Chapter 16 - Skylar
Blood soaks through the gauze faster than I can replace it.
“Hold pressure here,” I tell Fern as I guide her hands to the wound on Dalton’s shoulder. “Don’t let up, no matter how much he growls.”
Dalton, a patrol wolf barely out of his teens, bares his teeth but doesn’t snap.
Smart kid. He knows we’re trying to help him, even if every touch makes his wolf want to fight back.
The bite marks on his shoulder are deep, the kind that come from another wolf who meant to kill.
He’s lucky his patrol partner dragged him out when she did.
“You’re going to be fine,” I tell him, even though I’m not entirely sure that’s true. “The bleeding is slowing. That’s a good sign.”
He nods, but his face is pale and sweaty. I catch Fern’s eye and tilt my head toward the supply cabinet. She understands right away—we need more bandages and more antiseptics. More of everything, really. The medical center has become a war zone of its own, and our supplies are dwindling fast.
Every bed is full. Every corner holds someone bleeding, groaning, or unconscious. The Cheslem wolves hit the eastern boundary hard, and our patrol teams took the worst of it before driving them back. I’ve counted at least fifteen injured so far, and more keep coming through the doors.
I haven’t stopped moving since Bryan left.
The alarm tore him from my bed two hours ago, and I’ve been stitching wounds ever since. My hands know this work. My body moves through the motions without conscious thought—clean, assess, treat, repeat. It’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
Sera appears at my side, looking frantic. “We’ve got another one coming in. Looks like a bite wound to the thigh. Deep. He’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Put him in bay four. Start an IV line if you can find a vein. He’s probably dehydrated from blood loss. I’ll be there in two minutes.”
She nods and disappears into the crowded room.
Sera understands triage better than most. Her time with the corrupted Cheslem pack taught her things no healer should have to learn.
She saw wolves die from injuries that could have been treated if anyone had cared enough to try.
She watched pack members suffer because Matthias hoarded medical supplies for his inner circle.
Those memories haunt her still, but she’s channeled them into something useful.
Now she’s one of the best field medics we have, and I’m grateful every day that she chose to stay in Silvercreek after the purification.
I finish wrapping Dalton’s shoulder and squeeze his uninjured arm. “Rest. Don’t try to move until I come back to check on you.”
“Thank you,” he manages, though his voice is rough with pain.
I don’t have time to respond. The wolf in bay four needs me, and there are three more patients waiting after him.
Connor stands guard at the front entrance with his massive frame blocking most of the doorway.
He hasn’t moved from that spot since the first injured wolf came through, and I doubt he will until Fern is safely home.
He watches every person who enters, checking for threats even though the danger is supposed to be outside our walls.
Through the window, I catch sight of Dylan coordinating the patrol rotations and barking orders at the younger wolves.
Both of them have mates to protect. Both of them are doing exactly what they should be doing.
And Bryan is out there somewhere, fighting wolves who want him dead because of choices he made long before he came back to me.
I push the thought away and concentrate on the laceration in front of me.
The wolf in bay four—a man named Peter who runs the hardware store on Main—has a gash in his thigh that’s going to need at least twenty stitches, but it doesn’t look like his artery has been touched.
Sera already has the IV running, and the fluids are dripping steadily into his arm to replace what he’s lost.
“Bite?” I ask, examining the wound.
“Claw,” Peter grits out. “Bastard got me when I wasn’t looking. Thought I had him pinned, but he twisted and—” He gestures vaguely at his leg.
“Hold still. This is going to hurt.”
I clean the wound with antiseptic, ignoring his muffled curse. The flesh is torn but not shredded, which means it should heal cleanly if I can get it closed properly. I thread the needle and begin working, keeping my stitches small and even despite the tremor of exhaustion in my hands.
“Is it true?” Peter asks through clenched teeth. “The Cheslem wolves… They’re really back? I thought we finished them off years ago.”
“Some of them survived and regrouped under new leadership.” I tie off a stitch and start the next one. “Our patrol teams are handling it.”
When I finish, I bandage Peter’s leg and send him to the recovery area with instructions to stay off his feet for at least two days. He’ll ignore that advice—wolves always do—but I have to say it anyway.
The next patient is a woman named Jenna who works in the pack’s administrative office. She has a four-inch laceration on her forearm, deep enough to need stitches but not deep enough to hit anything vital. I clean it with antiseptic while she winces but stays still.
“You’re doing great,” I tell her. “Just a few more minutes.”
“I shouldn’t even be here,” Jenna complains. “I’m not a fighter. I was just trying to help evacuate the children from the school when one of them came out of nowhere.”
“One of the Cheslem wolves?”
She nods. “He wasn’t even trying to hurt me, I don’t think. Just trying to get past me to the school. But his claws caught my arm when I blocked the doorway.”
“You protected the children.” I thread the needle and begin closing the wound. “Those kids are safe because you didn’t run. That matters, Jenna.”
She falls quiet after that, letting me work. I appreciate the silence. It gives me space to think, which is both a blessing and a curse.
Bryan’s face keeps appearing in my mind. The way he looked at me before the alarm went off, like he was terrified of losing me. He told me he loved me, and I couldn’t say it back.
I wanted to. God, I wanted to.
But wanting something doesn’t make it real.
The mate bond pulls us together whether we choose it or not.
Every time he touches me, every time he says my name, I feel that pull like a hook beneath my ribs.
How am I supposed to know if what I feel is actually mine?
How can I trust emotions that might just be magic doing what magic does?
I finish Jenna’s stitches and send her to the recovery area. Another patient takes her place—a man with a broken wrist and a gash across his forehead.
“Fell off a roof,” he explains sheepishly. “Trying to get a better view of the fight.”
“That was stupid.”
“Yeah. I know.”
I set his wrist with maybe a little less gentleness than necessary. He doesn’t complain, which tells me he knows he deserved it.
The hours drag on. Wound after wound, patient after patient. Fern works beside me without flagging. Her human endurance surprises even the wolves who doubted her when she first arrived in Silvercreek. She’s come a long way since then.
“You should sit,” I tell her during a brief lull. “Rest your feet. The baby needs you to take care of yourself.”
She wipes her hands on a towel and reaches for fresh gloves. “There are still patients who need help.”
“And there are two other healers who can help them. You’ve been on your feet for four hours straight.”
“So have you.”
“I’m not carrying a child.”
Fern gives me a look that says she knows exactly what I’m doing. “We’re both going to keep working until this is over, so stop mothering me and hand me that suture kit.”
I hand her the suture kit.
We work in tandem for another hour. Sera floats between us, handling the minor injuries while Fern and I tackle the serious cases.
By the time the flow of patients begins to slow, my back aches and my eyes burn from too many hours under the harsh overhead lights.
The worst cases have been stabilized. The minor injuries have been treated and sent home.
The medical center still holds a dozen wolves who need monitoring, but the initial crisis has passed.
I slump against the counter and let myself breathe for the first time in what feels like days. My scrubs are stained with blood, some of it dried brown, some of it still tacky and dark. I should change, but that would require energy I don’t have.
Fern appears beside me, peeling off her gloves. “Connor says the Cheslem wolves retreated about an hour ago. Dylan’s team is doing a final sweep of the perimeter, but it looks like we’re clear for now.”
“Any word on casualties?”
“A few serious injuries, but everyone’s expected to recover. No deaths on our side.” She pauses, and I feel her watching me. “Bryan’s fine. Connor checked. He took down three of them himself before they called the retreat.”
I close my eyes. “I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t have to. You’ve been staring at the door every time it opens, hoping it’s him.”
She’s right, and I hate that she’s right. I’ve spent the last four hours telling myself I’m focused on my work, but some part of me has been listening for his voice, watching for his face, waiting for proof that he survived.
“He’s alive,” Fern tells me. “That’s what matters right now.”
“He’s been alive for ten years, Fern. Being alive doesn’t mean anything if he’s just going to leave again.”
She doesn’t have an answer for that. Neither do I.
I check on the remaining patients one more time. Everyone is stable. Everyone is resting. Sera has the night watch under control, and Fern needs to get off her feet whether she admits it or not.
“I’m going to take a break,” I announce. “Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty.”
“Take thirty,” Sera replies. “You’ve earned it. We can handle things here.”
I want to argue. There’s always work to do, always another patient who needs something. But my body is screaming for rest, and my mind is a tangled mess of worry and exhaustion and feelings I don’t know how to name.
Connor is still standing guard out front, so I head toward the back of the building, where a small door opens onto a courtyard bordered by tall hedges.
During the day, it’s a peaceful spot where staff members take their lunch breaks.
Benches line the walkways, and someone planted roses along the eastern wall that bloom every summer.
At this hour, it’s quiet and dark and empty.
Exactly what I need.
I step outside and let the door close behind me, and I wrap my arms around myself as I walk to the center of the courtyard. Above me, stars scatter across the sky, and I tip my head back to search for the constellations my mother taught me when I was young.
My mind wanders to just hours ago, when Bryan held me in his arms. I needed to feel something that was mine, something I chose, even if I couldn’t separate it from the magic pulling us together.
When he touched me, when he looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered, I wanted it to be real.
I wanted to believe that what existed between us was more than ancient magic forcing two people together.
I still don’t know if it is.
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t say the words back.
Loving someone means trusting them with the softest parts of yourself, the parts that bleed easiest. Bryan already broke me once.
He walked away without explanation and left me standing alone in the dark, wondering what I’d done wrong.
I’ve spent ten years rebuilding myself from that moment, brick by careful brick.
Saying “I love you” means handing him the power to break me again.
I’m not ready. I might never be ready. And I hate myself for that almost as much as I hate him for making me this way.
A footstep sounds behind me, interrupting my thoughts.
I start to turn, but a hand clamps over my mouth before I can make a sound. Something covers my nose… A cloth, I realize, and it’s damp with something chemical, something sweet. My lungs fill with it before I even think to hold my breath.
No. No, no, no.
I claw at the arm holding me, but my limbs have turned heavy and slow. The world tilts sideways. My knees buckle, and the only reason I don’t hit the ground is because someone has a hold of me.
I need to fight. I need to call for help. Connor is just on the other side of the building. Sera and Fern are right through that door.
But my mouth won’t work. My legs won’t work. Nothing works.
The last thing I think before the darkness swallows me whole is his name.
Bryan.