Ivy
Hospitals stress me the fuck out.
Always have, always will.
Nowhere near as much as Wraith is stressed, though. His eyes are a brighter, icier blue than usual, pupils pinpricked, the way they always look when everything inside him is screaming to bolt and the only thing keeping him here is sheer, stubborn willpower.
And he's in pain with the face gaiter on. I can tell.
"You okay?" I whisper to him in the lobby.
He nods.
"You sure?"
Doesn't matter, he signs with a shrug. It's important.
My sweet, selfless mate.
Ahead of us, Whiskey rounds the corner of the lobby in what I can only describe as an unnecessarily thorough commitment to the bit.
He's wearing a full-body superhero suit, for starters. Gray and black, fitted, armored panels molded to his massive frame and a utility belt slung low on his hips. He even has a cowl.
He looks like a grizzly bear in cosplay.
"Whiskey." Thane stops walking. "What the fuck are you wearing?"
"Shh." Whiskey holds a finger to his lips. He glances left, then right, theatrically scanning the hospital corridor. "There's no Whiskey here, bro."
"We're not doing this."
"Whiskey who? I don't know that name." He adjusts a gauntlet on his forearm. "The name's Silver Ghost."
Plague pinches the bridge of his nose.
The pediatric ward is on the fourth floor. We take the elevator because Wraith doesn't fit in stairwells without ducking, and I keep my hand in his the whole ride up. His grip hasn't loosened. He's pale and clammy.
Every second that mask is on is killing him.
"We can leave whenever you want," I tell him quietly as the elevator dings.
He shakes his head. I'm okay. Promise.
Stubborn fucking alpha.
The pediatric ward is painted in bright colors with murals of animals and rocket ships splashed across the walls. A nurses' station sits in the center, flanked by two corridors of rooms. Through open doors, I catch glimpses of small beds and IV poles and stuffed animals.
A woman in scrubs with a lanyard decorated with various faded bumblebee stickers meets us at the station. She shakes Thane's hand, then Plague's, then Whiskey's gauntleted fist.
"Silver Ghost," Whiskey says solemnly.
The specialist blinks. "I… okay. The kids are mostly in the common room. A few are bedridden, so we'll do room visits after we go to the cafeteria to meet the more ambulatory patients."
We follow her into a warm, bright common room scattered with beanbags and a TV playing cartoons. Nobody's watching anymore. Every kid in the room has turned toward the door.
There are maybe fifteen of them. Some in wheelchairs, some trailing IV poles like helium balloons. One little boy is wrapped almost entirely in gauze, only his dark eyes visible.
"SILVER GHOST!" a girl in a wheelchair screams, pointing at Whiskey.
Whiskey drops into a frightened crouch, gripping his head. "Oh fu—frogs! You recognized me in my new suit? Was it that obvious?"
She giggles so hard her wheelchair shakes.
Then the kids spot Wraith, who's somehow composed himself in the past five seconds. He looks completely calm now, and I realize immediately he's putting on a front so they don't know he's panicking inside.
"Wraith is back!"
"Wow! He's so tall!"
The name ripples through the room and Wraith freezes.
"Dude," a boy in an oversized Ghosts jersey breathes. "You BIT that guy."
Wraith blinks.
"That was SO COOL," the boy continues, his voice climbing with reverence. "My mom said it was scary but I said it was awesome. You were like—" He mimes gnashing his teeth at the air like a shark, complete with growling sound effects. "—RRRAAAGH!"
"He protected his omega!" another kid chimes in. "That's what alphas DO."
"She's so pretty!"
"I drew you," the first boy says to Wraith, running up with his sketchbook.
It's Wraith. Recognizably, unmistakably Wraith, rendered in green and blue crayon. His teeth are the size of daggers, his eyes are blazing red and angry, and he's standing on top of what appears to be a very flat Wade with more red spraying everywhere.
Wraith lets go of my hand.
