fuck .
Now she was peering at my face, her eyes scanning my hairline. Was I shifting? Fuck, fuck, fuck . I couldn’t stand here any longer.
“Well, I’d better be going. Patients to see.”
Her gaze met mine, and her eyes flared wide. My eyes . I couldn’t wait for her reply. With a curt nod, I turned and walked the other way.
Even in human form, I had Lydaxian hearing. A predatorial awareness, passed down from ancestors who used their shifting skills to hunt. I knew she stood there, unmoving. I could almost feel her gaze on my back. Then I heard her footsteps, the sound growing quieter as she walked in the opposite direction, toward the cafeteria.
I stopped moving as soon as I knew she was in a different wing, putting my hand on the wall to steady myself. The smooth surface helped to ground me, and I stared at my human fingers splayed out, taking in deep breaths to clear my lungs of her scent.
Thankfully, there was no one to see me, not on a Sunday. The hallway was quiet and empty.
I’d stayed in this human form easily until now. Having my mate so near, especially when I hadn’t marked her yet, was throwing off my concentration in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Lydaxian features pushed through the camouflage. My real tongue—my lithis —filled my mouth with sagar , the relaxant that eased mating. And my seal pulsed around my painfully hard cock.
I couldn’t be discovered like this. Fuck, I couldn’t live like this. I put my other hand on the wall and bent my head toward the floor, staring down at the white tiles and willing myself to shift completely back to human. It took a moment, but I managed it.
Charlotte’s friend had to be very ill to be getting a transfusion today. The thought snapped me out of my needy haze.
Just in time. I stood upright and took a step, seconds before a nurse came around the corner. She nodded politely and kept walking past me.
I went in the direction she’d come from, finding an empty office connected to the transfusion clinic, and ducked inside.
Then I froze. Someone could return at any minute. My mind raced to come up with an excuse for why I was there, some reason to inquire about Charlotte’s friend. How was I going to do that without raising alarms? Even looking her up in the hospital database would lead to questions.
Gravod would be so unimpressed. He and some of the others were former military, but not me. I was a doctor, not a spy. This was completely outside of my expertise. During the one off-planet mission I’d been on before this, a scientific study, I’d utterly failed at maintaining my cover. It was something that would hang over me forever.
My gaze darted around the room, and I saw it. Salvation. With adrenaline pumping, I crossed to a tidy desk where the computer screen was open to a patient record. Naomi Byrne’s record. The nurse should have locked it, but she probably assumed no one else would come in here today. I needed to hurry before she came back.
With rapid clicks, I went through the files, taking only moments to fully read each page. It was an ability I needed to hide in the presence of humans, whose reading speeds were painfully slow. Soon, I’d seen what I needed. I returned to the screen the nurse had left open, made sure everything on the desk looked undisturbed, and let myself out.
All was quiet, but I didn’t feel relieved.
As I walked back to the ER, I was barely aware of my surroundings. Charlotte’s scent still hung in the air. I couldn’t follow it, but I couldn’t ignore it. And her friend…
It was Nax-5 all over again.
Memories clouded my vision, and I clenched my fists. No amount of training had prepared me to confront a dying, sentient creature I could save and to let them suffer needlessly. I’d made a choice, the repercussions of which followed me to this day.
After Nax-5, I knew that I couldn’t interfere. I wasn’t that na?ve young doctor anymore. Yes, I practiced medicine on Earth as part of my cover, but I would never make the same mistake again. I was here to take care of my kind, and if all went well, their human mates and resulting offspring.
Otherwise, I was restricted to the limits of human medicine. And that meant I couldn’t help Charlotte’s friend.
Even though I could easily save Naomi’s life.
If Charlotte ever found out, if she even gave me another chance after the disastrous encounter in the hallway… She’d never forgive me.
I wondered if I could forgive myself.