Dorrent’s hand clamped down harder on her shoulder, his fingers digging into her pale flesh until her skin turned ghostly white under his grip. His eyes, dark and violent with a dangerous focus, searched her face.
"What do you mean, you are dying?" Dorrent growled, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying vibration that rattled her chest. "What the hell does that sentence mean, Jannah?!"
Jannah pulled her shoulder back, her dark eyes flashing through her lashes as she clutched the towel desperately against her chest. "Because I have been feeling bad lately!" she screamed into his face, her voice cracking with frantic emotion. "I have a tumor! It’s probably growing right on my spine! My neighbor down in the slum had the exact same issue years ago—she started with this heavy, crippling pain, and months later she died in agony! I know my own body! I know I’m next!"
Dorrent didn’t move an inch. His frame remained locked over her, his eyes unblinking as he absorbed her hysterical declaration. "Are you sure?" he asked, his baritone eerily calm, though a sharp vein throbbed furiously against his temple. "Have you actually seen a qualified doctor? Have you had a single scan done at a hospital?"
"I am an herbalist!" Jannah fired right back, wiping a wet tear off her cheek with the back of her hand, her pale collarbone heaving under the thin cotton towel. "I diagnosed myself! I don’t need your machines to tell me what’s wrong with my own flesh!"
"And how exactly did you diagnose a spinal tumor, little physician?" Dorrent rasped out, his tone dripping with a mixture of disbelief and growing, intense intrigue.
"The normal way!" Jannah snapped, her voice trembling. "By feeling how my body reacts! By listening to the heavy, throbbing pressure inside my lower body and other means that an arrogant Alpha like you won’t ever understand!"
Dorrent stood silent for a long, heavy beat. He stared down at her pale, shivering frame, taking in the way her lower body leaned slightly against the bedpost to compensate for the hidden discomfort she had been masking for days. The icy barrier in his eyes softened just a fraction, replaced by something intense.
"Stop crying," Dorrent murmured, his deep voice carrying a steady weight.
He stepped into her personal space, completely ignoring her sharp gasp as he reached out with his arms and pulled her entire body into a tight, crushing hug. He wrapped his broad arms around her bare back, pressing her wet cheek into the soft fabric of his shirt, engulfing her frail frame in his overwhelming, dominant warmth.
"It will be okay," Dorrent whispered near her ear, his hand gently cupping the back of her head to hold her still. "Tell me... do you sometimes feel a heavy, dull pelvic pressure?"
Jannah froze inside his arms. The scent of his winter-frost pheromones was already wrapping around her senses, making her knees feel dangerously weak. "Once... once in a while," she muttered stubbornly against his chest, trying to push against his shoulders. "So what?!"
Dorrent let out a low, smooth rumble that vibrated right through her cheek. "I don’t think you have a tumor, Jannah."


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