LOGINNathan:The infirmary had become my home at this point.I barely remembered the last time I had slept in my own bed. And at this point, the nurses stopped trying to convince me to leave.They brought me coffee sometimes and quietly replaced the blanket draped over my shoulders when they found me asleep in the chair beside Mia.I looked at her now, fighting the urge to lean in and kiss her. Her face had regained some color, and the bruises around the wound were fading. If someone walked in without knowing what had happened, they would think she was simply sleeping. But this sleeping was becoming an endless battlefield for me, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t help but find myself growing impatient, and angry…I reached for her hand and threaded my fingers through hers. It had become a habit over the past week, one I could not break. “I talked to Rosalyn today,” I said, because talking to her felt less like talking to myself when I said it aloud. “She made Brenda promise that t
Vladimir:Failure.The word echoed through my mind like a curse I could not wash away. She should have died when the bullet hit her, if not her, her best friend to make sure that she learned her lesson… but neither one of them was dead.I stared at my desk, knowing that it didn’t have her head on it, and I couldn’t help but frown as I knew and realized that she was not going anywhere. The fucking bitch was still alive. The paper crumpled in my fist until the edges bit into my skin. A low growl escaped my throat.“Impossible,” I said to the empty room. “How the fucking hell did this happen? How was this mistake made?”The shooter had been given clear instructions. One shot. One target. No mistakes. I had paid for precision and for silence. I had expected results. Instead I had a woman who would not die and an Alpha who had turned his pack inside out looking for answers.Every border was being monitored. Patrols had been doubled. Visitors were searched and questioned. Nathan Lockwood mo
Brenda:I never thought I would hate hospitals as much as I did now.It was not the smell, and it was not the white walls, and it was not even the constant chorus of machines that reminded everyone how quickly life could change. What I could not stand was the waiting. The waiting that stretched and folded into every hour until hope felt like a fragile thing I could not hold without it slipping through my fingers.Thankfully, my dispute with Nathan seems to have perished, but the whole idea of the problem was still there. Because Mia did not open her eyes, and I didn’t even know when she was going to.I was sitting in the small family lounge on Mia’s floor when Rosalyn climbed onto the couch beside me. The little girl looked exhausted in a way that made my chest ache. The past week had taken a toll on everyone, but seeing it on a child felt especially cruel. She was quieter now, and knowing that she is a child who should be laughing and running and asking a million questions. Instead
Nathan:A week had passed since Mia had been laid in that hospital bed, and she still had not opened her eyes.The doctors kept giving me the same rehearsed reassurances every time they came through the door: her vitals were stable, her brain activity was normal, these things took time. Those sentences were meant to soothe, but they had become a mantra that only sharpened the edge of my impatience, because time was the one thing I felt like I was running out of.I pushed open the door to her room and froze the instant I saw who was sitting at the bedside. Brenda was there, perched on the small chair beside Mia’s bed, holding Mia’s hand as if she belonged there, and my jaw tightened so fast it hurt.I had been gone for less than two hours; I had left to handle a lead in the investigation and had made it perfectly clear before I left that nobody was to enter this room without my approval, especially not Brenda. And now that I was back and she was here, it took every bit of self control
Elijah:I found Brenda exactly where I had left her, curled into one of the waiting room chairs with her gaze fixed on the floor and the world around her reduced to a dull, distant hum.She looked exhausted in a way I had never seen before; her eyes were swollen from crying and her shoulders slumped as if the strength she usually wore like armor had been stripped away.I walked toward her quietly, not wanting to startle her, and when she did not notice me at first I let the silence stretch for a moment so she could gather whatever thread of composure she had left.“Hey,” I said softly, because there was nothing else to say that would make the ache in her voice go away. “How are you feeling?”Her lower lip trembled and she whispered, “She almost died,” the words barely audible, as if saying them louder would make them more real. “How am I supposed to feel, Elijah?”“She’s still here,” I said, and she shook her head, the motion small and desperate. “And she is going to be okay. The docto
Nathan:I should have left the hospital wing.That was the lie I kept repeating to myself as I stood outside Mia’s hospital room long after the doctors had finished speaking to me.“Her surgery went well, Alpha. She lost a lot of blood, she is strong, but she will recover, Alpha.” The pack doctor said, looking at me. “She is going to need to rest to be able to fully recover, but she is okay.”Those words should have been enough to calm me, but they did nothing. And worst of all, I remembered the way she had looked at me right before it happened, as if she had wanted to say something, as if there had been words trapped inside her that I would never hear.I scrubbed a hand over my face. I hated seeing her lying in that bed, pale and still, because Mia had never been weak. She had always been the strongest person I knew, and seeing her like this felt wrong in a way I could not put into words.A soft knock pulled me from my thoughts.“Alpha…” the nurse said slowly. “I am so sorry to bothe
Nathan:They wouldn’t sleep, no matter what I did, and no matter how quiet the room was, how dim the lights were, how steady my voice stayed… they just… wouldn’t.Arina was curled against my side, her small fingers tangled in my shirt like she was afraid I might disappear if she let go and Jacob lay
Mia:The office felt… different. It was quieter. And it was not in the usual early-morning way where everyone was still settling in, but in that strange, restless way where something had already happened, and everyone was pretending it hadn’t.Or worse… they were waiting to talk about it.I stepped
Nathan:I didn’t move and I chose not to interfere or react to what was going on, I just stood there and watched, waiting for what was going to happen.Tania was on her knees in front of them, her hands gripping Arina and Jacob like she was afraid they’d disappear if she let go. I had my arms cross
Nathan:“Leave.” I didn’t raise my voice this time because I knew that I didn’t need to.The word carried enough weight on its own. Tania stood there, breathing hard, her eyes burning with defiance, but I could already see it the crack that broke through her even when she didn’t want it to.Because







