“Five minutes,” I tell her.
She nods and steps out into the corridor. I hear her speaking to someone—Greta, probably, asking about the celebration cleanup and making sure everyone’s accounted for.
I finish Merric’s stitches, bandage the wound, and give him instructions he’s not going to follow. He thanks me, slides off the table, and heads out to find Brenna. Dane stays put, still holding the ice pack, still too stubborn to admit his head is splitting.
“Stay there,” I tell him. “I need to check your eyes again in thirty minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I strip off my gloves, wash my hands, and step into the corridor.
Brenna is waiting by the window at the end of the hall, arms crossed, staring out at the darkening forest beyond the compound. She doesn’t turn when I approach.
“What happened, Sable?” she asks.
“Like Merric said, he woke up and started—”
“That’s not what I’m asking. Why did he wake up? He’s supposed to be kept under.”
Shit.
I pull in a breath. “He was improving,” I say. “Vitals stable, wounds healing, no fever. His startle response had decreased, his sleep cycles were less erratic, and his pulse stopped spiking every time someone passed the door. I thought that if we brought him up gradually—carefully—we might be able to reach him without triggering another panic response.”
“You reduced his sedation.”
Shit. Shit.
I rub my forehead, knowing there’s no sense in denying it. “Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
Now she turns, and her eyes are harder than I’ve seen them in months. “Three of my people just bled because you made a unilateral decision about a patient we don’t understand.”
“Three of your people bled because a traumatized male was stuck in a locked room with strange men grabbing him,” I say. “That’s not sedation failure. That’s predictable psychology.”
“You don’t get to make that call.”
“I’m his healer. That’s exactly the call I make.”
Her voice drops, quiet and sharp. “You’remyhealer, Sable. You serve this pack. And every decision you make about him affects all of us.”
She’s right. I know she’s right.
“I’m sorry.” My voice is small.
“I know you are. But, Sable, he’s been totally out of control every time he’s regained consciousness since we got him back here. Whatever they did to him turned his wolf feral.”
I look down at my hands. There’s dried blood under my thumbnail—Merric’s, probably.
“He was stable,” I say again, quieter this time. “But the protocol was holding him so deep he couldn’t dream, couldn’t process, couldn’t do anything but exist in chemical suspension. I thought if I brought the dose down gradually, he might start to come back to himself.”
“And did he?”
“I don’t know.” It’s the honest answer. “He stayed calm. His sleep patterns improved. He stopped flinching at every sound when the sedation began to wear off. Then today he woke up and—”
“And nearly killed three wolves.”
