Chapter 31
Thirty-One
FRANCINE
Beeping. Steady, electronic beeping pierces the darkness. I try to open my eyes, but they’re so heavy, like someone’s glued them shut. Pain radiates through my entire body in waves, each pulse more intense than the last.
I can’t move. Can’t think.
All I know is the beeping and the pain, and the terrifying sensation that I’m trapped inside my own broken body.
I force my eyelids open just a crack. Blinding white light assaults me, and I immediately squeeze them shut again. Everything hurts. My chest feels like it’s being crushed under concrete blocks. My arms are heavy, immobilized. Even breathing sends daggers of pain through my ribs.
“She’s awake.”
That voice. I know that voice. Drake. The sound of it sends a ripple of warmth through my pain-soaked consciousness.
Drake is here. I’m not alone.
I try again to open my eyes, more carefully this time. The fluorescent lights above me blur into focus. I attempt to turn my head toward the voice, but something rigid holds me in place. Panic surges through me. Why can’t I move my head? Am I paralyzed?
“Thank god,” sighs Elias in the background. I can’t see him.
“Easy, Francine. Don’t try to move yet.” Drake’s face appears above me, his eyes intense with worry. Behind him, I see Rowan’s solemn face, his long dark hair pulled back in a messy bun, watching me with quiet concern.
I try to speak, but my throat feels like I’ve swallowed shattered glass. All that comes out is a dry rasp.
“Here,” Rowan says, bringing a straw to my lips. “Small sips.”
The cool water feels like heaven on my parched throat. I take another sip, then try to speak again.
“What happened?” I ask, my voice a croak.
As the words leave my lips, flashes of memory assault me. Headlights. The blare of a horn. The sickening crunch of metal. The airbag exploding in my face. My phone lighting up with Kieran’s name just before the crash.
Oh god. The baby.
My eyes fly open wide, panic seizing me. I try to reach for my stomach, but my arms won’t cooperate. They’re both in casts, strapped to my sides. No, no, no.
“You were in a car accident,” Drake explains, his hand gently touching my shoulder. “Your phone sent out an emergency alert. We came as soon as we could.”
The emergency contact list. I’d put all four alphas as my emergency contacts when I started working for them. I never changed it after Kieran fired me.
“How bad?” I whisper.
Rowan and Drake exchange a look that makes my stomach drop.
“Multiple broken ribs,” Rowan says, his quiet voice somehow making the words less harsh. “Both arms fractured. Concussion. Bruises everywhere. And a small bone in your right foot is broken.”
But what about the baby? I want to scream. I need to know if my baby is okay. But the words stick in my throat. They don’t know. They can’t know. I never told them, and now I’m terrified to ask the doctors with them standing right here.
Tears well up in my eyes, spilling over and tracking hot paths down my temples into my hair. The machines beside me start beeping faster as my heart rate increases with my distress.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Drake says, alarm flashing across his features. He moves closer, his hand covering mine carefully, where it extends below the cast. “You’re going to be alright, Francine. We’re not going anywhere.”
“We’ll be right here,” Rowan adds, his voice full of a certainty I wish I could feel. “Whatever you need.”
But they don’t understand. When I leave this hospital, I’ll be alone. Alone in my apartment with broken bones and a body that can barely move.
How will I take care of myself? How will I manage the most basic tasks? And if the baby survived, how could I possibly care for a child when I can’t even care for myself?
I close my eyes, trying to steady my breathing despite the stabbing pain in my ribs with each inhale. I can’t tell them. Can’t make them feel obligated to take care of me.
They’ve made their feelings crystal clear to me. Or at least Kieran has. I won’t trap them with guilt or pity.
“Thank you,” I whisper instead. “For coming.”
The rest of the day passes in a medicated blur. Nurses come and go, adjusting my IV, checking my vitals. The doctor visits, explaining things I can barely comprehend through the fog of pain and drugs.
Drake and Rowan remain constant presences, taking turns helping me sip water or broth through a straw, adjusting my pillows as best they can without moving me too much. They speak in low voices when they think I’m sleeping, words full of worry and anger that I can’t quite make out.
At some point, a nurse adjusts something in my neck brace, allowing me to turn my head slightly from side to side. A small mercy, but one that makes me feel marginally less trapped.
