And all I can think is that I’ve never wanted to stay anywhere more than I want to stay here tonight.
The hours drag and blur. She burns hot against my side, her forehead damp with fever sweat, and I spend the night listening to her breathing, watching the rise and fall of her chest.
Every time she stirs, I coax her to sip water, cool her cheeks with a damp cloth, and murmur reassurances until her body settles again.
Pancake curls against her hip, loyal even in his own sluggish state, as if the two of them are working their sickness out in tandem.
Sometime after two, I feel it break. Her temperature shifts under my palm, the unbearable heat cooling just enough that her skin doesn’t scald.
She blinks awake, green eyes glassy but more transparent than before, and a soft laugh slips out of her.
“I don’t even know how I caught this,” she murmurs, voice scratchy. “I was fine just a few hours ago.”
“You weren’t fine,” I correct gently. “You were at the Smokehouse. Half the town’s been coughing in there for days. If there’s a place to catch something, it’s there.”
Her lips curve faintly. “I should’ve known.”
“Next time, I’ll quarantine you,” I tease, brushing hair off her damp temple.
“Better bring ice cream to that quarantine,” she says, eyelids drifting lower.
“You drive a hard bargain,” I murmur.
She exhales, eyes sliding shut again, but after a moment her voice softens. “In the morning, I’ll call Norah. Last time we spoke, she said she was fine, but I want to check.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say. “She’ll want to hear from you.”
There’s silence for a beat, then her words come hesitantly. “Did she tell you Dorian’s back?”
The name rings faint bells in my mind. “She mentioned him?”
She nods faintly, cheek pressed into the pillow. “Her ex. It wasn’t good. She doesn’t talk about it much, but she was nervous just saying his name.”
I filed that away. Norah’s always struck me as sharp, no-nonsense, but everyone has shadows.
I brush my thumb over Wren’s knuckles, grounding her. “What about you?” I ask quietly. “Rob. Do you want to tell me about him?”
Her mouth presses into a line before she exhales. “He was a Beta. We dated for a while. He was… nice at first. Then he started making me feel small. I felt like I owed him something just for being with me.
“It wasn’t violent, but it was constant. The comments. The control. When I left, he told me no one else would want me.” Her voice cracks slightly. “Sometimes I believed him.”
“Don’t,” I say, sharper than I intend. I adjust, gentler. “Don’t ever believe that. Not for one second.”
Her lashes flutter open, meeting my gaze. “You don’t know what it did to me.”
“I know what I see now,” I tell her. “And I hate that you went through it. But you’re not small, Wren. Not to me.”
Her lips part, like she wants to answer, but instead she asks softly, “What about you? Any exes worth mentioning?”
“Marissa,” I admit, the name bitter in my mouth. “Polished. Ambitious. We were a match on paper. In reality, we weren’t a match at all. She wanted control. Image. I wanted—” I pause. “Something real.”
Her fingers curl into mine. We lie there, trading pieces of ourselves in whispers until exhaustion pulls at both of us.
She drifts off first, her head on my chest, Pancake’s purr faint against our legs. Eventually, I let myself follow, my last thought a selfish one: that I don’t want to wake up anywhere else.
Morning comes slowly. The light filters through her curtains, soft gold against the pale walls. When she shifts beside me, stretching with a quiet groan, I check her forehead automatically.
Cool.
