Chapter 203: A Side Effect Of Marking. WHAT.

Neither of them said a word for a long moment.

Then Derek Thunderfang opened his mouth.

"You left out the part where she moaned my name. Multiple times. That feels relevant."

Landon’s eyes surged molten wolf gold. "She absorbed my goddamn aura, and screamed my name. I was there when she said yours. It sounded like she was trying to remember it."

"Trying to remember it. That’s funny. Ask the guards in the corridor if she was trying to remember it. They heard her."

"You mean when she said she wanted to go to me in the middle of yours."

"She was full of venom, mid-orgasm, Landon. People say all kinds of things mid-orgasm. And she was riding me at the time, so forgive me if I don’t take the navigation request seriously."

"You were inside her and she wanted to be across the room with me. I don’t need to win this argument, Derek. She already won it for me."

The High Luna crossed to the credenza, poured herself a second glass, then poured a second one and held it out towards Tavian without looking at him. Tavian took it without looking at her. Neither of them said a word. The whiskey was the only honest communication that had occurred between two people in this room all evening.

"She doesn’t remember it, Landon. Any of it. Gone. She asked me if she got rejected by the flame. Did you know that she was worried about being rejected? No, you probably didn’t."

"Bullshit, Derek."

"I’m not lying. When she wakes up, we’ll ask her what she remembers. She has no idea you marked her. Zero. At some point you have to ask yourself if the aura was doing all the heavy lifting."

"That is a side effect of marking," Astra chimed in.

Both heads snapped towards the healer at the same speed. "WHAT."

Tavian burst out laughing. Then he rubbed his temples. "Please continue."

"Marking is the most intimate thing a wolf can do," Astra began. "It floods the mate with venom, and the body does not take that quietly. Fever. Memory loss. The whole system is being rewired whether it wants to be or not. It’s why mates are told to take three to five days after they mark. Not for the honeymoon, whatever the two of you are picturing. So they can stay skin to skin and pull the fever out as it rises. Without that, it climbs. And the memory loss goes deeper."

Derek’s jaw set. "Then I’ll lie with her and take the fever out."

"Maybe." Astra’s voice stayed flat. "If this were simple. It isn’t. Your venom wants your contact, Derek. His venom wants his." She finally looked up, leveling it at both of them. "She has two in her now. I don’t know that either of you can pull a fever the other one caused. And I am fairly certain you can’t attempt it in the same bed without one of you losing a throat."

She pressed two fingers to Nova’s wrist and went quiet for a moment.

"There’s a bigger problem than that." She didn’t let go of the pulse. "The venom is supposed to bond to her wolf. Her wolf is still under the silver. Suppressed. Which means I don’t know that she’ll feel the matebond at all when she wakes."

Nobody moved.

Derek’s wolf had howled when her fever first spiked in the bath.

"She’ll feel mine. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But she’ll feel it. When her wolf comes." Derek pressed a kiss to her forehead. "And even if she didn’t, I’d still have done it. Slaves don’t mark because it’s wolf driven, and she didn’t want me to waste it. She was worried about that and didn’t want me to waste my mark on her." He turned his head towards Landon. "I bet you didn’t know that she wouldn’t feel a matebond."

"You think I didn’t know? I couldn’t piece some basic logic together." Landon’s voice was low. "Obviously, I knew. I’ve known since I saw her. She reaches for me anyways. Mark or not. Matebond or not. My wolf feels her wolf, and she will feel it eventually. Can your wolf say the same? No. It can’t."

"Can my wolf say the same?" Derek laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. "My wolf just claimed her, Landon. Yes, my wolf can goddamn feel hers."

"I can tell when you’re lying, Derek."

"So to be clear," Astra cut in, "the fever isn’t only your venom, Derek. It’s two venoms with nowhere to properly go, in a body whose wolf can’t receive either of them yet. I have never treated this. No one has. There is no slave on record who was ever freed from silver, let alone marked twice in a single day." She snapped her bag shut. "You want to help her? I need her dressed. I need her resting. And I need this room to stop being a splash zone and a wrestling match long enough for me to work out whether this is going to kill her."

"Everyone out," Derek ordered. "So I can put clothes on my mate."

Landon’s eyes flashed wolf-gold. "Repeat that."

"I said get out. You don’t get to see her."

"I have clothes for her. In that closet." Landon pointed without looking away from him. "You don’t. I’ve dressed her before."

"You’ve DRESSED my mate."

"Once. Yes." Landon’s tone didn’t move. "Sit down before you fall down and let someone competent handle it."

"Boys." The High Luna didn’t look up from her drink. "You have both, at this point, seen considerably more of Nancy than her clothing. The modesty ship sailed somewhere around the moment the doorframe became toothpicks."

"NOVA," both of them snapped in unison.

"Counterpoint." Tavian raised a tentative hand. "What if a person who is NOT currently mated to the patient, and did NOT bite her this evening, dressed her, while the two of you went and stood in separate corners and thought very hard about your choices?" He got the words out, then immediately recoiled as two wolf-growls swung towards him in stereo. "Or I die. Here. Tonight. Either way, truly, these are great options, love this for me."

The High Luna rose, drink in hand, and made for the ruined doorway.

"On that note, I’m retiring. No killing each other." She paused at the threshold and pointed her glass back at the room. "The Beta is in charge."

Tavian’s face said he would rather have been handed the actual bombs.