“He must be occupied,” she said quietly. The words felt like they scraped her throat on the way out.
Her stone vibrated in her palm.
A voice message.
She opened it almost instantly.
Nathanie’s voice came through—steady, composed, distant.
“Got it.”
Two simple words.
No concern. No question. No instruction to rest.
Just acknowledgment.
It felt as though every wolf in the infirmary could hear the emptiness in it.
Before the silence grew too suffocating, the receptionist called out from the front.
“Healer Adriana? A patient is requesting you.”
The excuse came like a lifeline.
“I’m coming,” she replied, rising too quickly and wincing as pain flared through her ankle.
The need to escape the room—escape their sympathetic glances—felt painfully familiar.
The last time she’d wanted to disappear this badly had been during her engagement feast.
That evening had been meant to mark the formal announcement of her union with Nathanie before the pack elders.
He had arrived late.
Hours late.
“Something urgent came up at the infirmary,” he had said, as though she hadn’t spent the entire evening answering polite but pointed questions alone.
For her, it had been a milestone.
For him, an afterthought.