They put Iris in the east wing.

I heard the nurses talking about it while they changed my IV.

"Private suite. Moon-lamp therapy, a full-time bond specialist, the works."

"Who's paying?"

"The professor signed for all of it."

They glanced at me and went quiet.

My room had a plastic chair, a window that didn't open, and a thermometer that kept climbing. My stomach cramped every few minutes, like a fist closing and opening inside me. The torn mark on my neck throbbed with its own heartbeat.

Nobody came for six hours.

Then the door opened, and Owen walked in.

His shirt was wrinkled. His eyes were red. He stopped at the foot of my bed and gripped the rail, and for a long moment he didn't speak.

"They told me," he finally said. "About the baby."

I watched the ceiling. "Did they?"

"Maris." His voice broke on my name. He came around the side of the bed and dropped into the plastic chair. "Why didn't you—I didn't know. I swear to God, I didn't know."

"I tried to tell you."

"I know. I know you did." He pressed both hands over his face. His shoulders shook. "I only wanted to save her life. That's all. I never thought the rejection could hurt the baby. I never thought it could hurt *you* like this."

He was sobbing now. Real tears, sliding between his fingers.

I felt nothing. Just the fever, and the slow ache low in my belly.

He leaned over and wrapped his arms around me. His chin dug into my hair.

"I'll make this right," he whispered. "Whatever it takes. I'll make it up to you. We'll try again. I promise, Maris. I promise."

That was when I smelled it.

Rain and wild mint, sweet and fresh. Soaked into his collar, his skin, the inside of his wrist.

Iris.

Her scent was all over him. Not the faint trace of someone he'd sat beside. The deep, fused smell of a true mate bond, sealed only hours ago.

My throat closed. I shoved at his chest.

"Get off me."

He pulled back, startled. "What?"

"You smell like her." I turned my face toward the wall and swallowed hard against the nausea. "I'm going to throw up."

His face went pale. He looked down at his own shirt like he'd never seen it before.

"It's the bond," he said quickly. "It's not—it doesn't mean anything. It's chemistry."

"Then go wash your chemistry off."

He opened his mouth to argue.

His phone buzzed.

He checked the screen, and every muscle in his face changed. "Her heart rate's spiking."

"Of course it is."

"Maris, don't." He was already standing. "The doctor said I need to stay close to her for now. Her wolf is still unstable. If I'm too far away, the bond could collapse."

"And when she's stable?"

"Then I end it." He met my eyes. "The second she's strong enough. I told you that."

"You told me that six weeks ago."

"This time is different."

He kissed my forehead. I didn't move. He left.

He came back an hour later. Sat for twenty minutes. Held my hand.

His phone buzzed again.

"She's crying," he said, almost apologetic. "Her wolf feels scared. I just need to calm her down."

He left.

The third time, he didn't even sit.

"She says her wolf is restless," he said from the doorway. "I'll be right back."

I laughed. A short, dry sound.

He frowned at me. "What's funny?"

"Nothing." I rolled onto my side. "Go."

He didn't come back.

---

By midnight, the fever had teeth.

I woke up drenched. My hospital gown stuck to my back. The mark on my neck had gone from hot to burning, and when I touched it, my fingers came away wet and yellow.

Then the cramp hit.

It folded me in half. Something warm spilled between my legs again, and I knew without looking.

I fumbled for the call button. Pressed it. Pressed it again.

No one came.

I grabbed my phone off the tray. My hands were shaking so badly I misspelled every word.

*Owen, I'm bleeding again.*

*Something's wrong with the mark. It's infected.*

*Please come back. Get a doctor.*

*Owen.*

*Please.*

The screen stayed silent. Delivered. Delivered. Delivered.

I called.

It rang four times. Then it picked up.

"Hello?"

It wasn't Owen.

The voice was soft, sleepy, sweet. A girl's voice.

"Iris," I said. "Put Owen on."

"Oh. Mrs. Marlow." A small pause. I could almost hear her smiling. "He just fell asleep. Right here, next to my bed. He's still holding my hand. I don't want to wake him. He's so tired."

"I'm bleeding." My teeth were chattering. "Wake him up."

"He hasn't slept in two days, you know. He was so worried about me." She sighed. "You understand, right? You're his ex-wife. You must know how he gets."

