Chapter One
By the time Talia Mercer stepped into Trauma Two, the room was already two breaths away from panic.
The young wolf on the table was barely twenty, his skin damp and pale beneath the fluorescent lights, one hand pressed weakly to his side while his mother hovered close enough to be in the way and too frightened to realize it. A bruise had begun to darken beneath his ribs, ugly against the gray cast of his skin, and the monitor to his left chirped with a rhythm that was just shy of wrong.
A nurse looked up as Talia came in, relief flashing so openly across her face it might as well have been spoken.
“There you are.”
Talia was already pulling on gloves. “What happened?”
“Training injury. Says he took a hit to the ribs this afternoon and insisted it was fine. Came in an hour ago short of breath. Pain escalated fast.”
“Shifter healing?”
“Not keeping up.”
That, more than anything else, made her look harder.
Most wolves healed quickly from what would put a human down for weeks. Bruised ribs, shallow fractures, muscle tears—those rarely became emergencies unless something deeper had gone wrong. Talia moved to the bedside, laying two fingers lightly against the patient’s wrist while her gaze swept over his face, the angle of his breathing, the tension through his abdomen.
“I’m Dr. Mercer. What’s your name?”
“Evan.”
“Evan, look at me.”
His eyes flicked to hers, glassy with pain.
“Did you black out at any point?”
He hesitated. “Maybe. A little.”
His mother made a broken sound. “He said he was fine. He went home first. He showered. I told him he looked gray and he—”
Talia turned her head just enough. “Mrs. Hale, I need you to take one step back for me.”
The woman obeyed instantly. Most people did when Talia used that tone. Not because it was harsh, but because it left no room for argument. Calm had a way of becoming its own authority in a crisis.
She pressed gently beneath Evan’s ribs and felt his body seize around the pain. Sometimes, a splenic bleed announced itself in the shoulder before anyone else realized how bad it was.
“How long have you had shoulder pain?”
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“Your shoulder,” she said, already reaching for the ultrasound probe sitting on the counter. “Left side. Has it started yet?”
He blinked at her, confused—and then his hand shifted instinctively. Not to his ribs, but toward his shoulder.
“There,” he gasped. “Just now.”
Internal bleed, her wolf Sable said at once, sharp and immediate beneath her ribs.
“Get me Dr. Henson and prep for surgical imaging now.”
She reached for the gel, ignoring the cold smear against Evan’s skin as she moved the probe over his upper abdomen. The screen flickered to life in grainy shadows and pale bands. She adjusted once, twice—then found the black pocket blooming where it had no business being.
There.
Her jaw tightened.
“Call the OR,” she said. “I want them ready before Henson gets here.”
The nurse didn’t even question her. She turned and moved.
Behind Talia, Mrs. Hale made a frightened noise. “What is it?”
Talia looked up from the screen. “He’s bleeding internally. We caught it in time.”
The woman’s face drained further, and for one awful second Talia thought she might collapse. She handed the probe to the tech beside her and stepped toward the mother, taking both her trembling hands before they could start wringing uselessly in the air.
“Listen to me,” she said, steady and low. “He is alive. He is conscious. He is in the right place, and we know what we’re dealing with now. I need you to hold onto that.”
Mrs. Hale’s eyes filled, but she nodded.
Across the room, more bodies were moving now, the atmosphere sharpening into that controlled urgency Talia knew better than her own reflection. Dr. Henson strode in, still fastening the cuff on one sleeve, and gave her one look.
“What do we have?”
“Splenic bleed,” Talia said. “Likely worsening over the last few hours. Free fluid here and here.” She pointed to the screen, already stepping aside to let him see it for himself. “Shoulder pain started seconds ago.”
Henson studied the image, then gave a single curt nod. “Good. Prep him for surgery.”
No surprise. Just confirmation.
That was enough.
