Chapter 13
Heart Aches
Ipaced the floor of the waiting room, my hands flexing and then curling into fists over and over.
Thank Ravaric for my Hellfire, because we’d made it to the hospital in Elmaris in less than fifteen minutes.
Normally, I’d relish the opportunity to open her up and see what she could do, but appreciating the feeling of the engine coming to life and roaring down the highway hadn’t even crossed my mind as Sage had clutched her chest beside me in the passenger seat, gasping for breath.
She was the only thing that mattered.
I knew she’d had heart problems, but I hadn’t gotten the chance to figure out what they were yet exactly. And when Sage told the triage nurse I was just a friend—ouch—they wouldn’t let me in the ICU with her.
I didn’t even know what they were doing or what was going on.
I gripped my horns in frustration, pulling them and gritting my teeth. I could fight off a whole gang of alpha werewolf bikers, but what could I do about her heart?
I was worse than useless right now.
What would I do if she didn’t make it?
I didn’t even care about the deal or my soul. Just the thought of her no longer being in this world was making me crazy.
“Are you the friend who came in with Sage Hexwood?”
I looked up to see a doctor who had just entered the waiting room, pen and clipboard in hand.
I rushed over, my arms crossed against my chest. “What is it? Is she okay? Can I see her?”
“Whoa, one question at a time, there,” the old alpha elf chuckled.
I was going to kill him.
“First of all, I’m Dorian Fenwick. I’m a cardiologist here.”
Okay, this guy. I knew this guy. Well, knew of this guy. He was the doctor who’d worked with her before.
“She’s lucky you two were close by and could get here so quickly.”
I couldn’t even blink. I just stared at him, willing him with every ounce of my being to get to the point.
“We’ve been monitoring her closely for the past few hours, and it looks like a case of stress-induced cardiomyopathy. We also call it ‘broken heart syndrome.’ I understand there was some kind of altercation before she experienced her symptoms?”
I nodded, wondering if she’d told him about all the other stress she’d been experiencing recently. Between her years of abuse with the Premier, her escape, and my capture of her, the werewolf fight was probably pretty tame by comparison. Maybe it had just been the tipping point.
“Even for average patients, this would be pretty serious, but given her transplant history, we’ll need to keep her under observation here for longer. We’ll run some blood tests to check markers, and get her on a round of beta-blockers—”
“But she’s an omega?”
He smiled, giving me a look like I was an idiot. “Not that kind of beta. As I was saying, she’ll probably need to go back on anti-rejection drugs just to be safe, and…”
My mind was fried, and I was taking things in in bits and pieces. So it took a couple moments to register the word “transplant.”
“Wait, back up, doc. Transplant history?”
He stopped, confused by my question. “Yes, her heart transplant. You didn’t know?”
A heart transplant.
I wasn’t sure what difference that made now, but my ache for her was endless. Knowing how close she’d been to death, and then to survive just to live through this.
“So yes, I’d like to keep her here for at least four days…”
At that, my mind instantly focused, and my mission became clear once again.
“I’m sorry, that’s not possible.”
The easy-going smile on his face began to fade. “Excuse me?”
“I said that’s not possible. She’s required to be in Noctis in…” I checked the clock on the wall. “A little over twenty-four hours. Do what you can to stabilize her, but we need to leave here by the morning.”
He opened his mouth in disbelief. “I don’t know who you think you are, but it doesn’t matter, because you don’t get a say in her treatment.”
A darkness fell over me, and the persona I wielded when I was usually on the job, the one that made me a success, began to come to the surface.
I wasn’t her friend. I certainly wasn’t her alpha.
I was a bounty hunter, and she was my bounty.
“I’m afraid I do,” pulling out my license.
He grabbed the card out of my hands, scanning the information quickly and then shoving it back towards me. “This is ridiculous. She’s my patient, and I won’t stand for this. Her health—”
“I appreciate your concern, doctor. But the contract I have for her was signed by Premier Victor Corvane himself. If you stop me from taking her, you’re going to have to deal with him next.”