He crosses the room in two massive strides and kneels in front of the beanbag, his huge frame folding down until he's almost at the boy's eye level. He reaches for the sketchbook and the boy hands it over. Wraith studies the drawing with the kind of intense focus he usually reserves for the ice.
Then his eyes crinkle above the gaiter.
He gives the kid a thumbs-up.
The boy beams.
"Can you sign my jersey?" a girl asks, already shoving a marker at Wraith.
Then another kid. Then three more.
Wraith signs jerseys and casts and sketchbooks, his huge scarred hand dwarfing each marker. A little girl asks if she can touch his hand and he lets her, holding perfectly still while she pokes at the burn scar wrapping around his index finger.
"Does it hurt?" she asks.
He shakes his head.
Not anymore, he signs, then seems to remember she might not understand and gives an exaggerated head shake instead.
"Cool," she says, and goes back to coloring.
Whiskey is covered in kids. They're climbing him like a jungle gym while he pretends to be defeated, sprawled backward onto a pile of beanbags with dramatic groaning.
"Silver Ghost is DOWN!" he bellows. "I need backup! The tiny humans… they're overpowering me! Plague! Help!"
Plague is across the room with two quiet kids who haven't joined the chaos. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, something I've never seen him do voluntarily, while a girl in a knitted cap shows him her chess set. He's examining the pieces with genuine interest.
Valek has drifted to the edge of the room, as he does, but a boy in a motorized wheelchair has rolled up beside him and is asking about his hair.
"Is it real?" the boy asks.
"Unfortunately."
"It's SO white. Like a wolf."
"Thank you."
"Are you a werewolf?"
Valek considers this for a second before grinning at him. And I have to admit, Valek's grin is wolfish.
"Yes."
"SICK."
The boy peels off in his wheelchair to tell his friends, and I catch the faintest crack in Valek's composure. A softening around his silver eyes that vanishes the second he feels me watching.
But I saw it.
I lean against the doorframe and watch my pack scatter through this room full of small, brave, breakable humans, and something warm and enormous fills my chest until I can barely breathe around it.
Wraith is kneeling beside the boy in gauze now. The boy is barely visible beneath the bandages, but his dark eyes are locked on Wraith.
The boy's bandages cover everything below his eyes. His hands are wrapped, too, thick gauze mitts resting on the armrests of his wheelchair. The exposed skin around his eyes is pink and shiny and tight in a way that makes my stomach drop, because I know what that texture means.
Burns.
Wraith settles lower on his knees, bringing his masked face level with the boy's. The fluorescent lights catch the iridescent webbing of scars that crawl down his throat and disappear beneath his collar.
The boy stares at them.
Then his dark eyes lift to the gaiter.
"Can I see?" he asks.
The room doesn't go silent—Whiskey's still being loudly mauled by his fan club—but it feels like it does. Like the air around this corner has thickened.
Wraith's hand drifts to the edge of the gaiter.
He stops.
His blue eyes find mine across the room.
I don't nod. I don't shake my head or do anything except look at him the way I always look at him, because this isn't my choice to make.
He checks to make sure no one else is looking.
He pulls it down hesitantly, baring his face, keeping his head down and body language loose and relaxed to be as nonthreatening as possible. The hunch of his shoulders and lowered head say everything.
Please don't scream.
The burned boy looks at him for a long time.
Wraith holds still, barely breathing. His scarred hands are pressed flat against his own thighs, knuckles white, every line of his massive body braced for the worst.
"Whoa," the boy whispers.
Wraith swallows. The motion ripples down the scars on his throat.
The boy leans forward in his wheelchair, bandaged hands gripping the armrests. His dark eyes widen at the sight of Wraith's sharp teeth and exposed muscle. Then his eyes slide to me.
"And you still have a girlfriend?" he asks, voice pitching up hopefully.
Wraith stares at him in shock. A laugh huffs out of him.
He nods and reaches over to ruffle the boy's hair with his giant hand.
The boy grins beneath his bandages. I can tell because his eyes squish and his cheeks push up under the gauze.
"Sweet," he says.
My vision blurs.
