“Not funny,” I say, my voice tight.
“This is good news,” he insists. “All the pieces are coming together.”
“You were stabbed.” Nothing remotely good about that.
“I’ll heal.”
I frown, studying his too-pale face. “The doctors said they took care of your confusion. Should I get them? You aren’t healing—”
“Not like a wolf,” Harper interrupts. “I’ll still heal.”
But not fast enough. I stand up, unable to keep still any longer. The room feels too small, the antiseptic smell suffocating. This is my fault. I dragged him into this mess.
I force a smile when I catch him watching me. “Never thought you’d be here, huh? In a hospital bed, an actual patient.”
“Even wolves get hurt,” he says softly. “I’ve been on the job long enough to know there are all kinds of tricks bad people use to account for supernatural abilities when they really want to hurt someone.”
“Oh.”
He places a hand over mine. “Sorry.”
I laugh. “You were stabbed by the psycho after me and you’re apologizingto me?”
“Dodger, it’s gonna be alright.” He sounds so calm and steady, and I can’t imagine how he does it right now. “Don’t do anything foolish.”
Wow, am I that easy to read? What happened to the days when I was just the moody necromancer with headphones stuffed in my ears and a million miles away? Getting that distance back is impossible, and I can’t promise him that I’ll be a good boy.
If he already knows me so well, maybe there’s something else I should share.
“Look, I should have told you this before, but I… I care about you, Harper. Ethan? I care about you, Ethan Harper.”
He makes a face. “Harper’s fine. You don’t need to say anything. We were going to take it slow.”
“This doesn’t feel slow.” I looked up one day and suddenly he was everywhere. I was consumed with him. And instead of scaring me, it just feels right. “You probably don’t know this, how could you, because I seemed so surprised when you told me we were mates, but I believed you as soon as you said it.”
“You’re right. I didn’t know that.” There’s amusement in his eyes. “Because if I remember right, you looked at me like I was a lunatic who just told you that I was the president of the moon.”
“Yeah, it was shocking but that doesn’t mean I doubted you.”
“In fact, it wasn’t just the looks you sent me. Youtold meI was insane.”
“Okay,” I concede. “Us being mates made sense later when I thought about it. It explained what I saw when we met.”
“What are you talking about?”
I trace the back of Harper’s hand, which has an IV in it. “There was a moment when suddenly all I could hear was your heartbeat, and I just knew that if my heart stopped yours would too, like our lives were connected. And then everything went back to normal and I had no idea what was going on. I probably seemed like a basketcase.”
“You barely looked up and seemed afraid of your own shadow,” he recalls. “Figured it was because you were afraid of your secret getting out.” That I was alive and hiding from his boss. “You Recognized me when we met?”
“Yeah. It took me a while to figure out that’s what it was, but yeah. Maybe it’s a necromancer thing? I could tell our lives were connected.” I clutch his hand tightly. “I know what we are to each other. I don’t want to lose you.”
Whatever it takes, I’ll make sure he’s safe.
The machines beep and screech as Harper tries to get up and rips the leads off his arms.
“Stay here with me,” he rasps, hand fumbling for my wrist. “Don’t go.”
“Lie down.” My palm connects with his shoulder, pressing him back into the bed. It hurts my heart that he’s so weak he can’t fight me and sinks back heavily into the pillows. “You should get some rest.”
