Chapter 5 Damage Control #3
The east infirmary sat in the old guest house, far from the human side, built for wounds that could not be explained by room service accidents. Stone steps led to a private entrance. The air inside was cool, clean, and sharp with antiseptic strong enough to cut through the scent of blood.
Dr. Sava was already there when we arrived. She was small, gray-haired, and meaner than most soldiers. She had stitched me back together after silver, claws, knives, and one memorable winter when a bear trap took half my calf and I finished the hunt anyway. She didn’t frighten easily.
Then she saw Cassie and her expression froze. That was the closest Sava came to fear.
“Put her on the table,” she said.
I didn’t move.
Sava’s eyes lifted to mine. “Ian.”
“No restraints.”
“I have not asked for restraints.”
“No one cuts the mark.”
Her mouth tightened. “If the venom spreads to her heart, there may be no choice.”
My wolf came up so fast my vision flickered.
Ronan stepped in. “Sava.”
The doctor held my stare. Brave, foolish woman. “I cannot treat a patient if her mate kills me for touching the wound.”
Mate.
The word hit the room harder than any order. I wanted to reject it. I wanted to tear it out of the air before it reached Cassie, even unconscious. The bite had already stolen enough from her. I would not let a word finish the cage.
But my wolf heard it and settled around it with terrible satisfaction.
Mate.
Cassie shuddered in my arms and the mark pulsed.
I lowered Cassie onto the table before my body decided to run with her and damn the consequences.
The moment my arms left her, her back bowed.
A raw cry tore from her throat as black veins spread another inch toward her chest. I put my hand on her uninjured shoulder and she collapsed back to the table, breathing hard.
The room went silent.
Sava swallowed once. “Your touch calms it.”
Ronan’s eyes met mine, then I looked down at Cassie. Her skin burned under my palm. Her face was twisted with pain. Blood had dried along her neck in a dark trail, and her torn blush dress had been cut wider by the bite and the fall and my hands carrying her from the grass.
She had come here for a wedding and I had turned her into evidence.
Sava began cutting away the fabric around the wound. I let her because my hand stayed on Cassie and because Ronan stood close enough to kill me if I lost control.
Maybe.
The dog sat under the table, leash still looped around my wrist, shaking but quiet now. No one commented on that.
Smart room.
Sava cleaned the bite as much as she could. Cassie moaned when the cloth touched torn flesh, and my free hand closed around the edge of the metal table. It bent under my grip.
Sava glanced at it. “Try not to break my equipment.”
“Try not to hurt her.”
“I am treating a werewolf mate mark in a human body. Pain is the kindest thing in this room.”
I hated her for being right.
Ronan stood near the foot of the table. “Will she live?”
Sava didn’t answer quickly, and that was answer enough.
“She should already be dead,” she said finally. “The mark is behaving like venom because her body has no wolf to receive it. It is trying to bond to blood that does not know how to answer.”
“Can you slow it?”
“I can cool the fever, support the heart, and keep her from choking on her own vomit if the seizures start.”
My hand tightened on the table again and the metal groaned.
Sava ignored it. “The rest depends on the mark.”
“On me,” I said.
She looked at my hand on Cassie’s shoulder. “Yes.”
Cassie’s eyes opened. Unfocused. Fever-bright. Terrified. She looked at the ceiling first, then Sava, then Ronan, then the dog under the table. Lastly, she looked at me.
For one second, she didn’t understand. Then memory found her. Her body tried to recoil, but the pain stopped her. A broken sound left her. Her hand flew to her shoulder and met bandage, blood, heat.
“Henry,” she rasped.
Not help, not where am I.
The fucking dog.
Something in my chest tore hard enough that I almost stepped back. Instead, I lifted the leash slightly.
“He is here.”
Her gaze found the white dog under the table and Henry gave one miserable wag.
Cassie’s eyes moved back to me. Up close, they were not soft. Even glazed with fever, they had fight in them. Awareness. Fury gathering through pain.
Good. She would need it.
“What,” she whispered, each word dragged over broken glass, “the hell are you?”
No one breathed.
Ronan began to speak but I stopped him with a look. I owed her the first answer, even if it was the smallest one.
“My name is Ian.”
Her mouth trembled as a laugh tried to form and failed. “That was not the question.”
No. It was not.
The mark pulsed under my palm and her face twisted. I leaned closer before I thought better of it, because my body knew her pain before my mind permitted tenderness.
“I know,” I said.
Her eyes held mine and then rolled back. Her body convulsed on the table, hard enough that Sava swore and reached for a syringe. Ronan barked an order outside the room. The dog began barking again.
I kept my hand on Cassie’s shoulder while the mark burned black beneath her skin.
Mine, the wolf said.
No, I told him.
Not until she says it.