Chapter 3

Alexander Hale

The drive to campus was suffocating.

Alexander kept both hands on the wheel, eyes forward, jaw tight enough to ache. Elena sat in the passenger seat, bag in her lap, staring out the window like she could will herself somewhere else.

Neither of them had spoken since she got in the car.

He’d barely slept. Kept seeing her face when that door opened yesterday. The way she’d looked at him. The way his wolf had responded before he could shut it down.

This was a mistake. He’d known it the second Miguel called. Known it when he agreed anyway because he owed Miguel his life and you don’t walk away from that kind of debt.

But having her in his house was different from the abstract idea of protecting Miguel’s daughter. Having her sit across from him at breakfast. Having her scent fill rooms he walked into hours after she’d left them.

Having her catch him on the phone trying to tell Miguel he couldn’t do this.

“Turn left up here,” Elena said quietly.

He turned.

She directed him through campus with clipped instructions until they pulled up in front of a building with students streaming in and out.

“This is good,” she said, already reaching for the door handle.

“I’ll pick you up at three.”

“You don’t have to. I can get a ride…”

“Three o’clock. I’ll be here.”

She looked at him for the first time since getting in the car. He kept his eyes on the windshield.

“Okay,” she said finally. Then she got out and walked toward the building without looking back.

Alexander waited until she disappeared inside before pulling away. His phone rang before he made it off campus.

“Dr. Hale, we have a situation.” His head nurse, Patricia. She sounded stressed. “A twelve-year-old boy came in thirty minutes ago. Severe internal bleeding. The parents are asking for you specifically.”

“I’m not on call today.”

“I know. But they’re insisting. They said…” She lowered her voice. “They said it’s pack business .”

Alexander’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Tell them I’m not available.”

“Dr. Hale, the boy is dying. We stabilized him temporarily but he needs advanced healing. Human medicine isn’t going to be enough.”

He closed his eyes. “Transfer him to County General. Dr. Martinez handles those cases now.”

“They specifically requested you. The father says you knew his brother. From before.”

From before. Before he’d left Crescent Ridge. Before he’d walked away from pack medicine and everything that came with it. Before he’d tried to become just another surgeon in a city where nobody knew what he used to be.

“What pack?”

“Northridge.”

Not one he knew well. Not one with politics that would drag him back into things he’d spent ten years avoiding.

“Dr. Hale, please. The boy won’t make it to County.”

He switched lanes, already knowing he was going to regret this. “Prep OR-3. Keep the family in the main waiting room, not the fourth floor. And Patricia? Make it clear this is a one-time exception.”

“Yes, Dr. Hale.”

He hung up and drove toward Ravenhood General, the hospital he’d never wanted to run.

His family owned the whole network. Hale Medical Group twelve hospitals across three states, all built on his grandfather’s money and his father’s ruthless expansion tactics. Alexander had spent his twenties trying to prove he didn’t need any of it. He’d opened his own private practice, took only the cases he wanted, built a reputation that had nothing to do with the family name.

Then everything fell apart.

The incident that almost ruined his career.

His father had made the offer simple, come home, take over Ravenhood Hospital , or watch the family cut him off completely and let the wolves who wanted his head come collect.

So he’d come back. Taken the position he’d spent years avoiding. Ran the hospital his family owned and tried to pretend he was just a normal doctor doing normal medicine.

Except wolves kept showing up. Pack members who knew what he used to be. Who knew what he could do. Who showed up bleeding or poisoned or torn apart in ways human medicine couldn’t fix.

He’d tried refusing. Tried sending them elsewhere. But word spread anyway, and now there was an entire underground network that knew Ravenhood General had a wing on the fourth floor where pack business was handled quietly.

Alexander hated every second of it.

Patricia met him at the staff entrance. “Family’s in the main waiting room. Father, mother, two younger siblings. The father recognized your name from Crescent Ridge . Said you saved his brother’s life ten years ago.”

Alexander didn’t remember. He’d saved a lot of people at Crescent Ridge before everything went to hell.

