“Okay,” Hyacinth says, getting into the car. “I’m ready.”
“Good,” I reply, starting up the car and pulling out of the lot. Hyacinth looks out the window as if she’s ignoring me, but I can tell that she’s watching me out of the corner of her eye.
It’s like she thinks I’m about to attack her. What on earth happened to her, to make her like this?
It isn’t far to the infirmary, and when we pull up in the drive, I see Hyacinth looking up at the old church with suspicion.
“Where are we?” she asks.
“It’s the infirmary,” I reply. “The pack hospital. This is where my sick pack members are.”
Hyacinth’s eyes widen, and her face pales. She gets out of the car slowly, her eyes on the cross high on the steepled roof.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “This hasn’t been a place of worship for a very long time. It was initially used as a meeting hall, and now it’s the only place we have big enough for this many people.”
Hyacinth nods and walks slowly towards the front doors. I follow behind her, wishing I could take her hand but keeping my distance.
I can’t shake off that feeling of intimacy that joined us when I gave her those orgasms. I’ve never felt anything like that before, and from what I could tell, neither did she.
As she walks through the front doors, she stops dead, her eyes sweeping back and forth across the room. I hear a tiny gasp slip through her lips, and she covers her mouth with her hand.
“I had no idea it was this bad,” she whispers.
“What did you think you were going to see?” I ask, my voice a bit too hard.
“I don’t know… I thought the curse just affected the wolf's abilities. I didn’t realize people were this sick.”
“Well, now you know,” I say. “Maybe I should have introduced you to the pack immediately, so you’d understand why I did what I did.”
“I’m never going to agree that kidnapping me was the right thing to do,” she mutters. “But I can understand how emotional you were. Let’s just leave it at that.”
Before I can respond, Hyacinth strides into the rows of beds, talking to the patients and trying to make them comfortable. The way she leans over each person with a comforting smile and asks what they need touches my heart, and I realize I was genuinely worried that she wouldn’t care.
Who are these people to her? No one. She doesn’t have to care. But incredibly, she does, and it’s more than I could have hoped for.
I watch for a few moments more as Hyacinth talks to the other nurses and follows their instructions with quiet efficiency. Satisfied that she doesn’t need my help, I tend to patients as well and bring in more supplies from the storage area.
After I’ve been working for a couple of hours, I look around, but I can’t see Hyacinth anywhere. Just as I’m starting to get worried she’s left without me, I hear a scattering of laughter over in the children’s ward.
That’s a sound I haven’t heard in here before.
Hurrying over, I find Hyacinth standing in the middle of the ward, making funny faces and flapping her arms as she talks in bright tones. The kids are all giggling in their beds as she tells them a funny story, and I can’t believe my eyes.
She looks utterly ridiculous—and completely beautiful.
Her gestures get more exaggerated as she progresses with the story—something about an ostrich losing its egg—and she struts comically by each child’s bed as she involves each of them in the tale. I keep my distance, not wanting to disturb her. Thekids all laugh happily, completely distracted from their pain as they get caught up in Hyacinth’s story.
Once the tale concludes, the kids clap and cheer. Hyacinth goes around to each bed, giving the kids hugs and tucking them in. The way she smiles at each of them is gentle and loving, but I can see fear lurking in her eyes.
I know exactly how that feels. I’ve been teetering on the edge of that cliff for weeks now.
As she leaves the kids’ ward, Hyacinth looks up and sees me waiting for her. The joy slips from her face, and all I can see there now is grave concern.
“Those kids are brave,” she says, coming up to me. “I don’t know how they’re holding it together, but they are. I’m amazed at how tough they are.”
“Yeah,” I reply. “You still aren’t giving them enough credit, though—they’ve been watching the pack slowly disappear for months. Now that they’re at death’s door themselves, I’m amazed at how well they’re coping.”
“What’s really wrong with them?” Hyacinth asks. “I have no idea how this curse manifests.”