The room surged fully into motion after that. Consent forms. IV line adjustment. Order relays. A second nurse taking Mrs. Hale gently by the arm. Talia stayed where she was until the bed was moving and Evan was on his way upstairs, his breathing still too fast, but steadier now that someone had finally named what was happening inside him.
Only when the doors swung shut behind the transport team did she strip off her gloves and let out the breath she’d been holding.
“You caught that fast.”
Talia glanced up.
Meg, a senior trauma nurse who had worked enough shifts beside Talia to count as something close to a friend, was leaning against the counter with a chart tucked under one arm. The dry look on her face meant she’d been impressed despite herself.
“He looked wrong,” Talia said, reaching for sanitizer.
“That is not a real explanation.”
“It’s the explanation you’re getting.”
Meg snorted.
Sable preened lazily beneath Talia’s skin.
I was right, she crooned.
You were, Talia agreed.
You could sound more grateful.
Talia bit back a smile and turned toward the sink before anyone could catch it.
The trauma wing was louder now than it had been ten minutes ago. Someone laughed down the corridor; somewhere else a supply cart rattled over tile. The overhead lights were too bright, the air scrubbed clean by filters that never quite erased the scent of antiseptic, blood, stress, and wolf. It was familiar enough that she barely registered it anymore. Most days, if she was honest, she felt more at home here than anywhere else.
That should have bothered her more than it did.
“Talia?”
She looked over her shoulder.
Dr. Camille Burton stood just outside the room, one hand curled lightly around the strap of her bag. She was still in scrubs, though somehow even those looked composed on her. Blonde glossy despite the shift. Lip gloss still intact. Not a wrinkle in sight. She wore exhaustion like it had the good sense not to touch her.
“Hey,” Camille said, stepping in with the sort of smile that always made her seem as if she were arriving at exactly the right moment in her own story. “Do you have a second?”
Meg’s expression went flat so quickly it was almost art.
Talia dried her hands. “What’s up?”
Camille let out a breath that was meant to sound apologetic. “I hate asking, but I’ve got a family emergency that just came up, and Henson said if anyone could cover the last stretch of my shift, it’d be you.”
Of course he had.
Camille tipped her head, all graceful regret. “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”
Sable gave a low internal huff.
Liar.
Talia ignored her.
She should have said no.
She had dinner plans. Actual ones. Gavin had asked her to come by after shift, and that alone had been enough to brighten the edges of the day. Not because dinner mattered so much, but because with him, it was often the small things that stayed with her longest. A night kept. A few hours carved out just for her. The quiet reassurance that, busy or not, he still came back to her. It had always been enough to make her happy.
Camille’s smile stayed perfectly in place, but there was a flicker of expectation under it now. Not arrogance exactly. Just certainty. The same certainty that came from a lifetime of doors opening more easily for her than for other people.
Meg shifted beside the counter. “Amazing how these family emergencies only ever happen at the end of Camille’s shifts.”
Camille turned to her with the same polished pleasantness, her face the picture of hurt. “You say that like I plan them.”
“No,” Meg said. “That would at least be efficient.”
Talia cut in before the air could sharpen further. “What’s left?”
Camille’s expression brightened with relief. “Just a few hours. Two post-op cases, one possible infection, and pediatrics is monitoring a shift-fever kid from Gray Hill.”
Nothing impossible. Just enough to drag her night out until whatever version of dinner Gavin had imagined would be gone.
Talia knew that. Camille knew it too.
Still, she nodded. “Fine.”
Camille reached forward and squeezed her forearm lightly, gratitude warm and instant. “You’re a lifesaver.”
It should not have felt like a trap when someone said that to a doctor. Yet somehow with Camille, it always did.
“Go,” Talia said. “Before you miss your emergency.”
Camille either missed the edge or was too practiced to acknowledge it. “Thank you. Really.”
Then she was gone, leaving perfume and polish and the faintest trace of satisfaction in her wake.
Meg watched the doorway for one beat longer before muttering, “I dislike her.”
