Page 60 of Rivers and Roads

“Sorry to interrupt, but he’s awake if you’d like to…”

I didn’t give her the chance to finish. I shoved past her roughly, moving so quickly, the hospital was a blur as I made my way to Orion’s room. The door was cracked, and when I stepped in, I came to a stuttered halt at the sight of him.

He was covered in bandages, apart from the tips of his fingers, which were pink and burned. His eyes were covered in thick gauze pads, taped shut, and my stomach twisted as I shook myself out of my head and stepped forward.

His nostrils flared as he took in my scent, and the edges of his burnt, chapped lips lifted in a grin. “How long you been waiting out there?”

“She wouldn’t let me see you,” I complained. I wanted to rub my face all over him, but it would have been agony, so I gingerly lifted his arm and kissed the bare tips of his fingers. “The Council was here, and we just ended the meeting.”

“Shitty time for it,” he said, easing back against his pillows. He grimaced when I set his arm down. “Shitty time for all of this.”

Reaching over, I pulled the chair from the little desk set into the wall, then sat near the bed. “So, what did she have to say? Anything permanent?” I didn’t care if it was. I meant what I said to him before—he was mine, regardless of his body or his status. But I couldn’t help my worry.

“Nah. She doesn’t think so anyway. Well, she’s not sure about the whole Omega thing.” He reached up and gingerly picked at the tape on his gauze until I pulled his hand away.

“Give it time. The blast blew out my eyes just as bad, but it only took about an hour to heal up,” I told him.

He let out a quiet puff of air. “If you say so.”

“I do. Now, what about this Omega shit?”

I had a feeling if he could, he would have been rolling his eyes at me. “Figured it was a good time to have them test my blood. She said I’m still full of Omega hormones, but none of it seems to be affecting my outward appearance.”

“Apart from that orange in your eyes,” I pointed out.

He nodded, then winced. “Yeah. She said she was in on the project with Danyal, but most of his research was locked in his computer and no one can access it. We’re stuck until Mikael drags his ass back home.”

“Well, we need Mikael for a lot of things,” I confessed. When Orion’s brow furrowed, I told him everything the Council and I had discussed. He looked pissed about it, but he was pragmatic enough to understand that this might ruin what little progress we’d already made with the rebellion. “No one’s going to follow a Wolf who ripped the throats out of their own kind.”

“They’re doing it right now,” he snapped. “The government’s fucking full of them. Those bastards are the one who led the humans right to Kor. Right to you, and everyone just looked the other way.”

“Not everyone,” I pointed out gently. “And those Wolves are the ones who matter. It doesn’t need to be me, you know.”

He sat up in spite of the pain, and he reached for me. I let him take my hand, and he brought it to his nose, snuffling along the inside of my wrist. “None of that was your fault. They tortured you, stripped you of who you were. They turned you into…”

“A beast,” I said, and he winced, but he didn’t try to argue with the word. “I know. But it’s a struggle for me not to put all the blame on myself. The others…it’ll just be better if they have someone a little more clean than I am.”

“You’re not fucking dirty, and if I hear that shit again, I’m going to kick your ass the moment I get these bandages off.”

I chuckled and kissed his fingers again. “I know. And I welcome it. For now, you need to rest. We’re both healing, and there’s not a lot we can do until we have all those files.”

Orion’s bandages were slowly peeled away a few hours after I was allowed in the room, and it was painful to see his face blasted, burned, and raw—but he was healing. His eyes were clouded with scars for the first little while, but light was coming back, he said, then pulled me onto the bed next to him.

“The first thing I want to see is your face,” he murmured, nosing my jaw.

My throat was tight as I tried not to cling to him, and all I could think about was sinking my fangs into his shoulder and being done with the distance between our souls.

The color in his irises started returning just after dusk, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw streaks of orange inside the bright blue. Though I doubted he could see me clearly, he still caught my gaze, his mouth turned down at the corners.

“What is it?” I bit my lip, so he reached out and pinched my side hard enough to hurt. “Zane.”

Blowing out a puff of air, I pushed up to sit straight, then cupped his cheek in my hand. His skin was pulled tight as it regenerated, and I knew it was likely as sensitive as mine had been. “There’s orange in your eyes.”

He blinked at me, and I heard his heart speed up a fraction. “They’re orange?”

“Not entirely. Streaks,” I said, striking my thumb under his left one. “Like lightning.”

He said nothing after that, and there was tension in the room when the doctor appeared to do a last check of his injuries. She spent more time on his eyes than anything, and she cast us both a couple of curious looks, but she didn’t say anything about it. I knew it was because this was Danyal’s area, and he was currently lost to us.

---