Consciousness returns in fragments—the sharp bite of antiseptic, the mechanical rhythm of monitors, the particular quality of fluorescent light pressing against my closed eyelids like an interrogation.
I know before I open my eyes that I am not in the forest anymore.
My hand moves on instinct, palm pressing flat against my abdomen where a life that is not quite mine continues its impossible existence.
The gesture happens before conscious thought can direct it, my body cataloging priorities in the order my heart has already determined.
"The baby is fine."
Paul's voice cuts through the fog, and my eyes fly open to find him seated in a chair beside my bed, his posture rigid like he has been waiting too long in an uncomfortable position.
On my other side, Zane mirrors his brother's vigil—dark circles beneath his eyes, jaw shadowed with stubble that suggests he hasn't seen a razor in days. Two brothers flanking me like sentinels, neither willing to cede ground to the other.
The sight of them together sends my heart into a complicated rhythm I cannot untangle—relief and longing and guilt braiding together until I cannot tell where one feeling ends and another begins.
I love them both, and the admission lives in my chest like a splinter I cannot remove no matter how many times I try to convince myself otherwise.
"The doctor confirmed it twice," Zane adds, his voice gentler than Paul's but carrying the same undercurrent of exhaustion. "The little one is stubborn, apparently. Must take after their mother."
The relief crashes through me with such force that tears spring to my eyes before I can stop them.
I press both hands against my belly now, feeling the warmth beneath hospital fabric, the steady pulse of energy that Nireya insists belongs to the life growing inside me.
'I told you,' my wolf murmurs, her presence stirring sluggishly at the edges of my consciousness. 'The child is strong.'
"How long?" My voice emerges rough, scraped raw from screaming or silence or some combination of both. "How long have I been unconscious?"
"Eighteen hours," Paul says, and I hear the weight of each one in the way he pronounces the number. "You lost a significant amount of blood before the shift healed the worst of the damage, and your body needed time to recover from the strain."
The mention of the baby has shifted the atmosphere in the small hospital room, creating a tension that vibrates between the two men like a plucked string.
I watch them not-look at each other, both pairs of eyes fixed on me with an intensity that carries questions neither seems willing to voice.
Zane clears his throat and leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "Ricky is the reason you're here, actually. When Paul carried you out of the forest, she was waiting at the tree line with a flashlight and a very impressive vocabulary of profanity."
The image forces a sound from my throat that might be a laugh in better circumstances. "That sounds exactly like her."
"She demanded you see a doctor immediately," Paul continues, picking up the thread.
"By the time we reached the hospital, your wounds had closed and the visible bleeding had stopped, but she refused to leave until a medical professional confirmed you weren't dying internally."
"The staff had questions about how you'd healed so quickly from an animal attack," Zane says, and a wry smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"Paul told them you'd been wearing a thick leather jacket that absorbed most of the damage. I'm not sure they believed him, but they stopped asking."
I try to sit up, and both men move simultaneously—Paul's hand on my shoulder, Zane's fingers wrapping around my wrist.
The dual contact sends awareness sparking through my nervous system, and I force myself to focus on the practical rather than the complicated.
But the complicated refuses to be ignored. Paul's palm burns through the thin hospital gown with possessive heat, and Zane's grip carries a gentleness that makes my throat ache.
My body responds to both of them, and the realization that I may never be able to choose settles into my bones with the weight of prophecy.
"Ricky saw me," I say quietly. "She saw the wolf."
The brothers exchange a glance that carries entire conversations I am not privy to.
"She mentioned that," Paul confirms, his voice careful. "When we arrived at the safe house, she wasn't exactly pleased to see us. She was frightened, Morgan. She said she heard a crash in the kitchen and found a massive wolf standing in the shadows, and then it jumped over her head and crashed through the back door."
"She couldn't understand how the animal got inside," Zane adds. "All the doors and windows were locked from the inside, and there was no reasonable explanation for a wild wolf to be trapped in a suburban kitchen in the middle of the night."
The guilt coils in my stomach, heavy and acidic. Ricky trusted me with her secrets, and I nearly ate her and destroyed her back door.
"She found your clothes," Paul continues, and his expression shifts into something I cannot easily read.
"Torn to shreds on the kitchen floor, but without any blood. She said she searched the entire house looking for your body, convinced the wolf had killed you. When she couldn't find you, she called your phone until she realized it was still sitting on the coffee table."
"The relief when Paul showed up with you alive was visible," Zane says quietly. "But so was the confusion, Morgan. She has questions, and she's been waiting at the safe house for answers that I don't think she's prepared to hear."
I close my eyes and let the fluorescent light press against my lids, processing the impossible conversation I now have to navigate.
Ricky knows something is wrong with me. She doesn't know what, but she's smart enough to connect pieces even when the picture they form makes no rational sense.
"She protected you," Paul says, and the words carry a weight that surprises me. "That kind of loyalty is rare, Morgan. Whatever you tell her, remember that she's already proven herself more trustworthy than most wolves I've known."
"What are you suggesting?" I ask, opening my eyes to meet his gaze. "That I tell her the truth? That I explain her best friend transforms into a predator when emotionally compromised, and by the way, so does the father of my unborn child—whichever one of you that turns out to be?"
The words hang in the air, sharper than I intended.
Paul's jaw tightens. Zane looks away. The awkward tension I noticed earlier returns with renewed force, filling the hospital room with everything we are not saying.
"That decision is yours to make," Zane says finally, his voice deliberately neutral. "We just wanted you to understand that deserves an explanation, Morgan. Whether that explanation includes the full truth or some version she can live with—that's your choice."
I stare at the ceiling, counting the tiles while my mind races through possibilities and consequences.
Ricky has already proven she can keep secrets. She hid an entire identity for six years, built a new life from nothing, and never once slipped in front of anyone who might have been looking for Aya Castro.
But knowing how to keep secrets and being asked to keep supernatural ones are two different burdens.
"I need to see her," I say as the decision settles into my bones.
________________