“What’s the boy’s status?”

“Stable for now. But his kidneys are failing and there’s internal damage we can’t reach surgically without advanced healing. He won’t make it through the night without intervention.”

They walked toward the private area. Through the window of the main waiting room, Alexander saw them. The mother clutching a tissue, face red and swollen. The father pacing, running his hands through his hair over and over. Two kids who couldn’t have been older than eight, sitting frozen in plastic chairs.

The father looked up and saw Alexander through the glass. Relief flooded his face so completely it made Alexander’s chest tight.

He looked away and kept walking.

“Prep him. I want full imaging and blood work ready when I get in there.”

“Yes, Dr. Hale.”

Alexander scrubbed in, taking longer than necessary. The water was scalding but he didn’t adjust it. Just stood there letting it burn.

He’d left this behind. Left the pack politics and the violence and the constant expectation that he’d use his abilities to clean up after wolves who treated each other like collateral damage.

He’d tried to build something different here. Something clean. Something where he could practice medicine without his wolf being part of the equation.

But it followed him anyway.

“Dr. Hale?” Patricia’s voice through the intercom. “We’re ready.”

He dried his hands and walked into the OR.

The boy looked small on the table. Too small. Twelve years old and already caught up in whatever violence had put him here.

“What happened to him?” Alexander asked, examining the scans.

“Father said it was an accident during training,” Patricia said. “But the injury pattern doesn’t match.”

Of course it didn’t. It never did.

Alexander focused on the work. Opened the boy up. Found the damage exactly where the imaging said it would be. Started repairs, hands moving through motions he’d done thousands of times.

But the kidneys were too far gone. The internal bleeding too severe for surgery alone.

He tried anyway. Tried to fix it with skill and precision and everything he’d learned that had nothing to do with being a wolf.

The monitors started screaming.

“Pressure’s dropping,” Patricia said. “He’s crashing.”

Alexander’s hands stilled over the open cavity.

He could let the boy die. Could say he did everything medically possible. The family would grieve but they’d understand that sometimes human medicine wasn’t enough.

Or he could do what he’d spent ten years trying not to do.

He closed his eyes and let his wolf rise. Just enough. Just enough to channel healing through his hands into the boy’s failing organs. Just enough to knit together what surgery couldn’t reach.

And the memories came with it but he tried to stay focused. The monitors stabilized.

“His pressure’s coming back up,” Patricia said, relief clear in her voice. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.”

Alexander pulled back his wolf. Finished closing with just surgical skill. Swore this was the last time

“Monitor overnight. Page me if anything changes.” He stripped his gloves and stormed out to the bathroom.

The bathroom door locked behind him.

Alexander gripped the sink. His hands were shaking. They always shook after he used his abilities. Always brought it back. The OR. The lights. The moment everything went wrong.

He splashed water on his face. Until the shaking stopped.

Then his phone rang.

It was Vivian, his wife

He answered. “Hey.”

“Darling, I’m so sorry. I know I said I’d be home today, but there’s an emergency with the Singapore deal. I have to fly out tonight.”

He leaned against the sink like he’d expected her to say that. “How long?”

“At least another week. Maybe two.” She sounded distracted. Probably already packing. “I’ll make it up to you when I get back.”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it? You sound…are you okay?”

“Just finished a surgery. I’m tired.”

“Well, get some rest. And Alexander? Don’t work yourself to death while I’m gone.”

“I won’t.”

She hung up. Alexander set the phone down and stared at his reflection.

Vivian had been gone for three weeks already. He’d been counting on her coming back today. Needed her there as a buffer. As a reminder of the life he’d built was perfect and stable

.

Then he thought about Elena, trying to stop himself from accepting the fact that his wolf recognized her . He needed that to stop

With Vivian there, it would’ve been easier. Normal. A clear reminder that he was married and Elena was off-limits and whatever his wolf thought it recognized didn’t matter.

But Vivian wasn’t coming home.