Pregnant

Chapter 18

Terra

Golden dawn light filtering into the solarium made the crystal vials on my worktable glint and shimmer beautifully. But the radiance only darkened my brooding mood further. I should be feeling accomplished finalizing treatment plans today, my task here nearly complete.

Instead, melancholy clung more suffocating than the estate’s heavy velvet drapes. Each day brought me nearer to farewells I now dreaded making, despite resolve setting me on this course.

A brisk knock interrupted my gloomy thoughts. At my call to enter, Derek stepped inside. I frowned slightly, registering his stiff posture and concerned frown. Something more than routine summons had brought him here.

ran a hand through his cropped hair, seeming uncharacteristically

“My apologies for disturbing you, Miss Terra.” agitated. “But your…assistance…is required rather urgently.”

I tensed, chest constricting. Given the unspoken tension since my violent outburst, only one dire situation would warrant my direct aid. “What happened? Where is he?” Fear made my words snap out tersely.

Derek’s craggy features softened somewhat in pity. “The Alpha is resting securely in his quarters and his life in no immediate peril. But he was set upon by a rogue wolf in the southern forests at dawn. He has wounds…”

My vision briefly swam with images of deep g**s leaking ruby blood, Nathan’s bronzed skin rent irreparably. But I shook off the visceral panic, forcing steadiness into my voice.

“What is the problem, then? Surely your other healers can easily tend minor combat injuries. I need not interfere.” Nathan’s close brush with death frightens me, but he had made clear my cordial distance was preferred now. I would adhere to his wishes, however it wrenched my heart.

Derek sighed heavily. “Yes, his injuries alone are superficial enough, with time and care. But he refuses any treatment or company except yours. For two days prior he had fallen into bleak moods, spending long hours alone outdoors. I fear…losing himself. ” Derek’s grave tone conveyed layers I could only dimly interpret.

But stark enough meaning came through – Nathan endangering his own life recklessly because of our ruined connection. This was on my shoulders, regardless of old resentment.

“Take me to him. Now.” All pretense at indifference vanished. Nathan needed me, and my healer’s oaths would not let harm come to any patient, whatever our past. I gathered my bag of equipment, signaling briskly for Derek to show the way.

We hurried through dim corridors until the beta halted before an ornately carved set of double doors. “I will stand watch out here, to ensure complete privacy,” Derek rumbled. His knowing look brought inconvenient heat to my cheeks.

Of course he scented the turbulent emotions churning between his leader and I. Little could be hidden from an attentive beta’s nose.

Squaring my shoulders, I banished useless embarrassment and pushed inside without knocking. This was no mere social call. Nathan’s wellbeing hung precipitously in the balance. I could mend old wounds between us later. First, the fresh b**dy ones demanded urgency.

The expansive bedchamber was all shadows, drapes drawn tightly over the midmorning sunlight. My eyes adjusted quickly, werewolf vision needing little help distinguishing Nathan’s hulking silhouette sprawled facedown across the massive four- poster bed.

Crimson-soaked bandages wrapped his broad chest and shoulder, reeking of sweat and infection. He did not stir as I approached on whisper-soft feet, hot dread congealing in my throat.

“Nathan?” My tentative call produced only a faint groan in response. Heart hammering, I perched on the bed’s edge, leaning

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Chapter 18

close to lay my palm gently across his clammy brow. Fever raged beneath his skin, though he shuddered violently as if icy.

+5

“You foolish, reckless wolf,” I whispered despairingly. Why allow his wounds to fester untreated this long, out of stubborn pride? I thought we had moved past such senseless self-punishment. But recriminations could wait – if I did not act swiftly, they soon would not matter.

–

With ruthless efficiency 1 unpacked herbs, bandages and instruments, preparing poultices and tonics beside the bedstand. When all was laid out, I steeled myself for the most unsettling task cutting away Nathan’s fetid dressing to fully expose the wounds. His skin would shred further under the embedded cloth. I bowed my head, gathering courage. Forgive me, my love. This first part will hurt bitterly. But then we will heal.

The crusted cloth peeled back agonizingly slowly as I worked, muttering constant apologies Nathan could not hear in his feverish limbo. But the hot tears tracking my cheeks were not all fromnavigate the raw epithet of emotions seeing him thus laid low. Rage burned equally scalding. How could he disregard his own life and pack so callously, denying himself care out of prideful spite?

I wanted to shake and slap sense back into his reckless hide.

At last the winding strips fell away, baring Nathan’s torn shoulder and the angry curving ga**s etching his ribs. Blood still oozed sluggishly from the deepest crevices. I stifled a horrified sob, hands fluttering uselessly in the air over mutilated bronze skin I had caressed so gently what seemed mere days ago.

“Goddess save you, you stubborn brute,” I choked out through tears. “Just let me help, stop all this wretched torment…” Emotion strangled the plea off. However bitter our parting, seeing proud strong Nathan brought so low was anguish beyond any boiling anger.

Ineeded him vital and whole again, or the sun’s very light would go out leaving only cold darkness behind. We had found each other again against impossible odds. I could not – would not – lose him like this.

Jaw clenched with resolve, I wiped my face fiercely and took up a sterilized cloth, ready to cleanse the wounds in preparation for stitching. But at the first stinging touch, Nathan jerked and growled, lashing out instinctively with a powerful fist that caught my shoulder solidly in his delirium.

