I opened my mouth to refuse. He pushed me into the chair, barking at the healer to hurry. From start to finish he offered no explanation. The needle slid into my arm and he turned away without looking back, his expression tight with worry as he strode toward the room where Hazel Ashford lay.
The healers murmured as they worked.
"What happened? The young Alpha seems frantic."
"What else? His mate had a ruptured ovarian cyst, massive bleeding. They just brought her in."
"Three years mated and he still acts like this. She must be the center of his whole world."
Each word drove into me like a fang.
So that was it. Their intimacy had caused the hemorrhage. The infirmary's blood stores ran short, and he saw me in the corridor and dragged me in without a second thought.
While he had been tangled up with the one he loved, I had been losing our pup.
If he had spared me even a single moment of attention, he would have seen. The pallor. The trembling. The faint scent of blood that was not Ashford's. But he hadn't. His world had never held room for anyone but Hazel Ashford.
I smiled. The tears came anyway, sliding down my cheeks faster than I could stop them.