Chapter 26

Celia

Bianca, Lily, and I step inside the warrior’s hospital room. He lays back in bed with pain written all over his face. His hands grip his knee where his tanned flesh turns brown and furry.

“You will be okay, sir,” Bianca boldly states over the sounds of his pained cries. “You will be sorted out soon enough. Your chronic pain is causing this.”

“Chronic pain?!” I turn to look at Bianca. Lily lays a hand on my shoulder as a way to get me to stop before I start but I do not heed her warning. “This is not chronic pain, Bianca! What are you thinking?!”

His leg has been stuck in wolf form for the past couple of days. He has not been able to walk properly and has needed the constant care of a Healer and nurse by his side.

When he originally came in, Bianca was the highest ranking Healer in charge of new patients. She diagnosed him with a rare illness that nobody can pronounce the name of. In actuality, though, his body has been battling the urge to move in and out of his wolf form.

I honestly cannot even fathom how much pain he must be in right now. Even looking at the tense and flexing muscles underneath his skin, I can feel his pain in my own leg, my muscles clenching and cramping up.

How could she have missed all of his other symptoms? With one look at his chart, it is so clear to see that there is something wrong with his hormones which is messing with his ability to switch between his human and wolf form.

His blood tests are all wonky and are far past abnormal results. Even a newly trained nurse can see that the wolf Warrior’s problem is not chronic pain but one that is slowly destroying his body day by day.

“This is all your fault, Celia,” Bianca turns her glare to look at me.

The Warrior whimpers in pain, his sounds sounding wolf-like instead of human. It makes my skin crawl to listen to it. His canine teeth turn sharp as he growls at anyone who gets near him, his nails turning long and curved.

“Me? How is this my fault?” I ask, moving towards Bianca as Lily grabs nearby medicine to help ease some of the pain that the Warrior wolf must be feeling.

Nurses and other Healers begin to swarm the hospital room, no doubt it is because of the screams and howls of the Warrior’s cries.

“You made me misdiagnose him, obviously. You have to take the blame for this! Not me!” Bianca turns her face away.

The wolf’s loud and persistent howls captures the attention of higher ranked Healers. Healer Anderson enters the room in a hurry with a nurse following him.

“What is going on here?!” He asks, out of breath. He pushes through our bodies and immediately gets to work on the Warrior wolf, ignoring his growls of pain. The Warrior tries to bite him but Healer Anderson pulls away in just the nick of time.

“We may need to strap him down,” Healer Anderson says to the nurse beside him. She nods and is quick to exit the hospital room, surely going to go grab restraints to hold him down.

“He came in here last week and I diagnosed him with chronic pain. He didn’t show signs of being stuck in the transformation phase!” Bianca is quick to cover her actions, her excuse possibly being the worst thing she can say. “His chronic pain may be causing him to stop mid-transformation!”

“Sir,” I step in with the Warrior’s chart in my hands, “it says here that he was brought in on the day of the Full Moon.”

“Ah,” Healer Anderson nods, moving out of the way so Lily can inject the Warrior with a mild sedative. “One of the first things we must take into consideration when dealing with wolves, especially our brave Warriors, is if there is a Full Moon or not,”

Bianca’s cheeks heat up. She looks everywhere but Healer Anderson’s eyes, fixing her attention back onto me. She points at me, wagging her finger in my face.

“It is all Celia’s fault! It is because of her that I didn’t give our Warrior here a proper diagnosis!” Bianca claims.

All sets of eyes turn onto me in the small hospital room. I swallow the lump in my throat and shake my head at them. I look at the date on the admission papers and hold it up. I point to the small numbers and face the Healers and nurses.

“I wasn’t in the hospital that day,” I cooly respond, showing everyone the date, “it was my scheduled day off! You can go and check our timecards if you have to! But I know that I am not lying about this!”

I look at Bianca, who contains a gasp, her mouth hanging open. She crosses her arms over her chest and turns away from me. I lower the clipboard in my hands and look at Healer Anderson, who nods at me.

At least he believes me alongside Lily and Ethan. I know that they will always have my back whenever I need it.

Healer Anderson turns to Bianca. He wears a look of disappointment on his face, shaking his head at the Lycan noble. A nurse comes running back inside with restraints a few muscular nurses. They begin to strap the Warrior to the bed, his body now covered in fur.

“Perhaps if Celia were there when the Warrior was admitted into our care, he would not have been misdiagnosed.”

His words are cold and straight to the point. The room falls quiet, not a single soul in the room daring to speak up against him.

A few she-wolf Healers that stand outside of the hospital room snicker to themselves. Bianca glares at them but it does not stop their laughs from reaching her ears. Her cheeks turn a bright red, fists balled at her side. I move past her, tray of syringes in my hand.

With one glance at the open hospital door, I can see the group of Healers and nurses gather around the door. They were there to hear Healer Anderson’s bitter words, his distaste for how careless Bianca was with the wolf Warrior.

“And to think that she is engaged to the Alpha King,” one voice from outside of the room says.

“I know! How will the Alpha King react to this? He is sure to be angered over this, right?” Another person questions.

“How can our hospital and nation feel safe knowing that the future Luna does not know what she is doing?”

All eyes are on Bianca. I glance at her as I pass off a filled syringe, the contents inside clear and lacking all color.

Her face is bright red, no doubt from the embarrassment that she must be feeling. Her sharp gaze is no longer on me but on the people outside. I step out of her field of vision, turning my attention t the door.

The group immediately scatters as soon as my body no longer shields them from her gaze. They turn away and go back to their own business, finding shelter in nearby hospital rooms as to not become the next victim of the future Luna’s wrath.