Everett

The next time the door opened, a man carrying a tray entered, followed by Meleri balancing two trays. She lit up when she saw me. "Everett! I have to admit, I thought you might bolt."

She passed me a tray of food and pulled another chair over to Felix's bedside, setting her tray down next to his feet. Meanwhile, the man who had preceded her into the room did the same on the other side of the bed.

"I'm Magnus," he said, nodding at me with a friendly smile. "Felix and Meleri's brother."

"He's the youngest," Meleri said around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

"And how is that relevant, Mel?" Magnus demanded.

She shot him a glare and said, "Everett is Felix's mate. He should start learning about the family."

I balanced my tray on my knees and stared at Meleri. She couldn't be serious. I didn't need to know about their family. I was here to do a job, that's all. "Magnus, it's nice to meet you," I said. "Has Meleri mentioned the deal she and I made?"

Magnus' friendly smile disappeared and he suddenly looked very sad. "Yeah, she mentioned it."

"I need you to agree, too. You can't tell anyone anything about me or where to find me." I'd have to also have this talk with Paula. Would it lessen the kindness she offered me? My stomach churned.

Magnus ran a hand through his hair and looked between me and Felix. "You're set on leaving him, then?"

My stomach twisted again and I found myself squeezing tighter at Felix's hand. I looked over at him and tried to imagine leaving. It was impossible to picture, but not any more impossible than when I tried to imagine staying. "I don't know," I admitted. "This is... well, it's a lot. I know he's my mate, but I'm straight. I don't know if I can do this."

I glanced back at Magnus, who looked sympathetic. "I understand that, I really do. But you two are meant to be together. You'll never find a better match for yourself than my brother, and..." Magnus inhaled and exhaled deeply before continuing. "Look, Felix has been dreaming about finding his mate since we were kids. He was always so excited about it, and he still lights up when the topic comes up. I really want him to find with you the kind of happiness he's always dreamed of. He deserves it more than anyone else I know."

That made me feel sick, since I had always dreamed of my mate, too. I didn't think a single day had passed since I learned about mates where I didn't take some time to wonder what my mate was doing, when we would meet, how things would be between us. Even with Felix unconscious for our entire acquaintance, he had already made me feel more in one afternoon than anyone else had, ever. I didn't want to live a mateless existence.

But... how could I be with him?

I forced myself to focus on Magnus. I liked him already, which made it easier to ask something I had been wondering about all afternoon. "Don't you think he might be a little put off by the idea of a male mate?" I asked.

Magnus snorted. "No, he always knew he would end up with a man."

Meleri laughed – a little heh sound – and added, "Seriously, Felix is as sausage-loving as it gets." Her eyes widened and she threw her hands up in a panic. "Not that he's been promiscuous. You don't have to worry about that."

Magnus shook his head at her. "This is why you should let me do the talking, Mel."

I looked back to Felix. I had no idea what I expected a gay man to look like, but it wasn't like this. Maybe the beard was throwing me off? It looked unkempt and I wondered whether he usually kept himself clean-shaven.

Magnus cleared his throat. "Everett, I understand what you're going through right now and I really appreciate that you're staying to help my brother. I swear to you, I won't do or say anything that will lead him to you after all this is over. Just... please, consider staying. You wouldn't be mates if you couldn't make each other really happy." His rich brown eyes were fixed earnestly on mine, and I acknowledged it spoke well of Felix that his siblings loved him so much.

I nodded and let the conversation drop. We ate our food mostly in a companionable silence, with Meleri and Magnus occasionally sniping at each other. It was always good-natured and I enjoyed having some noise in the room. When it was just me and Felix here, the silence was oppressive.

After we were done eating, Meleri stood up and stretched, groaning. "Well, I'm exhausted. I'm going to go home to sleep in my own bed. It's so nice to be back in Lakota." She looked between Magnus and myself. "Do either of you need anything before I take off?" she asked.

I shook my head no, and Meleri collected our meal trays and left me alone with Magnus. The silence that fell wasn't comfortable. I was acutely aware that my only function here was to hold a complete stranger's hand.

