Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 249

Ch. 21

Noah

I move before I decide to, closing the three feet between Cassandra and I faster than thought, and she lands against me rather than the floor. Her weight against me is-

I don’t finish that thought.

“Hey.” I sweep her up into my arms and manage to sit us both in the chair, keeping her upright. “Stay with me.” She moans but doesn’t open her eyes, taking gasping breaths.

I look at Liam, who is on his feet with a terrified expression that he tries and fails to hide. “I’m right there with you buddy,” I think to myself. “I’m pretty terrified too.”

“Liam. She’s okay.” I try to reassure him.” I need you to stay right here for a minute while I help her. Can you do that?” He nods and doesn’t move.

She’s breathing-I check that first. But the rhythm of it is wrong, coming in fits and starts rather than smooth and steady like it should. The kind of wrong that means whatever injury she’s dealing with, her lungs are involved. That’s never a good sign. Panic builds like a kindling fire in my chest but I beat it back, forcing myself to act.

I get my hand at her back and feel her whole body twitching, the sharp catch of each breath that tells me this is not a minor injury. It’s significant and she’s been sitting in my visitor hold with it for over an hour. This is my fault.

I call for medical with one hand and hold her upright with the other.

Dr. Lukas says she’ll be here in minutes, but it’s still too long for the bond to have to sit with her weight against my side and her struggling to breathe. So I carry her myself.

The alternative is waiting for a stretcher and the bond won’t let me wait.

Dr. Lukas doesn’t ask questions about who she is. She just receives what little information I can give her clinically and asks questions in the right order, which is: condition first, context later.

She assesses Cassandra in the examination room. Orders imaging. Comes back to me in the corridor.

“Two cracked ribs,” she relays. “One with some displacement that explains the severity. There’s bruising to the surrounding tissue-this was a significant impact, not just a fall.” She looks at me. “She needs monitoring tonight and rest for at least a week before she should be moving substantially. I want to see her daily.”

“She stays,” I say to myself more than anyone.

Dr. Lukas nods. “I’ll get her settled.”

I stand in the corridor while Dr. Lukas treats her and try to stop my hands from shaking while I come up with a new plan.

My original plan, to listen to what she has to say, determine what she wants, then promptly send her away, is obviously not happening now. Now she stays at least until she can travel without causing herself further injury. It’s how I’m going to avoid being sucked in by the bond in the meantime that requires a new strategy.

Based on Dr. Lukas’s assessment, she’s going to be out of commission for a while so someone will need to look after Liam. Fuck! I forgot about Liam!

I hurry back to the room where I left him, hoping he’s not too shaken up by watching his mother faint. I find him sitting with a pack member who has apparently produced something edible from the kitchen because Liam is

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inhaling the snack like it might be his last meal.

my mama okay?” He looks up at me pleadingly when I come in.

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“She’s hurt,” I tell him the truth because I think he’s worked that much out for himself. “But she’s going to be okay.”

He nods. Processes this. “I found her on the road,” he says. “She was sleeping but I think somebody hurt her.”

“I know,” I grimace, biting back the growl I feel building again. “You did the right thing. Staying with her.”

“She tries really hard.” He says it the way he might report a fact about weather-observational, without agenda. ” She makes mistakes but she tries.”

What the fuck am I supposed to say to that? So I don’t say anything and he eventually goes back to eating,

I sit with him while he finishes and then after when his eyes get heavy and he loses the battle with staying awake and tips sideways in the chair. He looks uncomfortable so I pick him up and settle him in my lap.

I tell myself this is what you do when a child is scared and alone. This is just what you do. It’s not about the bond. It’s not about her. It’s not about the fact that she looked at me with actual defeat and then literally fell into my

arms.

I tell myself all of that is true.

It has to be.

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