Chapter 189: Don’t Take Her From Me

"Nova is resting. You wake her and we have a problem, Derek."

"We already have a problem, Landon. A big one. Order your new bodyguards to open these goddamn doors before I kick them down."

"You don’t get to tell me—"

"I just did."

Footsteps. Scuffling. Something slammed against stone.

"Derek. You are not well. I don’t want to fight you."

"LANDON. GIVE ME MY MATE—"

"STAND DOWN."

"—both of you, lower your voices—"

"You marked her. You had no right. She’s still mine."

"Derek, no one is trying to take your mate from you. Right, Landon?"

Silence.

"A lot has happened—"

"GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON NOT TO KILL YOU RIGHT NOW."

"You’re injured and dehydrated, for starters."

There was a sound that wasn’t a word. Something between a growl and a sob and a sound that didn’t have a name because the feeling that produced it didn’t have one either.

Nova’s eyes burned behind closed lids.

"—let me see her. Don’t take her from me... Just let me see her—"

"Your quarters are locked down. They’re part of an active investigation. If you see her, you stay in my chambers. These guards are for her. And you agree to let Astra look at you. Those are the terms."

"Fine."

The chamber doors opened.

"Why the FUCK is she in your bed, Landon?"

"Lay down before you fall down, Derek."

"Answer my question."

"Because she’s resting. It’s not that fucking complicated. Now lay down with her and let Astra look at you. Or get a sedative and a wheelchair back to the ICU. The choice is yours."

???

The next time Nova drifted awake there was more voices. She was somewhere in the middle, floating in the warm dark, and someone was holding her differently than before.

The arms were different. The chest was different. The heartbeat under her ear was faster, unsteady, the rhythm of a body that had been horizontal for a week and was running on willpower instead of rest.

Lips pressed against her hair. Once. Again. A third time, slower, lingering, the mouth of a man memorizing something he’d been afraid he’d lost.

"I’m right here, baby."

She was laying against a chest being held the way Derek always used to hold her. His arms were locked around her and his chin was on the top of her head and he was breathing her in like air he’d been denied.

"Derek, let me look at your ribs. You also need an oxygen clip," Astra said, unimpressed by the reunion.

He didn’t let go.

"Derek."

His arms tightened.

"Derek. Put her down. Nova’s shoulder needs to be looked at," Alpha Thunderfang ordered from nearby.

There was a grunt. Derek’s grunt. Not Alpha Thunderfang. Different frequency. Same stubbornness.

She felt his hand move to the back of her head, cradling it, his thumb tracing a slow line through her hair.

"For fuck’s sake. It will take five minutes and she’ll be literally next to you," Astra snapped.

He wasn’t letting go. He was making room for Astra to work around what he was holding and what he was holding was her.

"Derek." Astra’s voice carried the specific exhaustion of a healer whose patient had ripped out his own medical equipment. "Let me see your ribs."

He kissed Nova’s hair again instead of answering.

"You still have fractures and burns. You have not been hurt like this before. Your Alpha healing picked a hell of a time to slow down. The Alpha gave his blood for you every day."

Derek’s hand settled on the back of Nova’s head, fingers threading into her hair, and he spoke into her scalp.

"She’s unconscious."

"Yeah. Gee, I wonder why," Astra said flatly.

The rest of the conversation was muffled into nothing.

???

"Both of them need the rest. Her more than him. There were signs of internal bleeding, followed by rapid healing, Alpha," Astra stated.

Nova’s head was on Derek’s chest. His heartbeat and breathing were slow. He was in deep sleep.

Then her hand moved. In her sleep, without permission, without thought, her fingers reached behind her into the empty space on the other side of the bed and searched for something that wasn’t there.

The muscle memory of a body that had spent a week being held by one man and was now looking for him in the dark without her brain’s involvement.

Then someone was behind her. She knew because her back was pressed against a chest she had spent a week falling asleep on and her body recognized it the way muscles recognize a movement they’ve repeated until it became reflex. An arm was over her waist. A hand was holding ice to her shoulder. The hold was precise and steady and she knew whose hand did that.

"Hey, I’m here. I’ve got you, Nova," Alpha Thunderfang whispered.

???

The vibration was stereo.

That was the first conscious thought she had. Stereo. Two sources. Two directions. Her face was against one. Her back was against the other. And both of them were producing a sound that had no business being this comforting and no right to be this synchronized.

Derek’s wolf purred the way Derek did everything. Warm. Present. Unguarded. The sound of a man who loved openly and loudly and whose wolf did the same.

Landon’s wolf purred the way Landon did everything. Controlled. Restrained. Except right now it wasn’t restrained at all, and the unrestrained version was deeper and stronger and more devastating than anything she had heard come out of him awake, because awake he would never have allowed this. Awake he would have grunted. Would have shifted. Would have pretended the sound was something else.

Asleep, his wolf was honest. And his wolf’s honest sound was a purr so deep she could feel it in her molten core.

She was going to have to wake up eventually.

But not yet. The purring was too warm and the dark was too safe and the questions could wait five more minutes.

The five minutes became ten. The ten became twenty. She never did open her eyes. She fell back asleep between two purring wolves.