Chapter 188: Open. The. Door. Now.

Landon dragged his tongue slow over the mark he’d just sunk into her neck, once, twice, a wolf tending to what it had claimed. Then he pulled back and looked down at her.

His chest was heaving. Nova was glowing, soft and gold and unconscious, limp against the stone beneath him, and the sight of her out cold cut through the haze enough to drop his stomach through the floor.

He gathered her up fast, wrapping the shredded cloak around her as best he could. Then he pulled his own cloak free and draped it over her head, covering her entirely, so no one could see her face.

Then he carried her out of the hall and across the keep at speed. The corridors weren’t empty. Pack members caught sight of their Alpha striding through with a woman bundled against his chest, caught the look on his face, and found urgent reasons to be facing the other direction. One glance was all any of them took before they turned away and went the opposite way down the hall.

Don was coming up the corridor near the royal wing.

"Get me Astra," Landon ordered without slowing.

"Yes, Alpha." Don was already moving.

Landon shouldered into his chambers and laid her down on his bed. Then he crossed into the bathing chamber and returned with a wet rag.

But when he tried to clean the blood, there was more than he realized. Too much of it.

His wolf was whining under his ribs, a low continuous sound he couldn’t shut off.

Instinct took over. Wolf instinct. He needed to do two things: get her skin against his and cool her down.

He stripped out of his clothes. Then he tore the rest of the dress away, the undergarments with it. His wolf surged hard at the sight of her bare beneath him, the possessive pull of it almost knocking the man out of the driver’s seat entirely.

The urge to drag his tongue back over the blood rose up fast.

But his wolf stopped cold because she wasn’t glowing gold anymore and neither he nor the beast liked that.

He scooped her up and carried her into the bathing chamber.

He ran the water cool. Lowered himself in with her held against his chest, her back to his front.

Then his lips found her hair.

"I’m so sorry, Nova." The words came out wrecked, for a woman who couldn’t hear a single one of them. "I lost control. But I’m going to fix this."

The water climbed around them. He felt the fever start to leave her, degree by degree, her skin cooling under his hands.

She began to glow again, gold blooming back up through her skin, and he glowed with her, the two of them lighting the dark water between them.

The water turned to gold.

He watched as the bruises along her upper arms, the handprints from the arrest, faded out of her skin in real time, dissolving like they’d never been pressed there. Wolf instinct took over again. He cupped cool gold water in his palms and let it spill over her dislocated shoulder, over her arms, over her neck.

The bite in her throat, the raw claiming wound, closed itself as he watched, the skin knitting smooth, until nothing was left.

A small gold lightning bolt rested just beneath her ear on the opposite side where he had actually marked her. The Thunderfang mark.

The whine under his ribs wound down and smoothed into a low, satisfied rumble of approval.

He stayed like that for five minutes, holding her against him in the cooling gold water, before he rose with her in his arms. He wrapped her in a towel and carried her back to the bed.

He dried her gently, working the towel over her. Then he grabbed a silk chemise the omegas had laid out for her.

His wolf growled its disapproval at the fabric.

She will wake up afraid if she is fully bare, he thought to it.

The wolf did not love the answer, but it quieted.

He was careful of her shoulder as he slid the chemise down her body. Even with the bruises gone, even with his wolf insisting she was whole, he did not trust it yet. The omegas had also left fresh ice packs out for him. After he got the silk on her, he wrapped her shoulder again, slow and precise, and settled a pack against it.

Landon pulled on a pair of boxer briefs and crawled into bed with her, drawing her back against his chest and breathing her in. His arms locked around her, and he did not loosen them.

A knock landed on his chamber door.

"Landon, you alive in there?" It was Tavian’s voice.

"This better be an emergency," Landon snapped.

"Astra is at the ICU. She said she will be back in half an hour for Nova."

Nova was healed. Landon’s wolf knew it, and so did he. But he wanted the healer to confirm it with her own eyes before he let a single thing go.

"She is at the ICU because Derek is awake," Tavian continued through the door. "He is asking for you. And for Nova."

Two things went to war in Landon’s chest.

The first was relief, clean and enormous, that his brother was conscious and asking for people by name. Underneath it was something darker, something with teeth. His arms drew tighter around Nova without his permission. Every possessive, protective instinct he owned was firing at full power, and he knew exactly what it was, and he could not shut it off no matter how hard he tried.

"Update him on Celeste and the initiation," Landon stated. "I will speak with him on everything else."

???

Nova wasn’t sure how much time had passed.

She stirred caught somewhere between awake and asleep, sounds bleeding through like she was underwater.

Then she heard yelling.

"—I WILL BREAK THIS DOOR DOWN—"

"Derek, get ahold of yourself!"

"She is mine, Tavian!"

"We know. She’s yours. Calm down. They aren’t letting anyone in on the Alpha’s orders."

"SHE’S MY MATE."

"Let’s get you back to the ICU, buddy. Your chambers here are not cleaned, due to the investigation."

"I don’t need the ICU. I just want my mate. We’ll take a guest suite."

"There are some developments that have occurred since you’ve been out. It’s not safe for her—"

"I want my mate. She’s in there. Open. The. Door. Now."

A body slammed against the door hard enough that the frame rattled. Nova flinched in the bed without opening her eyes.

"What the hell is going on?"

"He just woke up, Landon. He’s not thinking straight—"

"—I’m thinking fine, Tavian. Move—"

"—you pulled tubes out of your own arms and walked here from the ICU. You’ve been in a coma for a goddamn week. That is not fine—"

"Tell them to move, Landon."

Silence.

"Landon. Tell them."