The Wards

Havermouth, Present Time

Aislen woke when Heath and Talen left the room. She turned automatically to touch Rhett, who lay between her and Cameron. For once, her dark-haired alpha mate wasn’t rolling away from Cameron’s night-time embrace – Cameron’s body heat was keeping Rhett from shuddering through his fever.

His skin was clammy to the touch, his hair curling as it stuck to his forehead, but he slept peacefully. In the moonlight that spilled through the open door into the room, his eyes looked bruised and sunken, and his cheeks hollow, the bones standing out against the skin sharply. His lips were cracked and peeling, with dried blood around the lip ring.

Aislen brushed away her tears as she rose and tiptoed to the door. The main room of the second storey was empty, the moonlight streaming in through the windows that stretched along one side, the brightness filtered through the filthy squares of glass and falling yellowly over the tables with their array of unusual objects that Leig