Chapter 16: Briar First Made A Refusal

 

Killian had not planned to stay long.

Vivienne had mentioned recurring headaches and fatigue three days ago, and he had arranged the appointment at the private clinic without thinking twice about it. He sat in the waiting area while the receptionist mentioned almost in passing that the acute care ward had admitted a young woman in the early hours of the morning. Reddish-brown hair. Heavy build. No ID on her when she came in.

He put his phone down.

She was supposed to be at the villa.

He found the room without difficulty. The clinic was not large.

What he found when he opened the door was Liam in the chair beside Briar's bed, jacket off, talking to her quietly. Briar was sitting up with an IV in her arm and an expression on her face that he did not immediately recognize, something more focused than usual, something that did not immediately dissolve when she saw him.

He handled the situation. He removed the IV. He said what needed to be said. And then a nurse appeared at the door and told him Miss Thorne was asking for him, and he went.

Vivienne had been waiting in the consultation corridor for eleven minutes.

She had counted them. She had stood by the window with her arms folded and thought about Killian in that room with Briar and Liam and felt something cold move through her that she did not show on her face.

She had called him deliberately. She had felt the pull of the situation the moment he left her side, the particular danger of Killian alone in a room with an injured Briar and no one to manage the narrative.

He cannot feel sorry for her, Kallie said.

Vivienne had agreed entirely.

So she had called, and he had come, and now he was walking toward her down the corridor and she could read from his jaw that he was angry, which was much safer than sympathetic.

"You were a long time," she said.

"It was Briar," he said. "She was in the acute ward."

"Is she all right?" Vivienne kept her voice gentle. Concerned.

"She ran from the villa," he said. "Collapsed somewhere. Liam found her."

"Liam." She let the name sit for just a moment. "Again."

He looked at her sharply. "Don't."

She raised her hands slightly. "I'm not saying anything." A pause, carefully measured. "I don't think she means badly, you know. What she did to me was wrong. But Briar is just." She softened her voice. "She's not malicious. She's not very bright. It's different."

Keep his anger, Kallie said. Just redirect it.

Killian looked at the window. "Fenris finds her ugly. That was never the real problem."

"What is the real problem?"

"She can't tell when someone is hurting her," he said. "She doesn't fight back. She accepts whatever comes and keeps going like none of it matters. A wolf who won't fight doesn't earn respect."

Vivienne nodded with the expression of someone who understood completely and was very sad about it.

Good, she thought. Stay there.

They walked toward the exit together. Near the main doors a heavily pregnant wolf was coming in from outside, one hand pressed to her lower back, moving slowly. Killian reached the door first and held it open. She thanked him and passed through, and the draft carried her scent across the air in front of him.

He paused for just a half second.

Something in the scent was familiar. Not this woman specifically. Something in the warm biological composition of it. He stood with the door in his hand and turned it over and could not locate it.

Then it was gone and Vivienne was beside him and the moment passed.

He took Vivienne home. Then he went to a bar and did not think about very much at all.

He got home late.

Briar had not gone straight home.

She had sat on the clinic bed for twenty minutes after Killian left while Liam and Mabel talked at her. She caught approximately half of what they said. The medical terminology went past her entirely. The logistics of the Council petition were a blur. The timeline of the witch's compound she could not hold in order.

But two things stayed.

Do not let Killian suspect the pregnancy. And find the witch, which meant finding Eliza, Killian's sister, the pack's newest and most reluctant practitioner of anything resembling magic, and get from her the long-acting compound that would keep Briar safe past the eight-week mark.

Those two things she wrote on the back of her hand with a pen she found in the bedside drawer.

The suppressant injection went into her arm at eight in the morning, administered by the doctor who had been persuaded, very firmly, not to ask too many questions. Every four weeks, Liam said. Do not miss the window.

She nodded. She wrote that on her hand too.

She discharged herself before noon.

_

The house was half-cleaned when she got back.

Someone had done the hallway and started on the sitting room and then simply stopped. The laundry was sorted on the couch. The kitchen was half-mopped, the bucket still sitting in the middle of the floor with cold dirty water in it.

Mary was gone.

Briar stood in the kitchen and looked at the bucket and felt something tired move through her.

She finished the mopping herself. She put the laundry away. She made a sandwich and ate it standing at the counter because she was very hungry and also because sitting down felt like giving up.

She waited for Killian.

He came home after midnight. She heard the car and then the door, and she was still at the kitchen table when he came in.