I blink hard and look away before anyone notices, swiping the back of my hand across my eyes. The warm fuzzy feeling is flooding everything, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep it together because I am not going to ugly-cry in a pediatric ward.
Wraith stays with the burned boy for another few minutes.
They don't talk much. Wraith can't, and the boy doesn't seem to need it.
Wraith shows him the scars on his hands, turning them over in the light, and the boy holds up his own bandaged mitts and they bump fists, gauze against iridescent burn tissue.
When Wraith finally stands, the boy calls after him.
"Hey, Wraith?"
Wraith turns.
"You're my favorite feral alpha."
Wraith's hand drifts to his face, hovering over the exposed teeth. He pulls the gaiter back up, slowly, and manages to not visibly wince when the fabric settles against his jaw.
He gives the boy a thumbs-up.
Then he walks back to me, and I thread my fingers through his and squeeze so hard my knuckles ache, leaning up to kiss the side of his jaw.
"He needed that," I whisper. "And so did you."
He gives me a doubtful look.
For a few seconds I just stand there, hanging back.
Watching Plague lose another chess game on purpose.
Whiskey trying to sit up while covered in kids determined to keep him down, begging Valek for help.
The silver-haired alpha ignores him even though he's within arm's reach, lounging with his back against a wall and long legs outstretched, thoughtfully reading a poem a kid wrote.
I let myself enjoy every moment of it.
The three fresh marks on my neck are warmer than ever.
The staff member rounds us up a few minutes later, herding the pack toward the elevator for the cafeteria portion of the visit.
Whiskey still has two kids attached to his legs and is walking with exaggerated Frankenstein steps so they can ride his shins.
"Silver Ghost does NOT negotiate with gravity!" he announces as he stomps past the nurses' station.
"Sir, you're going to trip," a nurse says.
"Silver Ghost doesn't trip. He performs assessments from the ground."
Plague walks beside me, adjusting his gloves with short tugs. "He's been workshopping that line all morning," he mutters.
"It shows."
Thane's in front, talking to the specialist about scheduling the next visit.
He's got his captain voice on, but his hand keeps drifting to the back of his neck, rubbing.
He's not as tired and stressed as he was before he marked me, but the dark circles under his eyes strongly suggest he could use a whole gallon of coffee.
Valek brings up the rear. The boy in the motorized wheelchair is rolling alongside him, asking him how many wolves there are in Russia, and Valek is chatting with the kind of patient attention I wouldn't have thought him capable of.
We pile into the elevator. Whiskey's tiny passengers have been peeled off his legs by a laughing nurse.
"I'm comin' back to finish this!" he calls through the gap.
"You better!" one shrieks.
The doors close.
The elevator stops on the second floor and the doors open to let a nurse through. She's carrying a chart, and I catch the edge of a name printed on the tab before she tucks it against her chest.
WADE KELLY
My entire body goes cold and I lean against Wraith's side.
I know it shouldn't matter.
Wade is broken. Wraith nearly tore his throat out and Valek all but finished the job. He is physically incapable of standing up, let alone coming after me.
I know this.
My body doesn't.
And alphas heal fast.
The elevator is still moving. Wraith's arm loops around my shoulders and squeezes me tighter against him, and I realize I've been holding my breath. I force air in through my nose. Out through my mouth.
"The cafeteria's got a section roped off for you," the specialist says, pressing the button. "The more ambulatory fans will meet us there."
The elevator opens on the first floor and we file out into the corridor. The cafeteria is to the left, marked by a set of double doors with round windows and the faint clatter of trays and silverware behind them.
Thane holds the door and Whiskey ducks through with an unnecessary flourish of his cape. Plague follows, adjusting his surgical mask and rolling his eyes fondly, shaking his head.
I start to follow them, but I realize something's off.
My shadow is missing.
The hallway behind me is empty, except for Valek. He's halfway between the elevator and the cafeteria, staring off at the far end of the corridor.
"Wait," I say, looking past him. "Where's Wraith?"