Chapter 67

Claire POV

I felt Dr. Baldwin’s hands stiffen on my shoulders when he heard Nathan’s voice.

Between Nathan’s unexpected shout and the relief of the healing suddenly stopping, I struggled to make sense of the situation.

“Nathan, wh-what are you doing here? And what do you mean, ‘What’s going on?’?”

“What do I mean? Claire, his hands are all over you!” Nathan glowered at Baldwin, growling possessively.

“Step away from her, Baldwin.”

Finally my mind cleared enough for me to think straight.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nathan. You must clearly be able to tell when a healing session is taking place by now.

“Dr. Baldwin was simply helping me with a terrible headache.”

“I know what healing looks like alright,” he said, stalking into the room. “And that was a lot more than just healing.”

“Please,” Dr. Baldwin said, raising his hands as he walked around the desk. “I really was just healing the Princess. Her headaches are increasingly frequent - sessions now need to be more involved than a simple light healing.”

Nathan didn’t respond, just watched as Baldwin said his goodbyes to me and left the room as soon as he could.

I couldn’t say I blamed him. Nathan’s stare was renowned for its ferociousness, and I had seen far more hardened men than Dr. Baldwin shrink when faced with it.

I could understand wanting to get away from that.

What I couldn’t understand was the way Nathan exploded as soon as the office door closed again.

“What’s going on between the two of you?!” he demanded, striding across the room, circling around to loom over me.

“That looked far more intimate than a simple healing session.”

Struggling with the lingering fatigue of the healing sessions I’d done that day, as well as the draining effect a headache and being healed always had, I stared up at him for a full moment before I responded.

“Nathan, what you saw is exactly what both Dr. Baldwin and I have now both told you: a healing session. I’ve started to need them almost daily thanks to the stress of my new position here.

“So, as you can see, I really don’t have time for your misplaced jealousy.”

“Jealousy??” Nathan bristled.

“Yes!” I said, standing up from my chair, tired of craning my neck to look up at him. A wave of dizziness hit me when I stood, but I fought through it, holding on to the desk with one hand for support.

“You have no right to barge in here, without knocking, without even telling me you were coming, and then get all worked up over something that means nothing!

“I’m not the one ruining our relationship, Nathan.”

He growled at me, and my wolf responded with a mixture of caution and longing. She didn’t like his anger - but she loved how close he was standing.

“I haven’t ruined anything, Claire. You’re the one who ran away.”

Ignoring my wolf’s reaction to being so close to our mate, I met his gaze without blinking.

“I’m not the one engaged to be married to someone else.”

I saw the blow land.

Nathan took a step back, looking like he’d been slapped.

And I couldn’t say I felt bad about it.

I was just so tired of the push and pull between us, tired of feeling helpless to do anything about it.

Dr. Baldwin had been helping me, and if I’d entertained thoughts about getting into a relationship with him, that was totally my business.

Nathan was engaged. They had a date set for the wedding.

He had no business coming back around apologizing, telling me he missed me and he loved me - but that he wasn’t going to cancel his engagement.

It wasn’t fair.

And I was done with it.

“I need you to understand something, Nathan,” I said.

“You and I - we still have a connection. I can feel the pull between us right now, and I know you can too.

“But that doesn’t mean things are going to somehow just magically go back to the way they used to be.”

I drew myself up, squaring my shoulders.

“I’m no longer a wolfless Omega, grateful to have your protection from the mistreatment of the pack. I’m no longer the shy little nanny you could treat however you felt like.

“And you’re just going to have to get used to that.”

My words flew through the air like stones. Nathan stared at me, absorbing not just what I said but what I meant.

Because I really did mean it: I wasn’t an Omega, I wasn’t a nanny, and I was no longer helpless.

And I deserved to be treated better by my mate.

Nathan POV

I stared down at Claire, feeling rage and shock and a strange kind of grief twisting inside me.

After coming all this way to see her, hoping to take her out to dinner and continue making amends, instead I found her practically in the arms of another man??

What has she become?

“Fine,” I said finally. “If that’s the way you want things to be, I’ll treat you exactly like what you are:

“A stranger.”

I turned on my heel and headed out of the office. At the doorway I paused, looking back.

“But this isn’t over, Claire. I’ll be back.”

With that, I left the room, the clinic, and began the long journey back to Silverfang territory.

My anger remained for the entire journey, burning like hot coals in my belly.

I just kept seeing Claire standing toe to toe with me, the fire of anger in her eyes.

I’d never seen her like that before, so full of that fierce emotion. Full of power.

It was enraging - but also incredibly attractive.

And I knew she was right. She wasn’t who she used to be. Not the wolfless Omega I met after college, not the devoted mother of our child, not the nanny she pretended to be to hide our relationship.

She was someone else entirely.

Someone amazing.

And someone I was deeply afraid was now slowly moving further and further out of my reach.

Was I really in danger of losing my mate? And to someone like Dr. Baldwin, no less?

By the time I reached home, most of my anger had burned itself out. I was able to think clearly enough to admit that Claire was right - I had been jealous.

Seeing Dr. Baldwin’s hands on my mate had gone off inside me like a bomb.

It took everything I had not to shift right then and there, charging at the man and ripping his throat out.

Claire had called my behavior “ridiculous,” but she had no idea how much worse I could have acted.

So yes, it was jealousy that caused me to act the way I did.

But only in part.

Now that my head felt clearer, I was able to think about Dr. Baldwin. The way he seemed to be trying too hard to be with Claire, always standing so close to her, acting almost protectively even though they had only just met.

There was something off about the man. Something I didn’t like.

Walking into my office, I picked up my phone and dialed my Beta’s number.

Some instinct was telling me to look deeper, and I was going to listen to it.

We were going to investigate Dr. Baldwin.