His face when he saw her told her everything about what kind of conversation this was going to be.

"You left the villa," he said.

"I know. I know I did. But Killian, Mary was." She pressed her palms flat on the table. "She wasn't giving me proper food. She wasn't letting me sleep. I was sick and I got sicker and I tried to tell you and you weren't." She stopped and started again. "I wasn't trying to run away forever. I just needed to not be sick anymore."

"Mary has been dismissed," he said. "For helping you leave without authorization."

"That's not fair! She was actually being kind to me at the end, she didn't do anything wrong, she just." Briar's voice was getting unsteady. "You can't punish her for that."

"I already did."

She looked at him. She reached under the table and put the small wrapped box on the surface between them.

"I got you a birthday present," she said. "I know it's very late. I kept the money for it even when I had almost nothing left and I." She pushed it toward him. "Please just open it."

He picked it up. He looked at it for one second. Then he set it down on the counter behind him without opening it.

"Killian!" Her voice cracked. "I worked really hard to get that! I kept that money for weeks!"

He reached for her hand.

She stood up because she knew what that meant, the direction it was going, and she went because she always did even when she knew she should not.

He walked her toward the hallway.

"Do you actually not like me," she said. Her voice was very quiet. "Even a little bit. Because you keep coming back and I don't understand why you come back if you really don't feel anything."

"Because I need you to carry a child," he said. "As quickly as possible. Once you do, I can end this."

The words landed without decoration. Just the flat fact of it, said the way you say things you have stopped bothering to soften.

Briar said nothing.

He lifted her at the foot of the stairs and she let him, and they were halfway down the upper hallway when something happened in her chest that she did not have a name for, something that had been building for weeks and weeks and had apparently decided that tonight was the night.

"I want to reject you," she said.

He stopped.

She said it again. Barely above a breath, to the wall over his shoulder, with her hands holding onto his jacket because she did not know what else to do with them.

"I want to be the one who rejects you first."

Do not let Killian suspect the pregnancy. And find the witch, which meant finding Eliza, Killian's sister, and get from her the long-acting compound that would keep Briar safe past the eight-week mark.

The suppressant injection went into her arm in the afternoon, administered by the doctor who had been persuaded, very firmly, not to ask too many questions. Every four weeks, Liam said. Do not miss the window.

She nodded. She wrote that on her hand too.

She discharged herself before noon.

The house was half-cleaned when she got back.

Someone had done the hallway and started on the sitting room and then simply stopped. The laundry was sorted on the couch. The kitchen was half-mopped, the bucket still sitting in the middle of the floor with cold dirty water in it.

Mary was gone. Where was she? That wasn't her style.

Briar finished the mopping herself. She put the laundry away. She made a sandwich and ate it standing at the counter because she was very hungry and also because sitting down felt like giving up.

She waited for Killian.

He came home after midnight. She heard the car and then the door, and she was still at the kitchen table when he came in.

"You left the villa," he said.

"I know." She pressed her palms flat on the table. "But, I did this because I haven't done anything wrong and shouldn't have been imprisoned and abused." She stopped and started again. "I just needed to not be sick anymore."

"Mary has been dismissed," he said. "For helping you leave without authorization."

"That's not fair! She was actually being kind to me at the end, she didn't do anything wrong, she just." Briar's voice was getting unsteady. "You can't punish her for that."

"I already did."

She looked at him. She reached under the table and put the small wrapped box on the surface between them.

"I got you a birthday present," she said. "I know it's very late. I kept the money for it even when I had almost nothing left and I." She pushed it toward him. "Please just open it."

He picked it up. He looked at it for one second. Then he set it down on the counter behind him without opening it.

"Killian!" Her voice cracked. "I worked really hard to get that! I kept that money for weeks!"

He reached for her hand.

She stood up because she knew what that meant--making love.

He walked her toward the hallway.

"Do you actually not like me," she said. "Even a little bit? Because you keep coming back and I don't understand why you come back if you really don't feel anything..."

"Because I need you to carry a child," he said. "As quickly as possible. Once you do, I can end this."

The words landed without decoration.

Briar said nothing.

He lifted her at the foot of the stairs and she let him, and they were halfway down the upper hallway when something happened in her chest that she did not have a name for, something that had been building for weeks and weeks and had apparently decided that tonight was the night.

"I want to reject you," she said.

He stopped.

She said it again. Barely above a breath, to the wall over his shoulder, with her hands holding onto his jacket because she did not know what else to do with them.

"I want to be the one who rejects you first!!!"