The Alpha's Rejected Healer

Chapter 5: Not Broken

The silence after healing should have felt peaceful.

It didn't.

I sat on the edge of the cot, my hands still trembling, staring at the faint silver residue clinging to my fingertips. Across the room, the boy—Marcus, someone had called him—slept soundly for the first time in what his mother said had been eleven days. The black veins of Blood Rot had receded from his throat like tide pulling back from shore.

I'd done that.

Me. The wolfless girl. The pack disgrace.

My stomach turned, and I pressed my palms flat against my thighs to stop the shaking.

"Here."

Rhain's voice came from the doorway. Not close. Not crowding. He held out a ceramic mug, steam curling from its rim, and waited. He didn't step forward until I reached for it.

Our fingers didn't touch during the exchange. I noticed that. I noticed that he *made sure* of it.

"It's just ginger and honey," he said. "For the nausea."

I wrapped both hands around the warmth. "How did you know I—"

"You're pale as moonlight and you haven't breathed properly in four minutes." He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, keeping the full width of the room between us. "I've seen healers burn out before. Never like what you did, but the aftermath looks similar."

I took a sip. The heat steadied something inside my chest.

"I don't understand what happened," I whispered.

"I know." He studied me for a moment, his dark eyes unreadable. Then he said, "I want to show you something. But only if you're ready. It can wait until morning."

It couldn't. We both knew that. Whatever had poured out of me tonight—that silver light, that *song* in my blood—it demanded answers.

"Show me."

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He brought me to his study. Not the Alpha's office with its war maps and territory lines—a smaller room behind it, lined floor to ceiling with books so old their spines had turned to dust and leather. The smell hit me first: aged paper, cedar oil, something faintly metallic.

Rhain pulled a volume from the top shelf with careful hands. The cover was unmarked, but when he set it on the desk and opened it, the pages inside glowed faintly. Actual light, embedded in the ink.

"This belonged to my grandmother's grandmother," he said. "She was the last person in Crimson Hollow who remembered the old healer bloodlines."

He turned pages slowly until he found what he was looking for, then stepped back. Giving me space to approach on my own terms.

I looked down.

The illustration took my breath.

A woman stood beneath a crescent moon, her hands raised, silver light pouring from her palms into the chest of a wounded wolf. Her hair was unbound, dark, whipping in an unseen wind. And on her left wrist

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