I reeled back, tasting coppery blood from a bitten cheek. Nathan’s eyes were open, flashing gold and crimson with animal panic, muscles tensed to keep me at bay – or attack again if provoked. My heart cracked further. Even lost in nightmares, some dark part of his spirit believed I meant harm, not healing. My own rampant fury had seeded such distrust between us.

Cradling my throbbing shoulder, I met his wild stare steadily, keeping still as carved marble. “Hush, it’s alright,” I soothed in a low murmur. “Just me, only Terra. You’re safe here.” Desperation bled through my fragile calm.

Slowly the scarlet receded from Nathan’s eyes, leaving them glassy and bewildered as fever’s grip relaxed briefly. “…Terra?” His cracked lips fumbled over my name slurred and rasping. “You came back…”

Before delirium could reclaim him, I seized the chance to begin cleaning and stitching the ragged gashes with all the speed my nimble fingers allowed. Nathan lapsed in and out of coherence, sometimes cursing or weakly attempting to push me away before sinking under again. I kept up soothing, one-sided conversation, hoping my voice might calm whatever nightmares plagued him.

By late afternoon, the worst was remedied – wounds cleared of infection and sealed, tonics administered for pain and fever. Nathan had finally slipped into heavy but peaceful sleep. I perched stiffly at his bedside, using a cloth to gently blot up the medicinal ointments slathering his injury site.

Close, methodical contact was required to prevent any renewed bleeding or swelling.

But having license to freely run my hands over the sculpted planes of Nathan’s chest sparked very different instincts than clinical necessity.

Under my ministering fingers, vivid sense memories stirred of learning his magnificent body thoroughly with eager mouth and hands on that single stolen night of passion. When ruin between us still seemed unthinkable.

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་ ་་་་ 2་བ

Chapter 18

Shame scalded my face at such untoward thoughts given the circumstances. But the fevered dreams clearly addled me as much as infection did him. Being so near what had been briefly, gloriously mine was agony exquisite as it was bitter. The goddess’s cruel designcontinued torturing us from just out of reach of what our linked hearts yearned for.

With a shaking breath, I forced my traitorous hands to straighten, task finished. I had no right to even distant memories of Nathan’s intimacy anymore. We were little more than aloof acquaintances fumbling to navigate the jagged shards of a past that left no safe harbor for tender thought. I was a fool longing for more than his cold courtesy now.

Rinsing bloodied cloths efficiently in the basin helped settle my chaotic emotions again. Nathan remained deeply unconscious, features finally smoothed of their pained creases and pinches from hours previous. Some color had returned to his pallid face as well. He would recover now, given time. He needed only my patient care, not hopeless longing for renewed affections.

I lingered mutely at his bedside as rosy sunset gilded the ornate room around us. Part of me feared leaving him too soon, irrationally anxious he might slip away if not watched constantly. But weariness and sk**d meals weighted my shoulders until I reluctantly pushed stiffly to my feet. I co > no more good bone-tired myself. His healing was firmly underway.

Unable to resist, I gently swept a few errant raven strands off Nathan’s forehead before turning toward the door and whatever fitful rest awaited me. But quick fingers suddenly clasped weakly around my wrist, rooting me in place.

I glanced back to see Nathan watching me through half-lidded eyes, their forest green now clear and lucid again. My name rasped from his parched throat as his grip tightened like a man desperate never to be left behind.

“Please…stay.”

The simple entreaty held such fathomless vulnerability. My hasty exit stalled out, feet betraying the warnings screeching in my head to keep aloofness firmly intact between us now. I wavered helplessly under his earnest gaze. Here, witnessing Nathan’s harrowing brush with death, caution seemed only another species of cowardice. And despite fresh scars lancing my soul, I had never been craven where this wolf was concerned.

Heart stuttering unevenly, I perched on the bed’s edge once more. Nathan watched intently as I lifted the cup of waiting water to his cracked lips, helping him drink deeply of the soothing draught. When he finished a grateful sigh escaped his chest, breath washing warm over my wrist, sending sparks skittering up my arm. Even bandaged and bedridden, his presence intoxicated dangerously.

I should say something – make brisk excuses, check his healing progress clinically and withdraw again behind fortified walls. That would be wisest. But my tongue remained frozen as uncertainty flickered across Nathan’s chiseled features.

When I made no move to pull away again, he tentatively reclaimed my hand resting atop the quilts, enveloping my cold fingers in his feverish grip. The tender clasp anchored me through a swirling vertigo of emotions too intense to name.

For once in the exhausting years apart, the path forward felt unclouded. Here together was where we were always meant to stand, whatever stern trials shook and battered our entwined fates along the way. I only had to be brave enough to remain exactly where the goddess herself directed at this wolf’s side.

Wordlessly I stretched my free hand to gently brush Nathan’s tangled hair back, an infinitely tender gesture between careworn souls who had endured all earthly torments together and somehow emerged wiser.

His eyes slid shut under my ministering touch, body subtly angling closer like a flower bending gratefully toward the sun. Hope timidly unfurled its delicate shoots between us. Whatever black storms tomorrow held in store, tonight we had found our way home at long last.