Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 291

Ch. 61

Noah

+15 Bonus

My eyes track Cassandra as she goes through the door to find Liam. But the rest of me stays rooted in the plastic chair, as if holding perfectly still will expunge the guilt swirling like a cyclone in my gut.

To be honest, I’m not even sure what the guilt is for. Could be the few brief seconds I considered sending her away instead of helping her. Or it could be the fact I walked her over here, polite but technically not necessary, then to make matters worse, I stayed, like some kind of emotional support Alpha, all while Piper sits alone wondering why I left her to hang out with my ex-mate.

Unfortunately, my list of grievances is too long to pick just one.

I should go back to my quarters. Dr. Lukas has the situation under control, which was never truly in doubt. Liam is stable. There is nothing left for me to do here that couldn’t be done by anyone-a pack administrator, a medical staff member, any warm body available to sit in a waiting area if one is needed. Which it’s really not.

Instead, I get a cup of coffee from the hallway dispenser and sit back down.

Dr. Lukas comes out twenty minutes later to find me still sitting there, staring into the black sludge in my cup like it holds the answers to the universe. She looks at me with the expression that means she has things to say that aren’t for the public waiting area. I follow her to her office.

She closes the door. She doesn’t sit-which is my first clue the news is not good-she stands beside her desk with her folder and her characteristic directness.

“Liam has a chronic condition.” She pauses when I suck in a sharp breath, the stabbing pain in my chest as unexpected as it is unwelcome. “Take a breath, Alpha. This disease is well-documented, nothing like what you’re dealing with. It’s manageable.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad.” I take her advice and force my lungs back into action. “Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”

“Because you’re a perceptive man, Noah. Most of the time.” Her tone tells me that’s not exactly a compliment. It’s manageable, as long as we keep these episodes to a minimum. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of disease that presents in acute episodes under specific triggers-illness-related stress being the most common.

“Boys his age are little cesspools of bacteria. They attract it like life-size magnets, making childhood a particularly difficult and sometimes perilous time for kids with this condition.”

“So what are you saying?” There’s no chance she mistakes the demand in my tone to get to the bottom line.” What’s the prognosis here? Could he actually die from this?”

“Children with it can live full lives when it’s properly monitored.” She tries to sound reassuring but I hear what she’s not saying. That’s a big ‘if,’ one she never could have made a reality if she’d remained a rogue. No wonder she swallowed her pride to bring him here.

“Tonight’s episode was very real. Medically significant.” Dr. Lukas continues, dragging me kicking and screaming from my self-deprecating spiral. “The fever that came on fast is characteristic: that’s how this condition announces itself in the acute phase. It was not exaggerated in the least.

“She brought him in at exactly the right moment,” She answers the question I’d been too afraid to ask. “Even twenty minutes later he likely would have suffered a febrile seizure that could have ended in any number of unfortunate ways. If that had happened, we’d be having a different conversation right now.”

1/4

+15 Bonus

༩༽

My jaw hangs open but no words come out. A very uncomfortable throb kicks up behind my sternum as I consider

he implications of what she’s telling me.

“Could she have known he really was sick when she came to Ironwood the first time?” I finally remember how to form sentences and use the skill to ask something I’m not sure I want the answer to.

“He’s had this since birth, Noah. She may not have had a label for it but she knows her son,” she says Carefully. In the voice she uses when she’s saying something that exists on two levels and she wants me to hear both of them.” Whatever she’s told you about him in the past, I can’t say. But what happened tonight was real.”

She holds my gaze for a moment, shooting me a look that says “I’m just the messenger. You decide what to do with the information.” Then she goes back to her patient.

I walk back to the waiting area. I sit back down in the plastic chair. And I beat myself up about the two seconds I hesitated in the doorway.

She came to my door with a burning child in her arms and I stood there for way too long, suspecting her of using him to get my attention the way she did with Jaxon, and almost deciding not to help. I can dress it up all I want- was assessing the situation, gathering information, making sure I understood what I was dealing with. But that’s all just bullshit designed to relieve my guilt. The truth is, I know who she used to be. I know what she used to do with her son’s health. And for two seconds, with a four-year-old burning against her shoulder at ten-thirty PM, I wondered if she was doing it again.

She saw me do it, too. I wasn’t fooling her at all. She was watching my face and she saw me do it and then she said something’s wrong and held him out toward me anyway. Never once did she blame me for doubting her, just accepted it as her due.

My hesitation could have cost an innocent little boy his health if not his life, and what did I do? I put a cup of water on the chair beside her. The smallest possible gesture-the almost-nothing I could manage while I was somewhere between believing her and still deciding if I should believe her. Like the water was my conscience doing what my mouth wasn’t ready to do yet.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify