Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
For a moment, I didn't know where I was. The bed was too soft. Then memory filtered back — Rae's house, the guest room, the first deep sleep I'd had in weeks, but I still woke before dawn.
My mind was already racing, counting down the days we had left to prove that five ferals could recover. That Stone could heal. That everything I'd risked was worth it.
The anxiety sat in my chest like a physical weight. I stared at the ceiling and tried to breathe through it, but the pressure only grew. The bond with Stone pulsed at the edge of my awareness — distant, restless. He wasn't sleeping either.
Neither of us ever seemed to sleep anymore.
I slipped out of bed. Dressed quietly in the dark. The cafeteria wouldn't open for another two hours, but I couldn't stay here. Couldn't lie still while the clock ticked down.
Stone's room. I'd study there. At least then I'd be doing something useful.
The Healing Center was quiet at this hour.
Just the hum of equipment, the soft footsteps of night staff finishing their rounds. I signed in at the front desk — Margaret raised an eyebrow at the hour but didn't comment — and made my way toward the isolation wing.
The observation room door was unlocked, as always.
I pushed it open and stopped.
A bed.
There was a twin bed against the wall, tucked into the corner next to my usual chair. Simple — metal frame, white sheets, a thin pillow. But unmistakably a bed. Someone had put it there. Recently, from the crisp look of the linens.
I stared at it, confused.
Behind the barrier, Stone lifted his head. He'd been lying down — but he was alert now, watching me with those gold eyes that missed nothing.
"I didn't—" I started.
The door opened behind me.
I spun.
Neal stood in the doorway, a tray balanced in his hands. On it: a bowl of oatmeal topped with blueberries, a steaming cup of coffee, a napkin with a spoon.
He looked exhausted. Dark circles under his eyes, his hair uncombed, his white coat wrinkled like he'd slept in it. But his gaze was sharp as it swept over me — assessing, cataloging, seeing everything I'd tried to hide.
"Neal—"
"If you won't take care of yourself," he growled, stepping into the room and setting the tray on the small table by my chair, "then I will."
The words sent heat curling through my stomach. Not just the words — the way he said them. Low and rough and leaving no room for argument.
I looked at the bed. At the tray. At Neal, who had clearly been here before dawn, setting this up. Who had made me breakfast and brought it to the one place he knew I'd be.
Who was taking care of me whether I wanted him to or not.
Something cracked in my chest.
"Neal," I whispered.
"Eat," he said. "Then sleep. The bed is for—"
I threw my arms around him.
He went rigid. I felt the shock ripple through the bond — he hadn't expected this, hadn't prepared for contact.
But I didn't care. I pressed my face into his shoulder and held on, overwhelmed by the simple fact that someone had noticed.
Someone had cared enough to show up before dawn with oatmeal and blueberries and a bed so I wouldn't have to sleep in a chair.
"Thank you," I breathed against his neck.
His arms came up. Slowly, like he was fighting himself. But they wrapped around me, and I felt some of the tension drain out of him.
"You're impossible," he muttered.
"I know."
I pulled back just enough to look at him. His face was inches from mine, his dark eyes unreadable. But the bond between us was anything but — I felt his want, his fear, the desperate longing he'd been suppressing for weeks.
I leaned in to kiss his cheek.
He turned his head.
Our lips met.
The world stopped.
It was nothing like I'd imagined. Not gentle, not tentative. The moment our mouths touched, something broke in him — weeks of denial, weeks of holding himself apart, all of it shattering at once.
He kissed me like he was drowning and I was air.
A sound escaped me — surprise, pleasure, need. Neal swallowed it, his hand fisting in my hair, tilting my head back to deepen the kiss. His tongue swept against mine and I gasped, clutching at his shoulders, my whole body igniting.
The bond roared.
His want crashed into me — raw, desperate, overwhelming. Weeks of watching me touch Cal and James. Weeks of feeling our connection and denying himself. Weeks of professional distance and careful boundaries, all of it crumbling to ash.
He growled against my mouth — actually growled — and then I was moving, my back hitting the wall, his body pressing into mine.
My legs came up, locking my heels behind him.
I felt every inch of him — the lean muscle under his coat, the heat of him, the evidence of exactly how much he wanted this pressing right against my core.
"Neal," I gasped.
He kissed down my jaw. My neck. Found the spot where my pulse hammered and sucked hard enough to make me cry out.
"Do you have any idea," he breathed against my skin, thrusting his length against my heat, "what it's been like? Watching you. Wanting you. Feeling everything through the bond and pretending I didn't—"
He broke off. His whole body shuddered.
Then, abruptly, he stepped back.
I nearly fell. The wall was the only thing keeping me upright, my legs shaking, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
Neal stood three feet away, chest heaving, his expression caught between hunger and horror.
"I'm sorry," he said. His voice was wrecked. "I shouldn't have— that was inappropriate. I'm your—"
"If you say 'doctor,' I swear to god—"
"I need to go."
He was already moving toward the door. Fleeing. Running from what had just happened between us.
"Neal—"
"Eat your breakfast," he said without looking back. "Sleep. I'll check on you later."
The door closed behind him.
I stood there, pressed against the wall, my lips swollen and my body aching and my mind struggling to process what had just happened.
Behind the barrier, Stone made a sound.
I turned.
He was watching me. Not with rage, not with the usual tension. Something else. Something that looked almost like... amusement.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat.
"Don't look at me like that," I told him, pushing off the wall on shaky legs. "You try getting kissed like that and see how composed you are afterward."