Ex-wife.

"Iris—"

"Goodnight, Mrs. Marlow. I'll tell him you called."

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone. Then I threw it at the wall.

I needed a nurse. I needed someone.

I swung my legs off the bed. The room tilted. My knees gave out, and I hit the floor shoulder-first. The IV ripped free of my arm. Blood beaded down my wrist.

I didn't scream. There was no one to hear it.

I pulled myself forward on my elbows.

The tile was cold. My gown dragged through a smear of red behind me. The door was heavy, and it took me three tries to push it open with my shoulder.

The hallway lights had been dimmed for the night. The nurses' station sat at the far end, a pale square of glow.

Thirty feet. Maybe forty.

"Help," I called. My voice was a scrape. "Somebody."

Nothing. A machine hummed behind one of the doors. Down another hall, I caught the low murmur of a television.

I crawled.

Every few feet I stopped and pressed my cheek to the floor until the black spots faded. The thread in my neck pulled tight, and for one second I felt him through it. Warm. Asleep. Peaceful.

He felt *peaceful*.

I dug my nails into the tile and dragged myself another foot.

The station was empty. A cup of coffee sat on the desk, still steaming.

I reached up for the edge of the counter.

My fingers slipped.

The ceiling went white.

---

"—Maris. Maris, can you hear me?"

Tessa's face swam above mine. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

"Sepsis," someone said behind her. "Two units in. She's lucky."

"She was on the floor for who knows how long," Tessa snapped. "Right by my desk. I stepped away for *ten minutes*."

I tried to talk. My tongue felt like wool.

"Don't," Tessa said gently. "Just breathe."

Gray light was leaking through the window. Morning.

The door opened.

Owen stood there with his hair flattened on one side, like he'd slept against something. He had a crease on his cheek from a pillow that wasn't mine.

And the smell came in ahead of him. Rain and mint. Stronger than yesterday. Thick enough to taste.

He looked at the blood bags. The bruise blooming purple across my arm. The new bandage on my neck.

"What happened?" He crossed the room fast. "Tessa called me. She said you almost died. Maris, why didn't you tell me?"

Tessa turned her head and stared at him.

I said nothing.

"I mean it." He grabbed my hand. "If something was wrong, you should have called. I would have come. You know I would have come."

I looked at his fingers wrapped around mine. The same fingers that had held hers all night.

I thought about the messages. The call. The soft little voice saying *goodnight, Mrs. Marlow*.

I could tell him. I could pick up my cracked phone and show him every word.

And he would say she was confused. She was sick. She didn't mean it.

I slid my hand out of his.

"You're right," I said. "I should have called."

He blinked. He'd been braced for a fight, and I could see he didn't know what to do without one.

"Maris—"

"I'm tired, Owen."

Tessa cleared her throat. "She needs rest."

He hesitated. Then he nodded and stepped back.

At the door, he paused. "I'll come back this afternoon."

"Sure."

When he was gone, Tessa bent down and picked something up from under the chair. My phone, its screen spidered with cracks.

She held it out to me. Then stopped.

"Maris," she said slowly, staring at the screen. "Your call log says you spoke to his number for forty-one seconds last night."

She looked up at me.

"Who answered?"

I never answered Tessa's question. I closed my eyes and let the fever pull me under.

When I woke, the light had gone orange. Owen was sitting in the plastic chair, elbows on his knees, watching me.

"She's out of danger," he said before I could speak. "Iris. Her wolf stabilized this afternoon. The doctor says she'll make a full recovery."

I stared at him. "Congratulations."

He flinched. "Maris, that's not why I'm telling you." He leaned forward. "I did it. I spoke the rejection to her an hour ago. The true bond is already cracked. Once she accepts, it's over."

"Once she accepts."

"She will. She's just scared right now." He reached for my hand. I pulled it under the blanket. His fingers closed on empty sheet. "I gave up my fated mate for you. Do you understand what that means? Wolves wait their whole lives for that, and I said no. For you."

"You said no to me first."

"To save a life." He scrubbed a hand down his face. "Let me fix it. We'll redo the chosen bond. New marks, a new ceremony, whatever you want." His voice softened. "And we'll have another baby. As many as you want. I promise."

Another baby.

As if the first one were a vase he'd knocked off a shelf.

