“Alpha,” Niki murmured. She and Andrew immediately crowded close to Sylvan, brushing their bodies against her in welcome, seeking reassurance after their separation.
“Centuri.” Sylvan cupped the backs of their necks, caressing gently. “Who’s in the Rover?”
“I had Jonathan bring it down,” Niki said, referring to one of the young dominants whom they had begun considering as a centuri. “I can call Max and Lara if you need—” Niki stiffened as Drake appeared next to Sylvan.
“No need to call them.” Sylvan made room for Drake, creating distance between them so Niki would not perceive Drake as a threat to her. The centuri instinctively guarded the Alpha’s personal space, not trusting anyone close to her except her mate. They wanted to be present when she had sex, but were forced to tolerate her being unguarded then because she insisted on privacy. She had no compunction in her guards seeing her naked or in the throes of sex frenzy. But she wanted her partners to feel some degree of intimacy, since she would not give them what many of them wanted: a bond. “Dr. McKennan and I are going to have breakfast. You two should do the same.”
“We’ll wait,” Niki snapped, staring at Drake. Andrew jerked his head in agreement.
“You’ll both eat,” Sylvan said flatly and turned to Drake. “Where would you recommend?”
“There’s a place right down the street. The Recovery Room.”
“Let’s go.” Sylvan headed off and Drake matched her long stride.
“Your guards are unhappy,” Drake said.
“They’re too protective.”
“Do they have reason to be?”
Sylvan shot her a glance. “Why are you so curious?”
“You interest me.”
“Really?” Sylvan’s brows rose. “Why is that? Or do you just have an unnatural fascination for animals?”
“Is that how you see yourself? An animal?” Drake stepped through the double doors out into the morning. She saw Sylvan take a breath as if testing the air, her eyes scanning the street in all directions. Wary.
Guarded. Inborn, instinctive movements.
“In my heart, I am a wolf. What would you call me?”
“I’d call you a Were.” They came to the end of the ER turnaround and Drake touched Sylvan’s bare arm to direct her. Hard muscles rippled beneath her fingertips. Sylvan’s skin was hot and unexpectedly silken, almost as if covered in invisible fur. Drake slid her fingers up and down without thinking. Sylvan tensed, and from very close behind her, Drake heard a growl. Niki. Irrationally, Drake wanted to ignore the warning—she wanted to keep caressing that velvet steel. Good sense prevailed, and she reluctantly removed her hand. “The diner’s down this way.”
Laughing quietly, Sylvan asked, “Why aren’t you intimidated?”
“She’s letting me know that if I threaten you, she’ll hurt me, right?”
“Yes.” Sylvan hid her surprise. She hadn’t expected the touch, and she definitely never expected to like it. Ordinarily she would not allow a stranger so deep into her personal space, and she would never have tolerated even casual contact. But Drake’s hand on her arm hadn’t felt foreign or threatening. Drake’s slowly stroking fingers had seemed to caress her deeper than skin. “Doesn’t her aggression bother you? It does most humans.”
“Could she stop her reaction if you told her to?”
“No. She’s my second, the highest-ranking wolf in my Pack. Her strongest drive is to protect me. She can’t do anything other than be who she is.”
“Then it doesn’t bother me.” Drake slid her palm along Sylvan’s forearm. “Here’s the diner.”
Sylvan glanced down at Drake’s hand on her arm. “You don’t want to tempt her.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Drake wasn’t sure what she was doing.
She had no desire to antagonize Niki, but she resented being warned away from Sylvan. “I trust you to let her know that I’m completely harmless.”
Sylvan held the door for Drake. “I never lie to my wolves.” Grinning, Drake followed Sylvan inside. The long railroad car–
style diner was half full of people in hospital attire. Sylvan asked for a corner booth, and after she and Drake slid in, Niki and Andrew took the one across the aisle. Sylvan’s guards sat on opposite sides of the table, at the outer edge of the bench seats where they could quickly step into the aisle and block access to her.
“Does it ever bother you?” Drake asked. “The constant company, the…surveillance.”
Sylvan shook her head. “From the time we’re young, we’re surrounded by Pack. The pups sleep in piles. They nurse from any lactating female. Any Were in the Pack will protect any young, regardless of who whelped them. We’re all connected. To be isolated would kill us.”
“Do you mean that literally?”
Sylvan grew very still, so still that Drake actually had trouble seeing her, as if somehow she were no longer sitting across from her.
The Alpha had gone to ground.
“How many Were medics do you have like Sophia working in the human health system?” Drake asked, trying a different tack.
“Why do you ask?” Sylvan replied.
“Because—” Drake paused to order breakfast from the middle-aged waitress who plunked heavy white ceramic mugs brimming with dark, oily-looking coffee down in front of them without being asked.
When the waitress moved across the aisle to take Niki and Andrew’s orders, she continued. “If it’s as few as I think, then it’s not enough to take care of any substantial medical crisis.”
“We don’t, as a rule, require medical care.” Sylvan tried the coffee. “This, however, could be lethal.”
Laughing, Drake took a sip. “Sophia says caffeine doesn’t do anything to you.”
“She may never have tried this coffee.” Drake leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Why are the police asking about humans with Were fever? I don’t remember reading anything about it in med—” She grimaced. “Well, of course I wouldn’t have learned anything about it in medical school, because no one knew anything about any of the Praeterns until just recently.”
“Were fever is very rare, even among Weres.”
“What is it, exactly?”
Sylvan considered her response while the waitress set plates of food in front of them. Drake was right—they did not have many Were medics. Before the Exodus, the Were medics worked in secrecy to cover up the uncommon instance when a Were was brought into an emergency room for care. Most often, this happened when a Were was involved in an accident or an altercation that led to police involvement.
The police and emergency service personnel routinely brought the injured to the emergency room, but unfortunately, a Were was likely to heal their injuries halfway through treatment. Every wolf Were carried a health card that, when scanned into any database anywhere in the world, would alert a central clearing station at Mir Industries. A Were medic would be sent to intervene. Feral cat, rodent, and other less common Weres did not interact with the human population enough for accidental discovery to be a problem.
If she was facing an outbreak of Were fever, she would not have enough medics to cover it up. And if humans somehow became infected, it would be disastrous. Even so, she couldn’t risk revealing too much.
Until she understood exactly how widespread the problem was, she wasn’t going to expose her Pack and all the other Weres to retaliation.
“Anything I could tell you would be meaningless to you.”
“Look,” Drake said, “we’re the largest medical center in the region. Any case that looks out of the ordinary is going to be turfed to us from the local hospitals. If I know what to look for, I can triage. Start early treatment. I’ll call your medics, if you want me to.”