Chapter Nineteen
The cool night breeze blew through the entrance to the sick room. Susan took first watch, too exhausted to sleep, and looked after the patients.
No one had reacted adversely to the penicillin. Either shifters didn’t have allergies like humans or she’d done the test wrong.
She chewed on what was left of her thumbnail while sitting on the ground, her back against the wall and a frayed blanket over her lap. Fevers still raged, and one pup had trouble breathing earlier this evening.
Lailanie had focused most of her attention on the pup’s care. She used steam and pounding to loosen the phlegm, getting him to cough most of it out. They decided to give him an extra dose of the weak medicine.
Tears burned behind her eyelids, and she tried to blink them away. These people were strangers to her, but her soul would have fallen apart if that pup had died. The pack supported each other like a tight family, their love for each other palpable. She sniffed and rubbed her nose.
Compared to the pack, her parents were distant and her only brother cold. She never knew what she’d been missing until the Apisi.
The pack members treated her with respect, not like a stray as the Payami had. If she was trapped on Erothe she wanted friends. She wanted somebody who’d pat her back and help her cough when she was sick. She wanted to be loved.
But would the pack ever accept her?
Sorin entered the chamber. He used to frighten her. Not anymore. Huge for a human, he would have been mistaken for NFL linebacker on Earth. He could tie her in a knot with one hand but after this afternoon’s impromptu picnic, she doubted he’d ever hurt her.
His gentle side posed more of a threat than his feral beast, though. Stoic and loving was a killer combination in a male. Add those amber eyes and dark silver hair, and she was a goner.
Hovering over the sick bed, Sorin watched his sick pack slumber and didn’t notice her curled up against the far wall. Guess she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep.
She didn’t mind slipping his detection. The last few days’ events hadn’t given her enough time to observe him. Torchlight flickered and played over his muscles. He still wore the sleeveless shirt with his leather kilt. It gave a woman plenty to imagine.
The kiss they’d shared had curled more than her toes. Hot damn, without Lailanie’s interruption she doubted she would have kept her clothes on much longer.
She’d been with men. Nice men, not the kind to tear your clothes off and take you against the wall. Those types didn’t gravitate to her academic social circles.
Sorin lifted a foot and rested it on the edge of the bed.
“What are you doing?” she tried to whisper but it came out as a half-restrained shout. He shouldn’t expose himself unnecessarily.
“You were so still. I thought you were asleep.”
She struggled to stand with legs gone to sleep. “That’s not an answer.” Slapping her thighs, she tried to get the circulation going again.
He crossed the room and whispered, “I don’t answer to you.”
“Maybe you should.” The words slipped passed her brain-mouth filter. He loomed over her. The unnatural glow of his eyes reminded Susan she dealt with more than a man. She dealt with a wolf shifter. An alpha.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t challenge me. You’ll lose.”
Heat developed low in her abdomen. She allowed her eyes to travel from his rugged face, along his broad shoulders, to his strong chest. Losing could be fun. She shook the thought from her exhaustion-filled head.
“I can’t rest while they need me.” His soft voice broke the spell she’d fallen under. “I’m their alpha. I’m their strength.”
“How?” Did he mean literally or metaphorically? Either could be possible in another dimension. Hell, she was ready to believe anything at this point.
“It’s difficult to explain.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “A connection exists between each pack, a bond. The alpha…” He shrugged. “They’re—mine. I can sense it. My presence offers them—safety? It’s hard to explain, Susan. I can sense they need me. Leave it at that.”
She grimaced and gazed at the bed. “Fine, but they can’t afford to lose you either. A-and I don’t want you to get sick.” The possibility made her nauseated. Placing him in a grave would destroy something new and flourishing inside her.
“I’ve slept with them every night and lent them my strength since this started. I won’t stay away.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “If I get sick, I trust you to save me.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, savoring the moment. His faith in her was daunting, but she didn’t have the power to stop him. If he caught it she’d be there to support his cough and serve his medicine.
Sorin left her side and crawled onto the bed, settling in the center. The sick moved without waking, as if sensing him. They enveloped his body. The youngest were pushed closest to their alpha.
A pack connection, huh? Just another thing that made her different, an outsider. She hunched under the blanket by herself and rubbed the ache in her hollow chest.