Magnus leaned back in his seat and eyed me casually. "So, Meleri said you're from the Delta pack?"

Ah, so we had reached the small-talk portion of the evening. "Yeah, that's right."

He quizzed me on my position within the pack, my family, my hobbies – typical getting-to-know-you type questions. I, in turn, learned that Magnus taught science at the Lakota pack's high school, coached swimming, and didn't have living parents anymore. They had died while Felix was still in high school, and he had taken responsibility for his two younger siblings ever since.

Magnus studied his brother pensively. "We've always been really close," he said. "All three of us. Mel and I refused to leave Felix's side after his injury until Paula got him stabilized, then she insisted we go out looking for his mate. I didn't want to go since the odds of finding you weren't great and I was afraid of missing something important, but it turns out she was right."

It really did speak well of Felix that his siblings were willing to do so much for him. I wanted to learn more about him but wasn't sure how to ask without seeming too interested. I didn't want to get Magnus' hopes up. There was one question I badly wanted to know the answer to that wasn't too personal, though. "What happened to him?" I asked. It was a question I had been avoiding so far since I was afraid of what my reaction would be, but I needed to know.

Magnus' open, light expression disappeared. "Felix is a warrior, but his favorite job is training pack members as they age into being allowed to fight. He's been working with his latest class for the past few months and finally took them out for their first border patrol. There was an attack. One of his students claims he would have been mauled if Felix hadn't protected him."

"Who attacked?"

Magnus' lip pulled up in a snarl. "The Tomahawk pack. They've been pushing at our borders for the past year. We've had skirmishes, but Felix is the first person to be badly injured."

I looked at Felix while I tried to untangle my emotions. I felt stupidly proud of him, knowing he was only in this state because he protected his student. Fear was also clawing its way up my throat, fear that he would never awaken. And I was anxious that something like this would happen again if he stayed here in Lakota.

"He'll be okay," Magnus said. I looked at him, frowning, and he smiled a little. "Now that you're here, Felix will be okay. I really believe that."

"Thanks," I said, feeling exposed. Shouldn't I be comforting him? I didn't even know Felix. "What are his injuries?"

"He has several broken ribs and the wolf that got him almost tore his throat out, but the real problem is his head. He was thrown into a tree and hit his head pretty hard. The doctor said there was some bleeding, but not enough to need draining. We're still waiting for the swelling to go down. They run scans every morning and every day there's been improvement. The swelling is almost gone, but he hasn't shown any signs of waking up."

That was so much worse than I had imagined. Brain injuries were serious. We healed faster than humans did, but something about the brain confounded even our biology. It was the area of the body most likely not to recover fully if seriously injured. "Could he have brain damage after all this?"

I studied Magnus closely, wanting to be certain that I caught any evasion on his part. He just shrugged, though. "Yeah, it's a possibility. Paula doesn't think it's likely, though, especially not with you here."

This conversation haunted me after Magnus left me alone. Images of myself taking care of my disabled mate flickered through my mind, making the whole thing seem more impossible to me. How could I possibly stay? But how could I leave him?

Later that night, long after Magnus kissed Felix's forehead and offered me a sad parting smile, I shut down my work laptop and readied for bed. I had to convince myself to release Felix's hand, and once I did I rushed through my nighttime routine feeling like every second separated from him mattered. It was just because of his condition, knowing that his healing slowed when I was away.

That anxiety erased my hesitation when it came time to climb into Felix's hospital bed. I sat down gently, careful to avoid the many tubes and wires coming off of him. The night nurse had explained that Felix had been catheterized to handle his bathroom needs while he was out. It was an uncomfortable conversation, but at least now I knew to be extra careful not to jostle him there.

Not that I would have anyway.

I eased myself against his side, relying on my arm against his to keep the healing moving faster. I had my own pillow, which was good since he had thick bandages around his neck that I was afraid of disturbing. Magnus had said Felix's throat was almost torn out, I recalled with a shudder, and took care to keep my head well away from him.

