Chapter Four: Just This Once
1221 Words
~ ZARA ~
It was past midnight when someone knocked on my door.
Hard. Urgent.
I was already half awake so I heard it immediately. I grabbed my robe and went to the door and when I opened it Kael was standing on my porch.
I stared at him.
He stared at me.
"It's Mae," he said. "She collapsed about an hour ago. She won't wake up."
Mae was seventy three years old and had lived in Silverpine her whole life. She had brought food to my mother when my father left. She had sat with me the night my mother passed. She was not just a pack member.
She was family.
I was already moving before he finished the sentence.
"Give me two minutes," I said.
I threw on clothes, grabbed my kit from the healer's room, and packed what I thought I might need. My hands were moving fast and sure even though my brain was still catching up with the fact that Kael was standing on my porch at midnight.
I came back out and he was still there.
We walked.
Silverpine at night was quiet in a way that felt alive. The mountain air was cold and the main road was empty and our footsteps were the only sound. I kept my eyes forward and my kit close and told myself I was not aware of him walking next to me.
I was very aware of him walking next to me.
"How long has she been unconscious," I said.
"About an hour. Maybe a little more. Her breathing is steady but we couldn't wake her."
"Did she eat today?"
"I don't know."
"Did she complain about anything yesterday? Head pain. Dizziness."
"Her neighbor said she mentioned feeling tired. I thought it was nothing."
I nodded. Kept walking. Kept my head in the work.
We reached Mae's house in five minutes. A small blue house at the end of Birch Road with a light on in every window. Three pack members were standing outside looking worried. They stepped back when they saw me.
I went straight in.
Mae was lying on her couch, small and still, her white hair spread around her head. Her breathing was steady like Kael said but her color was off and her pulse when I checked it was slow.
I worked quietly and carefully. Checked everything. Asked the neighbor questions. Opened my kit and used what I needed.
Kael stayed in the doorway the whole time.
I could feel him watching. Not in a way that bothered me. Just present. Still. Like he was making sure I had whatever I needed without getting in the way.
After about twenty minutes Mae's eyes opened.
She looked at the ceiling. Then at me.
"Zara," she said. Her voice was small but clear.
"Hi Mae."
"What happened?"
"You fainted. Your blood pressure dropped. You probably did not eat enough today and you pushed yourself too hard." I squeezed her hand. "You are going to be fine. But you are staying in bed tomorrow. The whole day."
She made a face. "I have things to do."
"They will wait."
She looked past me at Kael in the doorway. Something moved across her face. Warm and knowing.
"You came yourself," she said to him.
"Of course," he said.
She looked between us and I could see exactly what she was thinking and I looked away before she could say it out loud.
I stayed another thirty minutes to make sure Mae was stable. Got her water and something small to eat. Gave her neighbor instructions and told her to come get me immediately if anything changed.
Then I packed my kit and said goodnight.
Kael was waiting outside.
We walked back the way we came. Same empty road. Same cold air. Same quiet that felt too comfortable for two people who were supposed to be nothing to each other.
"Thank you," he said.
"I was doing my job."
"You didn't have to come in the middle of the night."
"Mae needed help. Of course I came."
He was quiet for a moment. "You were good in there."
I looked straight ahead. "I know."
He almost smiled. I caught it from the corner of my eye.
"That's not arrogance," I said. "I've been doing this my whole life."
"I know. I didn't say it was arrogance."
"You were thinking it."
"I really wasn't."
We walked a little further. The road curved and the trees on either side got thicker and for a moment it felt like the rest of the town did not exist. Just this road and this cold air and the sound of our footsteps.
"Can I ask you something," he said.
"You can ask."
"Why healing. You're clearly good at it, but you could have done anything. Left Silverpine. Gone to school somewhere. You stayed and you chose this."
I thought about it. The real answer not the easy one.
"Because this is where I'm supposed to be," I said. "This town. These people. My grandmother did this. My mother did this. It's in my blood."
The last part came out before I thought about it.
In my blood.
I felt him look at me.
"What does that mean," he said quietly.
"It means I'm good at it and I love it. That's all."
He did not push. He just looked at me for a second longer than necessary and then looked back at the road.
But I could feel it. He wanted to ask more. I could tell. He was just choosing not to.
We reached my house.
I stopped at the porch steps. He stopped too.
This was the part where I was supposed to say goodnight and go inside and that would be that. Clean. Simple.
Instead I stood there.
And he stood there.
And the bond did what it always did, quiet and warm and patient, like it had all the time in the world.
"Kael." His name came out before I planned it.
"Yeah."
I looked at him. Really looked at him. Standing in the dark outside my house at one in the morning, jacket collar up against the cold, looking back at me like whatever I was about to say he was ready to hear it.
I almost told him.
I almost said it. The whole thing. The bloodline. The warning. The leather book. All of it.
The words were right there.
Then something stopped me. That old familiar fear sitting heavy in my chest reminding me what was at stake. Not just for me. For everyone.
"Nothing," I said. "Goodnight."
He looked at me differently for a second. He knew I was about to say something real. We both knew it.
But he just nodded.
"Goodnight Zara."
He turned and walked away down the road.
I watched him go.
Then I went inside and sat down on the floor right there in the hallway and pressed my back against the door and closed my eyes.
My wolf was not pacing this time.
She was just sitting quietly inside me.
Waiting.
Like she knew that whatever was happening between us had just moved one step closer to something neither of us could take back.
And the worst part was that I no longer knew if I wanted to stop it.
- Writer
