Chapter 52 Lucy & Fallon
LUCY I was walking out of every single hospital that had ever called me a patient.
The nurse hummed as she worked, oblivious to the emotions churning inside me. She seemed genuinely happy that I was well enough to leave, her Beta scent warm with satisfaction. I watched her, feeling incredibly grateful.
“There, a good cleaning and this room will be Lucy free.” The nurse rubbed her hands together in triumph. “Let me go get the wheelchair. You have someone coming to take you home, right?”
“Yes, they should be here any minute,” I said, nodding. Home. Were they taking me home today? Then I realized she’d mentioned a wheelchair. “I can walk though.”
Her look was sympathetic now. “I’m sure you’ve been through this sort of thing enough to know the typical protocol.”
I bit my lip, hating the idea of being wheeled out of this hospital like an invalid.
“Look, let’s do this.” She leaned in conspiratorially, “I’ll leave the wheelchair outside the room. You can sit down once you’re in the hallway.”
It was such a small difference, a matter of a few feet, but it meant the world. “Okay,” I managed, throat feeling tight.
A soft knock on the door sounded minutes after the nurse left, and my heart leapt when Fallon stepped into the room, his imposing figure filling the doorframe.
Standing there, his shoulders looked incredibly wide.
His piercing blue eyes swept over me, assessing, before his lips quirked into what might have been a smile.
He pushed into the room, muscles on full display thanks to a tight, evergreen shirt.
Behind him came Kane dressed in head-to-toe black, his energy tightly coiled, his dark eyes alert, and a grease smudge on his cheek.
He never seemed able to calm down when he came to the hospital.
Though my chest constricted at the sight of them, part of me—a shameful, needy part—had hoped all five Alphas would come.
That they'd form a protective circle around me, that I'd be enveloped in their combined scents, that I'd feel.
.. what? Wanted? Cherished? Loved? What a foolish fantasy.
Yet the way Fallon and Kane were looking at me made that fantasy feel painfully possible.
"Ready to blow this joint?" Kane asked, walking around me and checking over the room.
"More than ready," I answered, pushing myself carefully up from the bed. My abdomen protested with a dull throb, but it was nothing compared to the pain from those first few days after the accident.
“Is there anything we need to grab?” Kane was in the bathroom now, looking for anything I’d left behind.
“I have everything important.” I lifted Nitro’s carving and Fallon’s book into view.
Fallon stepped forward, his movements measured and precise. He reached out, wrapping his fingers around mine, his grey-blue eyes staring down at the items. “Did you like the book?” He breathed out, voice carefully controlled.
“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly. “The storyline was hard to follow.”
His gaze moved up, capturing mine. “We’ll read it again together,” he murmured. “I’ll make sure you understand.”
There seemed to be different, unspoken promises wrapped up in what he said, and my heart began to swell with happiness. Please keep treating me like this. Please keep your promises.
“Where are Xander and the others?” I didn’t mean to ask. I didn’t want to seem like Fallon and Kane coming wasn’t enough.
“The others wanted to come," Fallon said, his voice low and smooth. “Cirque obligations.”
“Right, of course. Preparing for the tour’s more important.” I tried to hide my disappointment, but it bled into every syllable I uttered.
“They wanted to be here.” Kane moved closer to us. “And, no, the tour is not more important, Lucy.”
God, he said it like he really meant it.
He said it like it was indisputable truth.
The next half hour passed in a blur of paperwork and discharge instructions, Fallon dealing with most of the details.
The nurse did as she promised, bringing the wheelchair to the hallway outside my room and waiting for me to walk across the threshold of my own volition.
Passing through the doorway was… the first time I believed in the concept of being reborn.
"I'll bring the car around," Fallon said, as the nurse rolled me to a stop in front of the elevators. He disappeared into a stairwell, but not before giving me a weighted look full of things I couldn’t understand.
As we moved—into the elevator, descending floors, exiting near the reception area—Kane stayed close by me, near enough his thigh kept grazing the wheelchair’s armrest.
The hospital smells grew fainter as we approached the discharge exit, replaced by Kane’s heady scent of leather, oil, and spices.
It made my inner Omega stir restlessly, warmth pooling in my belly.
I placed a palm against my stomach, telling myself to stop being stupid.
There were so many factors. The time. The place.
Both wildly inappropriate. And did Kane even want me to want him?
Even if he did, was my body healed enough to do anything besides fantasize?