I thought about the tile under my cheek. The coffee steaming on an empty desk. A sweet voice saying *goodnight, Mrs. Marlow*.

"No," I said.

He sat back slowly. "No to what?"

"To all of it."

For a second he only looked at me. Then his jaw locked.

"You know what I see when I look at you right now?" he said quietly. "Someone who only counts the dead. A girl is alive because of me, Maris. Alive. And you won't even look at that. All you see is the baby."

The room went very still.

"All I see," I repeated, "is the baby."

"That's not what I—"

"Get out, Owen."

He stood. At the door he turned, like he had one more thing to say. Then his phone lit up in his hand, and he left without saying it.

Something inside me went quiet after that. Not broken. Just finished.

---

By midnight I could stand.

I held the railing along the hallway wall and took one step, then another. My legs trembled like a newborn foal's. The nurses had told me to walk a little before bed. I wanted to prove I could leave on my own feet.

I reached the corner by the east wing and stopped.

"Easy. Easy, sweetheart."

Owen's voice. Low and warm, the way he used to talk to me on Sunday mornings.

The private suite's door hadn't latched. A strip of soft blue moon-lamp light spilled across the floor.

I should have turned around. I pressed my palm to the wall and moved closer.

Iris lay on the bed with her hospital gown pushed up to her ribs. Owen was over her, shirtless, his weight braced on his forearms so none of it touched her chest. Her bare thighs were wrapped around his hips.

"Owen," she whimpered. Tears ran into her hair. "I won't ask you for anything. I swear. I just wanted to know what it feels like. Having my true mate. Once. Before you're gone forever."

"Shh." He kissed one tear off her cheekbone, then the other. "You don't have to explain."

"Am I hurting you? Is this okay?"

"Iris, you're perfect." He reached up and tucked the pillow higher under her head, adjusting it twice until her neck rested easy. "Better?"

She nodded. He kissed her slowly, open-mouthed, and pushed into her.

I watched his hips roll forward, unhurried. Her nails slid down his bare back. Her breasts rose under his palm as he stroked his thumb across her nipple, gentle as if she might break.

"Fuck, Iris," he breathed against her throat, right over his new mark. "You feel so good. Look at me. Stay with me."

"I'm here. Owen, don't stop."

"I won't. I've got you."

He kept that slow rhythm, never rough, never rushing. He checked her face every few strokes. He whispered her name over and over, like a prayer.

Nine years. Nine years, and he had never once checked my face.

I didn't cry. I didn't push open the door. I didn't scream his name down the hall.

Instead, I touched the torn mark on my neck and felt that last thin thread, humming with his pleasure.

"I, Maris Marlow," I said, clear and calm, "accept your rejection, Owen Marlow."

The thread snapped.

It sounded like nothing. It felt like a door closing inside my chest.

Inside the room, Owen jerked. A raw cry tore out of him. He rolled off the bed and hit the floor on his knees, both hands clawing at his ribs where my mark had lived.

"Owen?" Iris sat up, clutching the sheet. "Owen, what's wrong?"

He lifted his head. His gold eyes found the gap in the door.

Found me.

"Maris," he gasped.

I turned and walked.

My legs shook, but they held. The elevator was twenty steps away. I counted every one.

"Maris! Wait!"

Bare feet slapped the tile behind me. I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby.

Owen stumbled into the hall, chest bare, belt hanging open. His face had gone gray with pain.

"Don't," he panted. "Maris, please. Don't do this."

The doors began to slide.

I twisted the ring off my finger. It came free easily. I'd lost weight these past six weeks, and he had never noticed.

I tossed it. It bounced once and rolled against his bare toes.

He stared down at it like it was a bullet.

Behind him, Iris stood in the doorway, wrapped in the white sheet, hair tangled.

"Owen," she called, small and trembling. "Come back to bed. Please. I'm cold."

He didn't move. He was looking at me.

For the first time in nine years, he was really looking at me.

The doors closed.

---

The lobby was empty. The night air outside smelled like wet asphalt and nothing else. Not rain. Not mint. Not him.

I walked past the taxi line in a hospital gown and borrowed slippers.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I expected Owen.

It was an unknown number.

*Mrs. Marlow. This is Larkin House. We heard you might be free again. Call us. It's about your mother's formula.*