I had never lost a patient before. Probably because I was a herbalist, not a healer. I didn’t often work in a room full of direly ill people, trying to save them as I raced against the clock. So, when the sickest of my patients, a man by the name of Pharel, started gasping for breath, I had raced to his side, sure that I could save, even though I knew that there was little else I could do without the antidote to whatever poison they had been given.
Sure enough, it was minutes later that Pharel’s heart had stopped beating. And despite me trying to revive him, he was gone.
Aurion showing up wasn’t a surprise. I had been expecting him. But, when he pulled me into his arms, I hadn’t been able to resist. He was my mate, no matter what I thought of it, and being held by him eased something in