“The Premier of Noctis?” he gasped. “What would he want with Sage?”
I shrugged, trying to keep my cool, to keep the apathetic, “tough guy” mask on my face.
But I was hating every second of it. “It’s not my business to know, it’s just my business to find and deliver her alive by tomorrow evening.
I’ll let the Premier know about her condition, so she can continue her treatment there. ”
Maybe. The Premier had said he wanted her alive, unharmed and untouched, but that didn’t mean he wanted her to stay that way.
The doctor growled, baring his teeth as he stepped closer to me. I was a little surprised. Elves, even alpha elves, were rarely this aggressive. “I made an oath to heal without harm. This goes against every tenet of Orithiel…”
I sighed, letting a tendril of red smoke bloom from the palm of my hand. It snaked around my fingers, and I gave the doctor a warning look. “I will do this, one way or another. Sage broke the law and has to face the consequences.”
The lies burned like acid on my tongue, but I needed to get this done.
“Write up everything you can, from care and discharge instructions to prescriptions for meds, and do it quickly. I’m leaving with her at first light.”
* * *
I sat in the corner of her room, elbows on my knees and my chin resting on my hands, watching her sleep.
Each breath put my mind at ease, but every once in a while, she would wince and whimper, her subconscious clearly troubled.
And it was my fault.
By now her whole team knew who I was, and what I was going to do. They shot me daggers whenever they entered the room, ignoring me and speaking like I wasn’t there.
I wasn’t going to take it personally.
I’d gotten a panicked text from Garrick earlier that I’d been ignoring, but I figured I should probably reply before he had his own stress-induced cardio-whatever.
Garrick: The clock is running out, Ronan. Do you have an update? I’ve never had to beg for an extension on one of your deals before, but I’m sweating bullets here and ready to pull the trigger.
I sighed, rubbing my face with my hand in frustration. The Premier had originally offered me ten days to get this done, and while an extra two days would allow Sage to recover, I figured we both just needed to get this over with. What was the point in prolonging the inevitable?
Me: I’ve got her. We’re in Elmaris for the night. Will head to Noctis in the morning.
He replied back almost immediately.
Garrick: Oh, thank Vorrak. I was really worried there for a minute. Why wait in Elmaris? You missed the bonus. Just deliver her now.
Me: It’s complicated. Safer to leave in the morning.
Garrick: Well, I trust your judgment. I guess I’ll see you in Noctis.
I resumed my vigil.
The deadline was looming, and I could feel the strain on my soul. It was a tightness in my chest, a warning that I needed to get moving.
Yet there was another source of pain that somehow eclipsed it all.
I noticed Sage’s clothes from my periphery, splattered in blood from the werewolf bikers. She hadn’t been hurt—well, aside from the stress—but the fight had been messy.
Normally, I wouldn’t care how my bounties showed up. Nine times out of ten, they were covered in their own blood or piss anyway.
But I didn’t want Sage to have to deal with that.
She deserved better. She deserved dignity.
I took out my phone and checked the time. It was three in the morning, but I called the fucker anyway.
“Ronaaan…”
“Don’t ‘Ronan’ me, asshole. You knew who’d made that app the whole time.”
He broke down in a fit of high-pitched giggling. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Can you blame me for wanting to make some easy runics? But tell you what, as a gesture of good faith, I’ll do the next one for free.”
“I don’t care about the money!” I snarled.
I saw Sage flinch from the corner of my eye and took a deep breath, calming myself down so I could speak softly.
“If you had just told me you had the information, but it was worth six thousand runics, I would have paid you immediately, because you cost me something much more valuable—time.”
Time I could have spent with Sage before the end.
“Aw, shit, I didn’t think about it like that. I’m really sorry, dude.”
“Well, you can make it up to me now. I’m in Elmaris, at Orithiel Blessed Hospital.”