“You dislike lots of people.”
“Yes, but I dislike her the most.”
Talia reached for the clipboard Camille had left behind and scanned the handoff notes. Two post-op cases, one infection watch, one pediatric monitor. Annoying, but manageable.
Behind her, Meg said, a little too casually, “Didn’t you have plans tonight?”
Talia kept her eyes on the page. “Maybe.”
“With Gavin?”
Talia shut the chart. “It was only dinner.”
Meg’s brows lifted. “That sounds serious.”
Talia gave her a look.
Meg only shrugged. “Everyone knows you two are practically carved into the walls by now. I’m just saying he could stand to make things easier on you once in a while.”
Talia frowned faintly. “He didn’t do anything.”
“Yet.”
There was something in Meg’s tone that made Talia look at her more closely.
Meg leaned one hip against the counter, expression unreadable in that careful way people wore when they were trying not to overstep. “I’m not starting anything.”
“You sound like you’re starting something.”
“I’m not.” She paused. “I just think he could be more considerate than to ask you to dinner on a night you would have already been working a long shift.”
Heat pricked faintly at the back of Talia’s neck. Not anger exactly. More the old reflexive discomfort of hearing someone nudge too close to a place she preferred to leave untouched.
“He’s busy,” she said.
Meg’s mouth flattened, just slightly. “He’s always busy.”
“He’s the Alpha’s son.”
“And you’re the Beta’s daughter, and a damn good doctor. It wouldn’t kill him to meet you halfway once in a while.”
The words landed harder than Talia wanted them to. Not because they were true. Because they pressed against something she didn’t want touched.
Gavin did make time for her. He came back. He remembered. Maybe not always in the ways other people would have wanted, but in the ways that had come to matter to her. Their relationship had never been loud or dramatic or all-consuming, but it had always felt steady in its own way. Familiar. Expected. Real.
People saw them together and didn’t question what it meant.
Neither had she.
“Meg,” she said quietly.
Meg exhaled, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “I know.” Her voice gentled. “I know.”
That was the problem with Meg. For all her sharpness, she did know when to stop.
Talia looked away first.
Gavin had sent word that morning. Late dinner, after shift. Nothing formal. Just come by. That alone had been enough to brighten the edges of the day.
Sable stirred again, restless this time.
I still don’t like it, the wolf muttered.
Talia ignored that too.
If she listened every time Sable offered an opinion on Gavin, she’d go mad. The wolf liked him in the uncomplicated way animals liked what was familiar: his scent, his voice, the easy old closeness of years spent expecting the same future.
Meg pushed off the counter. “Text him.”
Talia frowned. “What?”
“You heard me. Tell him you’re stuck here.”
“I know how phones work.”
“Questionable.” Meg started toward the door, then glanced back. “And Talia?”
“What?”
“If he makes you feel bad for this, I will personally trip him down the stairs.”
Despite herself, Talia laughed. “You are very dramatic.”
She texted Gavin a few minutes later while standing in the corridor outside pediatrics, the hospital quieter now in that strange after-midnight way where everything felt sharper because there were fewer voices to absorb the edges.
I got stuck covering someone’s shift. I’ll be late.
She stared at the message for a second after sending it, then slipped the phone into her pocket before she could begin regretting that too.
The reply came faster than she expected.
Don’t bother. You’ll be exhausted.
That was all.
Talia looked at the screen for a long moment.
No apology. No another night, then. No are you all right?
Just that.
Sable went still.
He could have waited, the wolf said after a moment. If he wanted you.
Talia locked the screen.
“He’s busy,” she murmured, though she wasn’t sure anymore whether she was speaking to Sable or herself.
A child cried behind one of the closed doors. Somewhere down the hall, a call bell sounded. Talia straightened, tucked the disappointment neatly where it belonged, and reached for the next chart.
There was always more work.
And if she was honest, work had never once told her not to bother.
