Aurora's POV
I wake up from the pain.
To be more accurate, before I'm fully conscious, it's already there — my face, my ribs, the places where Jasmine's claws went deep. I try to shift position and something in my left side fires white, and I go still and breathe through it until it settles.
The painkiller drip is empty.
I lie in the hospital bed and stare at the ceiling. Without a wolf, my body does this the slow way — hour by hour, the ordinary human method. There's no healing ability to lean on, no internal recovery that kicks in overnight.
I want to know where Noah is.
I can't sit up to find out.
The doctor comes in mid-morning, checks my chart, and moves through the injuries with the practiced calm of someone who has seen worse.
Deep claw marks on my face — significant, but t