“Really? Everything okay?”
Sage shifted again, and I lowered my voice further to make sure I didn’t wake her. “It’s fine, I just need clothes for my bounty and some toiletries—toothbrush, toothpaste, whatever. Can you bring some over here in the next hour or two?”
“Clothes? What kind of clothes?”
“I don’t know, clean clothes. For women.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do…”
I hung up, then walked over to Sage’s side, smoothing down her hair. It was a worthless endeavor—her curls were wild. But they were soft and silky in my fingers, and I couldn’t stop touching them.
Her eyes slowly blinked open. “Is it time to go?” she croaked.
I shook my head. “Not yet. Go back to sleep.”
* * *
Arlen actually showed up, much to my surprise. I hadn’t seen the omega elf in years, but despite what I assumed was pretty regular drug use, he looked good. His long, pale blonde hair was up in a messy bun, tattoos covering his arms and creeping up his neck through the collar of his shirt.
He chewed on his pierced lip nervously as he eyed Sage, pulling at another piercing on the tip of his pointed ear. “I never met her in person, you know. She just contacted me with the code for her app and asked me if I could help her polish it up. All that other stuff I said was kraken shit.”
I wanted to punch him in his pretty face so badly.
I grabbed the plastic bag out of his hands, taking out the toothbrush and paste and then began digging through the random assortment of clothing balled inside. “What is all this?” I asked.
A faded band t-shirt, some jeans that would have been big on me, gym shorts, a pink sparkly tank top with a rainbow emblazoned on the front, and a pleated, plaid mini skirt.
He shrugged. “It’s four in the morning; I couldn’t exactly go shopping. And like I said, I never met her. I didn’t know her size, and this was the best I could do with what I had.” He continued to stare at her. “She’s cute. What did she do?”
“Get out,” I growled.
He held his hands up in submission and slowly backed out of the room. “Got it, alpha, damn. Well, um, call if you need anything else, then. Sorry again for wasting your time earlier.”
Arlen left, the door quietly clicking shut behind him, and I took another deep breath.
I had to separate my feelings for Sage from the need to see this through. Because even if it felt like every cell in my body was screaming at me to help her run away, I just couldn’t. I selfishly didn’t want to die.
And that made me feel like the biggest piece of shit in Lundaria.
After another hour, a nurse came in with her medicine and care instructions, then disconnected Sage from the machines. She told me I should go fuck myself as she left, and I couldn’t even be mad.
“Where are my clothes?” she asked, one hand gripping the hospital gown closed behind her.
I gave her the bag from Arlen. “Here. I know it’s not much of a choice, but I wanted you to have one.”
Her cheeks blushed. “Oh, thanks. I think. Um, do you mind stepping out then?”
I nodded and went outside, leaning against the door as I listened to the rustle of plastic and fabric. Then the sound of running water told me she’d found the toothbrush, and a couple of minutes later she came out of the room.
She’d chosen the band t-shirt and the mini skirt.
Even her legs had bite marks on them, and my gaze narrowed in anger.
She saw me staring and started to fidget. “I know it’s not pretty, but the other bottoms didn’t fit.”
My eyes snapped up to her face. Did she think I found her hard to look at?
I did, but not for the reasons she was thinking.
I reacted on instinct, pulling her into my chest and wrapping my arms around her tightly.
She fit perfectly right under my chin, and I rested it on top of her head.
“You are exquisite. The only thing I wish I could change is how we met. Why couldn’t Ravaric have nudged me in your direction five years ago, hm?
Or maybe Hecara’s to blame,” I chuckled.
She breathed me in, relaxing her body against mine, and I felt her heartbeat begin to steady. The heart that first belonged to someone else.
Then she pulled back slightly, lifting up on her tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek. “I blame Sanguiel.”
I burst out laughing, hugging her again. “Yeah, it’s all his fault. Fucking vampires.”
“Fucking vampires,” she repeated on a sigh.