Once I was settled in, I stared at the shadowed room. It couldn't go completely dark because of the lights on the medical machines. They beeped periodically, and even though the volume was turned all the way down, it was jarring every time. The night nurse assured me she had muted everything she could. It was not enough.

How's a person supposed to get some rest? I wondered. Didn't people in the hospital need more sleep, not less? Another machine blared and I debated putting my pillow over my head to try and dampen the sound.

The fact that Felix lay completely still and didn't react made me shudder and slide a little closer to him for comfort. I breathed in the scent of him, which saturated the room, and focused on the pleasant tingling feeling where our arms met. It became almost too easy to fall asleep.

The next morning, I woke up to Paula's smiling face as she checked on Felix. My cheeks heated when I realized the position she had found me in. My head was tucked on Felix's shoulder – thankfully not pressing against the bandages on his neck – and my legs were entangled with his. I couldn't have touched Felix more unless I was laying on top of the man.

I carefully withdrew, though I didn't ever let go of Felix completely. It took a little maneuvering, but I managed to get myself back in my chair with his hand clasped in mine. Having Paula there watching me made it much easier to pull away from Felix, so I supposed I was grateful she had come in.

I watched in silence as Paula went through the same routine she had done yesterday afternoon and that the night nurse had echoed a few hours later. When she was done, she glanced at me and smiled when she found my eyes riveted on her.

"He's doing better but he still isn't responding to stimuli. Now the wrapping on his ribs is going to come off – it was only still on as a precaution and he won't need it going forward. I'm also going to change his bandages. I might have you help me with this part if you don't mind."

"Of course," I replied automatically.

Paula carefully pulled down Felix's blanket to expose the wrapping on his ribs. It slipped further down on the one side, and I balked at the expanse of skin I was seeing for the first time. His torso was completely bare – something I couldn't have helped noticing last night when I crawled into bed with him, but it was dark then. The only clothing Felix had on was a pair of faded black sweatpants sitting low enough that I could see his hipbone peeking out over the waistband where the blanket lay lower. I barely stopped myself from reaching forward and tracing it with my thumb.

I ripped my eyes away only to have them land a little higher, on his sculpted chest. There were a few old scars there, the skin paler. I wanted to run my fingers along each one. I bet the skin was smoother there. My canines lengthened as my more animalistic side took over, ready to pounce on him. That side was easy to reign in – I just had to remind myself that he was injured and I regained control of myself.

I glanced up and Paula smiled, her eyes amused. "Ready to proceed?" she asked. When I blushed in response, she chuckled. "Sorry, I know this isn't an ideal situation. You shouldn't be seeing him like this for the first time without being able to act on it, and you certainly shouldn't have to have another person in the room. Let's just carry on the best we can, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks, Paula." Her unwaveringly cheery demeanor and bluntness were exactly what I needed.

"Don't worry about it, Everett. Now, we're going to need to get him into a sitting position so I can unbind his ribs. I'm going to cut them off, but could use some help lifting him up to slip them out from underneath."

This was only the second time I had let go of Felix since I entered this room fifteen hours. I released my grip on his hand just as Paula reached forward and started pulling out the clips that held his binding in place. The back of her fingers brushed the skin just over his wrapping and a nasty snarl ripped through my lips. Paula snatched her hand back and stepped away from Felix while I smacked a hand over my mouth, shocked.

"I'm so sorry, Paula. That was an accident."

She shook her head and her smile came back. "No, I apologize. That was bad timing on my part. Can you lift him up a bit so I can slide these bandages out?" Paula continued on as if nothing had happened, and I was grateful. She showed me where to slide my hands – one under his shoulder blades and one under his lower back – but I was hesitant to actually lift him up.

"You're not going to hurt him," she assured me, so I pulled up on him and learned that Felix is heavy. That, or I was weak. But I managed to lift him just enough that the bandages pulled free. I withdrew and clasped his hand again, settling on the edge of the bed instead of the chair this time. It made sense to sit closer, I thought. Proximity might calm my haywire mating instincts during Paula's examination.