I drift in and out of consciousness. Sometimes when I wake, it’s Drake beside my bed. Other times, Rowan. Once, I think I see Elias in the doorway, his glasses reflecting the hallway lights, his face drawn with concern, but I slip back under before I can be sure.
When I wake again, the room is dimmer. Night has fallen outside the small window. The pain has settled into a constant, dull throb throughout my body, punctuated by sharper stabs when I breathe too deeply.
I can move my head a little more now, and my gaze falls on a figure sitting in the chair across from my bed. Kieran.
He’s sitting absolutely still, like a statue carved from granite. His ice-blue eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes my heart race. He’s been sitting there for hours.
I’ve never seen him look so... undone.
His usually perfect hair is disheveled, his jaw dark with stubble. The crisp suits he always wears have been replaced by a rumpled t-shirt and jeans.
Our eyes meet, and for a long moment, neither of us speaks. What is there to say? The last time I saw him, he was loading my suitcase into my car, telling me he never wanted to see me again. And now he’s here, watching over me like I still matter to him.
“You don’t need to be here,” I finally say, my voice stronger than before but still rough with disuse.
“I want to be here,” he replies, his deep voice filling the quiet room. “This is my fault.”
I frown, confusion cutting through the haze of pain meds. “You didn’t crash into my car.”
“If I hadn’t rejected you, you would’ve been safe,” he says, each word heavy with regret. “This would never have happened. You would have been safe.”
If he hadn’t thrown me out, I wouldn’t have been driving alone, distracted by my grief and the shock of the pregnancy test. I would have been in his home, surrounded by his pack.
I nod slightly, the movement sending a fresh wave of pain through my neck and shoulders. Tears well up again, spilling over before I can stop them. I’m so tired of crying, but my body seems to have no other way to process the overwhelming combination of physical pain and emotional devastation.
The door to my room flies open, and Carmen bursts in, followed closely by Lena. Their faces are pale with panic.
“Francine!” Lane cries, rushing to my bedside. Her eyes take in the casts, the monitors, the tubes connecting me to various machines. “Oh my god, look at you.”
Carmen looks over at Kieran, and her expression hardens into a glare. “What is he doing here? Franny, do you want him here?”
Even through my tears, I can see the protective fury in my sister’s eyes. It feels nice that she knows everything now. Part of me wants to let her kick him out, to watch him feel even a fraction of the pain I’ve experienced.
But I’m so tired of anger. So tired of people hurting each other.
“It’s okay,” I croak out. “He can stay.”
Carmen looks like she wants to argue, but Lena’s gentle hand on her arm stops her. Lena moves to my other side, carefully taking my hand where it extends from the cast.
“We’re here now,” she says softly. “We’ll take care of you.”
The nurse brings in a fresh cup of soup, and Carmen immediately takes over, shooing Drake away from his post by my head. She’s in full mama-bear mode, testing the temperature of the soup before offering me small spoonfuls through the straw. The four alphas leave to give us privacy.
“Not too much at once,” she instructs, as if she’s the medical professional here. “Small sips, Franny.”
I turn to the nurse after taking my first sip. “Excuse me, Nurse, but I took a pregnancy test yesterday, and it tested positive. Did this accident affect the baby in any way?”
“It’s too early to tell. You will not likely see a heartbeat on an ultrasound until six weeks in,” says the nurse with a kind smile. “But if you have any bleeding of sorts, let us know.”
“Okay,” I croak out as she leaves.
“The baby will be okay, Francine,” says Carmen as she gives me another sip. Despite everything, a warmth spreads through my chest that has nothing to do with the soup. My sisters are here. They’re looking out for me.
There’s a small comfort in knowing I’m not facing it completely alone. I close my eyes, surrendering once more to a deep sleep.
Days blur in a haze of pain medication, fitful sleep, and the steady rhythm of machines monitoring my broken body.
The bruises bloom across my skin like dark flowers, purples deepening to blues, then fading to sickly yellows and greens around the edges.
I grow stronger in small increments. I’m able to shift slightly without gasping in pain, then to turn my head more freely after they adjust my neck brace, and finally to whisper full sentences without my ribs screaming in protest. Through it all, the alphas maintain their vigil, a rotation of worried faces and gentle touches that both comforts and confuses me.
But it’s Kieran who never leaves. While Drake, Rowan, and Elias take turns going home to shower, change clothes, or check on Nora, Kieran remains like a sentinel at the foot of my bed.