Chapter 33

Aria’s POV

Forgetting about the mask entirely, I dropped my hands to my belly instead.

“Also safe,” Cathy said at once. “Both of you are okay.”

Closing my eyes, I reached into myself, asking my wolf for confirmation.

“The baby is safe,” Luna replied. “We both shielded her when you fell. And our mate shielded us.”

“Lucian…?”

“Yes. He protected us, even without knowing who we are.”

“Don’t call him our mate,” I urged her gently. “Soon he will be nothing to us but memory…”

“He will forever remain the father of our pup…”

Opening my eyes, I pushed back my wolf’s words and focused on Cathy once more.

“You have to limit your stress,” Cathy insisted. “You are pushing yourself too hard. You are already at risk, leaving the safety of a mate. You cannot continue to take chances like this.”

“I have to work,” I replied. “I need that money to leave the pack.”

“I’m not tell you to quit forever. Maybe just until the baby is born.”

“I’m not staying here that long.”

“Aria, your health –”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Three days,” Cathy said, suddenly standing. “For three days, you’ve been unconscious. Don’t lay there and tell me that you’ll be fine, when I know differently. I’ve seen differently. Lucian had been there to catch you this time, but what if he wasn’t.”

Worry was clear in her eyes and her forceful tone of voice. Fear was too. I hadn’t been kind to Cathy these past few days. While I’d been unconscious, she’d been dutifully protecting me as a best friend would.

“I’m sorry,” I said, both because I hadn’t thanked her yet and for something else. “I am grateful, Cathy. And I will try to reduce my stress. But I cannot just sit around and wait for the baby to be born. By then it will be too late. Lucian will have caught on. I need to be long gone before he ever discovers I’m pregnant.”

I was already running out of time.

Cathy looked away then. I thought at first that she might have been mad at me, but with the way she was eying the hallway, I realized quickly there was something else going on. Glancing, I noticed an armed guard at my door.

A shiver shook through me. “What is this?” I asked her.

“He’s on our side,” Cathy said. “Lucian vetted him, and even if he didn’t, I know him personally. He’ll keep an eye out for you while you are here recovering.”

“You know him?” If Cathy knew him, I likely did too. “Who is it?”

Cathy sighed. “We don’t have to get into it…”

“Cathy…”

“It’s Vincent.”

I blinked. “Vincent, your ex-boyfriend, Vincent?”

Cathy hushed me at once. “We ended amicably and stayed friends. You know all that.”

I did, but I also knew their chemistry sparked every time they were in the same room. They were off and on again as often as a light-switch, though, admittedly, they’d been off-again for a while.

Knowing it was Vincent watching out for Dr. A, I relaxed marginally. He was a good guy, even if he wasn’t a terribly thoughtful boyfriend, which had led to most of his and Cathy’s breakups.

Even so, having a bodyguard at all seemed excessive. Despite my nightmares, I’d fainted. I wasn’t attacked this time.

…not yet, anyway.

“Why do I need a bodyguard?” I asked Cathy.

She sat down again. Pressing her mouth into a hard line, she seemed like she didn’t want to tell me.

“I know you don’t want to stress me out, but I need to know,” I said. “If someone’s out to get me…”

“It’s a precaution,” Cathy said. “While you’ve been out, Sheila and some others have been working hard to damage your reputation.”

“Sheila?”

“She went on the news again, a few different times. She keeps asking about the legality of you holding onto this medicine and saying that you should be forced to disclose the formula. The argument has gained a lot of traction.”

For a moment, I sit still, fully processing the words. “What has Lucian said?”

“He’s advocating for you. Since you created the medicine, it should be your right to choose where it goes. Not everyone agrees.” Cathy shakes her head. “Most of the Healers are siding with Sheila, I’m sure that’s no surprise. And some old Healers are coming out of the woodwork for this, even a few that Lucian had expelled some time ago.”

“Sheila’s going against Lucian’s commands?” That was the strange part. Did she realize that by taking this stance and siding with Healers who Lucian had expelled, that she was essentially undermining his authority?

Wasn’t she supposed to want to be with him? Or was she lashing out at him about something?

Maybe she just truly did not like me. Enough to betray Lucian, though?

None of it seemed to fit.

I rubbed my forehead, a headache coming on. In the past, when things had gotten too serious with this drug, I’d run away, hiding the identity I had crafted for myself in med school and remerging as Aria the kind orphan who had then fallen in love with Lucian.

I couldn’t run again, not when I needed the money to escape the pack before my baby was born.

“Sometimes I wish I hadn’t invented this medicine at all,” I said.

“You don’t mean that,” Cathy said, surprised.

“I do. It brings out the worst in everyone, Cathy. Even me. Maybe they’re right. Why should I be the one who decides who gets the medicine or not…”

“Because if it isn’t you, the only people who will ever get that medicine are the nobles who pay the most money,” Cathy said. “You kept that medicine so that everyone would have a fair shot, regardless of their class.”

“I don’t know…”

“The medicine does good. Yes, everyone gets upset about it, but in the end, you’ve saved people with this. You’ve helped them. And you keep helping them. Don’t let this discourage you.”

Cathy’s impassioned speech took some of the edge off. If she believed in me and my medicine, I supposed that I could as well.

“Forgive my moment of weakness,” I said.

She scoffed. “That’s what friends are for, to keep each other on track.”

I laughed a little. “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever lose my way again.”

“Please do.”

While Cathy and I smiled at each other, there was a bit of commotion at the door. Vincent was blocking someone from entering.

“I’ll see who it is,” Cathy said. Standing she walked toward the door. Halfway there, she could see out of it. “Oh, it’s Jasper.” With a mischievous glint in her eye, she looked at me. “Should we have Vincent throw him out?”

I rolled my eyes. “No.” Jasper was one of the few people on my side. He knew my secret but, to my knowledge, had kept it so far. And he’d been kind to me when few others have. “Let him in.”

Cathy sighed dramatically, then called out, “Vincent, he’s fine. Let him in.”

Vincent must have stepped to the side because, in the next moment, Jasper came waltzing through the door like he owned the place, as cool and confident as ever.

Jasper looked across the room before settling his gaze on me.

“There you are,” he said.