Axel and Atticus do not leave the hospital, not once, not even when the healers start insisting I am stable enough to be bored instead of terrified, because they take turns sleeping in the chair beside my bed and arguing quietly with nurses about rules that were clearly written for people who are not bonded to two overprotective alphas. I wake up more than once to find one of them half asleep with a hand resting on me like an anchor, and every time I do my chest loosens a fraction because it means I am still here and they are still here and the world has not tilted again while I wasn’t looking.
They flush the last of the wolfsbane out slowly, carefully, like they are dismantling a bomb one wire at a time, and the weakness fades in stages instead of all at once, my wolf stretching cautious
