The Man from That Night

Maisie’s fever began just after midnight.

She had gone to bed insisting that wolves did not need socks. By one she was tangled in the blanket, whimpering, with fur appearing and vanishing along her forearms.

I called Ronan before I reached her bed.

He arrived barefoot, his hair disordered, and lifted her without hesitation.

“I’m here, little moon. Tell me what hurts.”

“My hands won’t stay.”

Her fingers curled, became paws, returned to fingers. She looked at them in terror.

I drew the curtain aside so the room was cooler and moved the hard toys away from the bed. Ronan held her against his chest while I called the pack healer.

Dr. Mara Holt arrived with a bag and the unhurried movements of someone determined not to add her fear to ours.

“A growth surge,” she said after examining Maisie. “Strong little wolves sometimes get ahead of themselves. We’ll bring the temperature down and help her settle.”

“Will she hurt herself?” I asked.

“Not if we keep her comfortable and watch her.”

I measured the medicine while Ronan persuaded Maisie to drink water. She refused the cup until he took a sip himself.

“See? No beetles.”

“I didn’t say beetles.”

“You looked suspicious.”

She managed a weak smile.

We sat on either side of her. When her breathing quickened, I breathed slowly enough for her to follow. Ronan let his wolf rise near the surface, filling the space with the steady scent of pine and cold stone.

Maisie’s small body relaxed between us.

My own wolf stirred so strongly that I pressed a hand over my chest.

Mara noticed. Her gaze moved briefly between Ronan and me, then returned to her patient.

There was one frightened half hour when Maisie could not bear the feel of her own sleeves.

“They’re grabbing me,” she cried, pulling at the cuffs.

Ronan started to lift her arms, then stopped when she recoiled.

I took a loose blanket from the chair and laid it over his knees.

“We can take the pajama top off,” I told her. “One arm at a time. You tell us when.”

She shook her head fiercely.

“Then we’ll wait.”

I loosened the buttons while she watched my hands. Ronan held the blanket open so she could see where she would go afterward. It took several minutes, but she eventually pushed one hand through, then the other.

Once she was wrapped in the blanket, her breathing eased.

“I didn’t like it,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said. “You told us very clearly.”

She put her hot forehead against his jaw.

Mara checked her again, then gave me a small nod. We had made room for the fear instead of wrestling past it.

When Ronan looked at me over Maisie’s head, the gratitude in his face was startlingly intimate. I had seen powerful men receive praise, negotiate, and command rooms. Seeing one admit, without words, that he needed help with the person he loved most reached a different part of me entirely.

By three the fever had begun to fall. Maisie lay with her head against my thigh and one foot tucked beneath Ronan’s hand. He had not moved it for nearly an hour.

“Your leg must be numb,” I whispered.

“Completely.”

“You can change positions.”

“I’ve considered it. The negotiations would be difficult.”

I laughed softly, and the sound came too close to tears.

He looked at me.

“You were frightened.”

“So were you.”

“Yes.”

His honesty made me look down at Maisie’s sleeping face.

“When my daughter was born, they took her out of my arms because I was ill. I keep thinking about all the nights someone else must have sat with her. I hope they stayed.”

The words were out before I could stop them.

Ronan did not immediately answer. He took care shifting Maisie’s foot onto a folded blanket, then put a glass of water beside me.

“How old would she be?”

“Four.”

Something tightened in his jaw.

“And you lost her at birth?”

I nodded. “At a hospital. I had to leave for a little while. When I came back, she was gone.”

“What hospital?”

I tried to speak. Instead I found I was shaking.

He came around the bed and stopped a little distance away.

“You’re safe in this room,” he said.

The words struck with the exact weight of a memory.

I looked at his hand on the bedpost. The scar across the knuckle. The open collar. The tired gentleness in a face I had remembered through darkness and fear.

“What did you say?”

He repeated it, quieter this time.

My wolf rose toward his voice.

“There was a hotel,” I whispered. “The Halcyon. Almost five years ago. It was raining.”

He went utterly still.

For several seconds the only sound was Maisie breathing.

“You left a note,” he said at last. “Two words. No name.”

I put a hand over my mouth.

He moved toward me, then stopped, as he had stopped on that first night when I flinched.

“Nell,” he said. “Tell me your real name.”

My borrowed life fell away between us.

“Nora,” I answered. “My name is Nora Ellis.”