Kneel Alpha: The Surgeon Omega's Revenge

Chapter 13

Nora's POV

Evening rounds were my favorite. By then, the rush had settled. The waiting room was quieter. Most surgeries were finished. The day shift was counting the minutes until they could go home, while the night shift eased into place like it had all the time in the world.

It was easier to think. I finished updating the chart outside Room 509 before moving down the hall. A nurse waved as she passed. "Room 514 already had his antibiotics."

"Thanks."

I made a note without looking up. Routine. Everything worked because everyone followed the routine. I reached Damien's room a minute later. The door was halfway open. I knocked once before stepping inside. He wasn't there. The bathroom door stood open. Empty. Probably taking another supervised walk around the floor with physical therapy. Good. That made my job easier. The room was still. The heart monitor blinked patiently beside the bed. The IV pump hummed its steady rhythm. His jacket rested over the back of the chair where he'd left it after therapy. I picked up his chart from the foot of the bed. Blood pressure. Temperature. Silver levels. Everything looked exactly where I expected it to be. I was halfway through reading the latest lab results when something purple caught my eye. A piece of paper sat on the bedside table. Half tucked beneath a plastic cup. Purple crayon. I knew that shade. I looked at it for another second before reaching for it.

My fingers froze halfway there. I already knew whose drawing it was. I didn't need to see it. I picked it up anyway. A laugh almost escaped me. Almost. Two wolves smiled up from the page. One was much bigger than the other. Both had round faces. Round ears. Round paws. Neither looked much like a wolf. That wasn't the point. The grass was green. The sky was blue. And, in the top right corner— The sun. Of course. Iris put the sun in everything. Every drawing. Every birthday card. Every scrap of paper she could find. Rainy days. Snow. Nighttime. Didn't matter. The sun always showed up. When I asked her why once, she had looked at me like I was asking why people breathed. "The sun likes pictures."

That had been the entire explanation. Apparently, it had been enough. I smiled despite myself. Just a little. The kind of smile that came before you remembered why you shouldn't be smiling. I traced one finger over the edge of the paper. Purple crayon had rubbed onto the corner. She always pressed too hard. Marcus kept buying thicker crayons because the regular ones snapped in half. She broke those too. I carefully turned the drawing over. Big block letters covered the back. Uneven. Crooked. Written with fierce concentration.

DAMMY AND THE MAN

My chest tightened. Not painfully. Quietly. The kind of ache that arrived without asking permission. The man. That was what she'd decided to call him. Not Alpha. Not Damien. Not Father. Just... The man. Simple. Safe. A title that asked nothing from anyone. I looked back at the front of the drawing. The wolves stood side by side. Neither one was taller than the other by much. Neither one looked lonely. I remembered this morning. Iris had come bouncing into the apartment carrying her crayon box. "I have homework."

"You don't have homework."

"I gave myself homework."

She had spread paper across the kitchen table. Tongue sticking out in concentration. Purple first. Always purple first. I had made breakfast while she drew. She'd refused to let me see it. "No peeking."

"I wasn't peeking."

"You were thinking about peeking."

Apparently that counted. She'd folded the paper before slipping it into her backpack. I hadn't asked any questions. Children deserved their little surprises. Now the surprise sat in my hands. I looked toward Damien's empty bed. He'd kept it. Not folded away. Not tucked into a drawer. Not hidden under a book. Right there. Where he could see it. Where anyone walking into the room could see it. Something inside me shifted. Not enough to break. Enough to move. A quiet memory floated up before I could stop it.

Three years ago. My apartment. A refrigerator covered with grocery lists and appointment reminders. Damien had pinned one of my terrible sketches to it with a magnet. I had laughed. "It's awful."

"I like it."

"It's literally crooked."

"You made it."

That had settled the matter for him. The picture had stayed there until the day I left. I hadn't thought about that in years. Or maybe I had. Maybe I'd just gotten better at pretending I hadn't. The hallway outside filled with footsteps. Someone rolled a cart past the door. Voices drifted by. The hospital kept moving. Time kept moving. I stayed exactly where I was. Still holding a child's drawing. Still staring at two smiling wolves. I wondered how long Damien had looked at it before setting it down. I wondered if he'd smiled. I wondered if he'd touched the paper the same careful way I was touching it now. The thought settled somewhere deep inside me. Dangerously deep. I took a slow breath. This was just a drawing. A little girl had drawn two wolves. That was all. Except it wasn't. Because one wolf was named. The other wasn't. She hadn't drawn Damien. She hadn't drawn an Alpha. She had drawn...

The man.

The one who listened. The one who held Dammy carefully. The one who accepted crayons as though they were gifts worth keeping. Children noticed things adults missed. That had always scared me a little. I looked down one last time. The purple wolf smiled back at me. I carefully turned the drawing over again. My thumb brushed the words on the back.

DAMMY AND THE MAN.

I swallowed. Then I lowered the paper onto the bedside table exactly where I'd found it. Not an inch to the left. Not an inch to the right. The corner stayed tucked beneath the plastic cup. Just as it had been. I made sure of it. Then I stepped back. The chart still rested at the foot of the bed. Open. Waiting. Every habit I had built over three years told me to pick it up. Read the latest notes. Double-check the medication schedule. Review tomorrow morning's labs. I looked at it. I didn't move. For the first time since Damien Ashborne had been admitted to Ironveil Medical... I walked out of his room without checking his chart.