The Alpha Who Rejected Me Is Begging at My Door

Chapter 15 – Bruises and Boundaries

By the time I made it back to the clinic the next morning, the city felt thinner.

Like the skin of it had been stretched too tight overnight and might split if anyone pushed in the wrong place.

“You look like hell,” Elian said by way of greeting as I stepped through the back door. He handed me a coffee before I’d even dropped my bag.

“You’re a saint,” I said, taking a grateful swallow. “And a liar. I’ve seen hell. It has less paperwork.”

He snorted, but his eyes lingered on my face a beat too long. “You sure you want to be here today?”

“No,” I admitted. “But if I stay in the forest any longer, I’ll start rearranging the ward stones with my teeth. Productive work seems safer.”

He blew out a breath, nodded. “Fair. We’ve got a light morning. Couple of vaccinations, one follow‑up on the half‑shift kid from last week.” His tone sharpened. “No sign of your new… fan?”

“Don’t call him that,” I said automatically. “And no. If he’s smart, he won’t show his face here again for a while.”

My wolf, curled just under my skin, huffed in disagreement. Predators didn’t usually waste that much setup on a single appearance.

“I told Mirael,” Elian added. “In… broad strokes. She wants you to know she has pepper spray and a cast‑iron skillet by the door now.”

Warmth pushed against the raw places in my chest. “Of course she does.”

He hesitated, then rapped his knuckles lightly against the counter. “Lyris. Yesterday, when the lights went weird… it felt like… pressure. In my head. Just for a second.”

I stilled. “Describe it.”

He frowned, searching. “Like someone opened a window I didn’t know was there and then slammed it shut again. Cold. Wrong.” His gaze met mine. “Was that… connected to what you and your alpha were talking about?”

The thin filament in my chest pulsed at the word window. I exhaled slowly.

“Maybe,” I said. “Which means you just volunteered for extra protection and possibly being lectured by three shamans at once. Congratulations.”

He grimaced. “I knew being friends with you would reduce my life expectancy.”

“Please,” I said. “You were the one injecting yourself with experimental wolf‑friendly anesthetics in med school. I’m just adding variety.”

He huffed a laugh, some of the tension bleeding away. “I’ll take variety over boring death.”

“So will I,” I said quietly.

The bell over the front door chimed. Both of us froze for half a heartbeat, then relaxed when a familiar, very human scent drifted in—Mirael, smelling like laundry detergent and yesterday’s soup.

She poked her head around the corner. “My God, the paranoia in this place,” she said, taking in our stances. “If anyone so much as sneezes suspiciously, you two are going to tranquilize them.”

“Funny you should mention tranquilizers,” Elian murmured.

“Don’t start,” I warned.

Mirael stepped fully into view, her gaze sweeping me from head to toe. “You eating? Sleeping? Not making pacts with mysterious men in black coats?”

“I prefer my men in flannel,” I said. “And no, I’m not making pacts. I’m making enemies. It’s very time‑consuming.”

She snorted and pulled something from her bag—a Tupperware container. “Lasagna. With extra cheese. Because you heal better with carbs.”

I took it, throat unexpectedly tight. “Thanks.”

“Also,” she added, more gently, “because loving people when the world is insane is how we all don’t fall apart.” She glanced between me and Elian. “That applies to both of you, for the record.”

We spent the next few hours doing exactly what we were allegedly too paranoid to handle: work. Vaccines, stitches, a nervous mother watching her half‑shift teen try to control her eyes when she got stressed. I showed the girl breathing techniques, watched the gold drain back out of her irises when she focused.

“You’re not broken,” I told her. “You’re just… more.”

Her shoulders loosened. Her mother’s eyes filled with tears.

Every small victory was a stitch in a much bigger wound.

Around midday, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Coren: Any sign?

Me: Just possessed cats and hormone‑addled teens. You?

Coren: Bored patrols. Everyone is disappointed our enemy isn’t stupid enough to try the same trick twice in two days.

Me: Tell them they can be bored and alive.

A pause.

Coren: You okay?

I looked around the clinic—Elian arguing with a delivery guy about the wrong size syringe order, Mirael at the front desk pretending to be grumpy at an old man who’d brought flowers “for his favorite receptionist,” the hum of human and not‑so‑human life flowing through these thin walls.

The cold filament in my chest was quiet, cocooned. The bond hummed warm and steady.

Me: Not okay. But functional.

Coren: I’ll take functional. We’ll work on okay later.

A ghost of a smile tugged at my mouth.

“What?” Elian asked, catching the expression.

“Alpha being sappy,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Too late,” he muttered, but his eyes were warm.

I slid the phone away and scrubbed my hands for the next appointment.

We were nowhere near safe. Rian and whoever held his leash were still out there, fingers hovering over old wounds they hadn’t made. The wall we’d built around my scar was new, untested.

But as I stepped into the next exam room, listening to a human heart thump under my stethoscope, feeling the faint echo of another heart in the forest through the bond, one thought settled like a stone in my gut:

They weren’t the only ones who knew how to use pain as leverage anymore.

This time, we weren’t the ones looking away from our own scars.