Stone's ear twitched.
"Yeah, well." I moved to the chair — my legs still weren't reliable — and sank into it. Reached for the coffee with trembling hands. "At least one of us is entertained."
Another sound from Stone. Definitely amusement.
"You're a terrible audience," I informed him.
I drank my coffee. Ate the oatmeal, which was perfect — not too thick, not too sweet, exactly the way I liked it. Neal had noticed that too, apparently. Noticed everything.
My lips still tingled.
I pressed my fingers to them and tried not to think about the way he'd tasted. The way he'd felt. The way the bond had screamed with finally, finally, finally.
Twenty-seven days.
I had twenty-seven days to save Stone and his pack.
But right now, all I could think about was the way Neal had kissed me like he was starving.
I studied for a while.
Or tried to. The words on the page kept blurring, my attention drifting back to what had happened. To Neal's hands in my hair. His mouth on my neck. The sound he'd made when he finally let himself want me.
Stone had settled back down. Watching, but calmer than usual. Maybe the show had been good for him. Entertainment value.
"Transformation narratives," I read aloud, mostly to fill the silence. "The liminal space between human and animal consciousness has been explored extensively in folklore, with particular attention to the moment of change itself."
Stone's ear flicked.
"Scholars debate whether the transformed individual retains full awareness during the process, or whether consciousness is altered in ways that mirror the physical transformation."
I kept reading. About selkies and werewolves and swan maidens. About the stories people told to make sense of change, of loss, of becoming something other than what they'd been.
At some point, I stopped reading.
Started humming instead.
I didn't notice at first. It was unconscious — a melody I'd known since childhood, something Gregor used to hum. Soft and low, barely audible even in the quiet of the observation room.
But Stone noticed.
He went still.
Not tense-still. Not aggressive-still. A different kind of stillness entirely — like an animal that had heard something unexpected and was trying to understand it.
I kept humming. Let the melody carry, filling the space between us with something that wasn't words, wasn't analysis, wasn't trying to do anything at all.
Slowly, so slowly I almost missed it, Stone lowered his head.
His eyes stayed open for a moment longer. Watching me through the barrier. Then, gradually, they closed.
His breathing evened out.
Deepened.
He was sleeping.
I stopped humming, afraid to break whatever spell had settled over the room. My heart was pounding, but I kept perfectly still, watching through the window as Stone's massive body relaxed into something that looked almost peaceful.
He was sleeping.
In all the days I'd been visiting him — all the hours I'd spent in this chair, talking and reading and simply existing in his presence — he'd never slept. Rested maybe. But never this. Never the deep, vulnerable surrender of true sleep.
He trusted me enough to be unconscious in my presence.
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
I stayed perfectly still. Watched him sleep. Let the moment stretch into something sacred.
Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty.
Then the door opened.
I spun, hand raised to signal silence, but it was too late.
A staff member — one of the medical techs, here to check the monitors — stepped into the room.
Stone's eyes snapped open.
The transformation was instantaneous. One second he was peaceful, sleeping; the next he was on his feet, hackles raised, a snarl tearing from his throat. He lunged at the barrier, the impact shaking the wall, all that hard-won calm evaporating like it had never existed.
"Get out," I said sharply.
The tech stared at me, then at Stone, his face pale. "I just need to—"
"Get out now."
He fled.
But the damage was done.
Stone was raging again — throwing himself at the barrier, claws scraping, teeth snapping at nothing. The snarls echoed off the walls, drowning out everything else.
I pressed my palm against the window.
"Stone. Stone, it's okay. They're gone. It's just me."
He didn't hear me. Or couldn't. Lost in the spiral, the peaceful moment shattered beyond repair.
I stayed for two hours, talking and humming and doing everything I could think of. But he didn't calm down. Not fully. By the time I finally left, he was still pacing, still agitated, still caught in the echo of a threat that was long gone.
I walked back to the main building in a daze.
My body was exhausted — I'd barely slept, and the adrenaline crash was hitting hard. But my mind wouldn't stop racing.
He'd slept.
Stone had actually slept while I was there. Something about my presence — my voice, my humming, the bond between us — had made him feel safe enough to let his guard down.
And then one interruption had destroyed it.
I thought about what Rae had said in the Council meeting. That I was the only one Stone responded to. That the bond between us might be the only thing keeping him from complete psychological collapse.
I'd thought she was exaggerating. Being political. Saying what needed to be said to buy us time.
Now I wasn't so sure.
My presence affected him. More than anyone had realized. More than I had realized.
The question was: what did I do with that?
Was it power? The ability to reach someone no one else could?
Or was it responsibility? The weight of knowing that his peace depended on me — on my presence, my consistency, my willingness to show up again and again?
Maybe both.
Maybe there was no difference.
I stopped in the middle of the corridor. Pressed my hand against the wall and let myself breathe.
The bond pulsed in my chest. Stone's end, still agitated. Cal's, grieving and hopeful. James's, warm with sleeping contentment. And Neal's—
Neal's was chaos. Want and fear and the memory of my mouth under his, all of it tangled together in a knot I couldn't untangle from here.
Four bonds. Four mates. Four people who needed different things from me.
And one deadline that was counting down whether I was ready or not.
I pushed off the wall.
Kept walking.
Tomorrow, I'd figure out how to protect Stone from interruptions. How to give him the consistency he needed to heal. How to navigate whatever had just happened with Neal without losing the fragile progress we'd made.