She disposed of the bandages and typed on her computer for a couple of minutes, during which I didn't have much to do other than watching Felix. There was a small cleft in his chin, I noticed. I wanted to trace it but resisted the impulse. His hand was bigger than mine and calloused. There was something kind of nice about the feel of it wrapped in my own. My heart beat at the internal admission.

When I got myself under control again, I looked to Paula and saw that she was ready for whatever came next.

"What now?" I asked.

"I need to change the bandages on his neck." She took gauze and medical tape out of a drawer and laid them out with a tiny pair of scissors, along with a small tub whose label was turned away from me.

"How long has it been since he was hurt?" I asked.

"Twelve days."

I had never known anyone to be in a coma this long. In fact, I'd never known anyone in a coma, ever. But that sounded like a really long time. Shouldn't she be more worried about him?

Paula stepped forward and winced apologetically. "I'm going to need to touch him quite a lot. Can you handle that?"

I hated that it was a valid question. I didn't want any hands on him other than my own and my canines lengthened just thinking about her touching him "quite a lot." He needed this, I reminded myself. She was helping him get better. "Yeah, I can handle it."

Paula carefully cut the bandages on his neck, and I had to look away. How was she not nervous about using scissors so close to a person's carotid artery? I looked back when his neck was exposed, and nausea hit me hard. I think I would have lost my breakfast if I'd had any. How could it still look this bad after twelve days? I could see the deep punctures where teeth had torn into him. Whoever clamped on his neck had shaken his head while biting, shredding the skin. The worst of it looked like ground meat and oozed with reddish-clear liquid.

"It's going to heal just fine," Paula assured me. "I know this looks awful, and he will have some scarring, but that's all."

I replayed her words in my head until my pounding chest calmed and the nausea let up. "How is it still this bad?" I asked.

Paula shrugged. "His body has been splitting its healing between all of his injuries. Most of his energy is going toward that head wound, which is good, and his ribs are completely healed now. They posed more of a risk to him, so his body instinctively prioritized them over the neck once the bleeding had stopped. Now that his ribs are fixed and you're here, his neck should start improving again."

I looked back down at the bloody mess that was my mate's neck and pushed back a swell of tears. I was glad he wasn't awake to feel this pain. Also, selfishly, I noted with relief that one side of his neck was still relatively unscathed. My gaze fell on the place I would mark him if I stayed and my gums throbbed with the effort I put into keeping my teeth at bay.

I looked back to Paula, who was being incredibly patient with me. "Would it help if I licked it?" Our saliva had healing properties, especially for our mate. As gross as his neck looked, I would do it.

Her brows raised. "Would you mind? I know that's not something everyone can wrap their minds around, especially on a wound this messy and when you don't really know each other."

Yeah, I was still trying not to look at the messiness of his wound. I was surprised by my own conviction on this. "I'll do it if you think it will help him."

"It would definitely help him. Let me clean it up first – most of the liquid you see is what's left of the salve I've been applying each morning. Your saliva will work much better than that ever could."

I held Felix up while she carefully cleaned his neck. It did look a lot better once the gloppy salve was gone. I could see that the wounds had a thin layer of fresh pink skin on the shallow spots, while the deeper punctures still glistened with blood.

"Okay," Paula said. "Your turn. Let me hold him up so you can reach his neck better, okay?"

I nodded and carefully withdrew myself from him while Paula took my place. Then, not giving myself any time to think about what I was about to do, I lapped at his neck, tracing over each wound with my tongue. My mouth automatically filled with extra saliva so I could really coat his wounds in it. When I was sure I had covered every inch of wounded skin, I sat back and examined my handiwork. I thought it already looked better.

Paula nodded approvingly as I reclaimed my place behind him, holding him up while she wrapped his neck again in many layers of gauze and padding. When she was done, she said, "I can't wait to see how that looks tomorrow."

If only I could do so much for the edema in his brain.