Chapter Ten

Raven

My head was pounding, but I had to pee, which meant I had to crack my eyes open. I didn’t want to. It felt like I’d barely gotten to sleep. But I knew that wasn’t the case because I’d already woken up a few times and willed myself to ignore my needs. That didn’t pan out well—dreams of having to find a toilet are never fun.

So I did it. I forced my eyes open, taking so much more energy than it should have. And when I did, there was a man standing over me. One I thought I’d never see again: the healer.

I froze, unsure of what to say or do. Then I felt my mate’s hand on mine, his warmth giving me strength. It was all going to be okay. Sutton was here.

“He’s here to help, honey,” Sutton said gently. “You’ve been asleep a long time.”

“Pee.” That was all I managed to get out.

Sutton looked at me, unsure how to respond.

“Gotta pee.” It was closer to a sentence.

“Oh…okay.”

The healer stepped back, and Sutton got out of my way. But, when I stood up, everything started to spin, and suddenly Sutton was by my side again, making sure I didn’t fall.

“I’ll take you in there and let you…do your thing.” It was cute how he avoided saying I needed to urinate. Or at least it would’ve been cute if my head didn’t feel like it was being slammed repeatedly with a sledgehammer.

He stayed by my side, giving me physical support as I needed it on the short trip to the bathroom. And then he afforded me the privacy I needed.

My head was still throbbing, but the dizziness had subsided. I no longer felt like I was going to topple over. If I had, I’d have asked Sutton to stay with me. I wasn’t too proud to accept his assistance.

I had no idea how long I’d slept after Tyrus and Pop-Tart came over. I’d been tired. I thought it was just the stress of everything hitting me at once and that I needed a nap. But the more I slept, the more I needed to sleep.

Sutton would wake me up, give me something to drink and a whole lot to eat, and I’d go right back to bed. It wasn’t that I was sick, exactly, but something was off. Something was wrong.

When I was done with the bathroom, I went straight back to the bed. What I wanted to do was stop by the kitchen and grab a sandwich or five, but the healer was still in our space. Whatever was going on while I was sleeping had made Sutton nervous enough to call for him. And, based on my headache alone, being seen by him was a really good plan.

“Why are you back?” he asked.

I closed my eyes, the dim lights too much for me.

The healer was one of the people there that night and, based on his tone, he was also a member of the Raven-Doesn’t-Belong-Here Club.

“I’m back because my jackal wouldn’t let me stay away.” I attempted to open my eyes, but it was too much work. “He needed me here. He scented Sutton as ours.”

“I heard.” Then, why did he ask? Couldn’t he see I was tired? And grumpy. Apparently very, very grumpy.

“All right.” The healer held something under my nose, my eyes popping wide open and my head instinctively moving out of the way. “Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

He asked me a thousand questions, used tools to listen to different parts of my body, poked and prodded at others, took samples of blood and saliva, and had me drink some nasty concoctions. He even held his hands over body parts like he thought it would accomplish something. And maybe it did. I knew less than nothing about healing.

When he was done, he turned to Sutton and said, “We need to feed him.”

“On it.” He all but ran out of the room.

“I can go to the kitchen,” I offered, trying to climb out of bed.

“No,” the healer said firmly. “You need to eat here and without exerting more energy than needed. “Your beast is starving. Don’t you feel him?”

Now that he brought it up, I realized I didn’t feel him at all. Not his hunger. Not his emotions. Nothing.

“No. No, I don’t. Is he sleeping?” For the first time, I was really worried. Being tired I could explain away, but my beast? He was always up when I was.

“Probably. Or he’s too weak because he needs food.”

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Because none of this sounded good.

“I can, and I will—while you’re eating.”

Sutton came back a few minutes later with a triple-decker sandwich, a cut-up apple, and some peanut butter. I ate and, when I was halfway through my sandwich, the healer began his explanation.

“The problem is you have two bonds. One is just beginning, and the other one isn’t gone.”

“Okay…” That wasn’t new information to me.

Sutton sat on the bed beside me.

“Do you feel it?” the healer asked Sutton.

“I feel our bond,” Sutton said.

“Do you feel that your bond is…kind of off-kilter?”

“I’ve never had a mate before. I don’t know how it’s supposed to feel.”

“Well, not like that.”

The healer had the worst bedside manner ever. Or, maybe this was normal. I didn’t know, my jackal kept me pretty healthy, until now, that was.

“Right now, you have a half-bond from your first mate, and that’s dangerous on a good day—especially the way they did it. And, on top of that, you have this newly forming bond trying to smoosh the other one out of existence.”

“Let it. I never wanted it in the first place.”

“You don’t understand. It can’t just do that. That’s not how it works. The alpha who left you with this half-bond is the worst of our kind.”

“He’s dead.” Thank fuck.

“Good.” The healer didn’t mince words.

I thought he already knew from the night he helped me, but maybe he was one of those healers who worked on the wrong side of the law and never asked questions. He seemed the type.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that these bonds are going to keep fighting each other. What we need to do is sever the half-bond.”

“Could you do it now?” I was all for getting it gone. I kept thinking it would go away completely. “It’s so much better than it was.”

“I dampened it,” the healer admitted. “I didn’t sever it because that night you needed to get as far from here as you could. And, frankly, severing it completely is dangerous.”

“Then we don’t do it.” Sutton’s voice was sharp. “Have a good night, Healer.”

My mate was pissed.

“I’ll leave if you want me to,” the healer said. “But listen to my words and believe them. Not doing this is worse. It will kill your mate slowly, and it will drive his beast insane.”