Damien finds me on the council building’s front steps afterwards, watching the last light drain out of the sky.
He sits beside me without a word for a long while.
“She’ll face criminal charges,” he says eventually.
“The investigation will take months.”
“I know.”
“Dominic will have to testify again multiple times.”
“I know that too.”
“And you?” He bumps his shoulder gently against mine, the way he did when we were children and I’d had a nightmare.
“What do you need?”
I think about that.
About the three years.
About the penthouse and the empty bed and the clinic and the dinners alone and the pack whispers at every function.
About the woman who stood in a federal interrogation room and refused to sign a false confession.
About the wolf who survived a car crash and a remote cabin and a knife in the dark and a dead man at the door.
“I want my life back,” I say.
“The real one.
The one that was always mine.”
Damien puts his arm around me.
“Then let’s go get it.”
Six weeks after the council hearing, the Cascade Wellness Clinic is fully booked for the next three months.
I didn’t advertise.
I didn’t do interviews.
I didn’t exploit anything that happened.
I specifically asked Sage to keep my name out of the press coverage of Catherine’s arrest, and she managed it with the particular ruthlessness that makes her the best attorney I have ever known.
But wolves talk.
And apparently what they say about me now is: she’s quiet, she’s good, she survived the Ashfords with her integrity intact, and she can treat conditions no one else will touch.
My first patient on this particular Tuesday morning is a young Beta male from the Riverside Pack, referred by his Alpha, dealing with chronic stress symptoms his wolf cannot metabolise.
My second patient is a mated Omega female whose bond with her Alpha has become so frayed by old wounds that her wolf has started suppressing her own healing abilities as a form of self-protection.
She is twenty-eight years old.
She has been married for four years.
She looks exactly the way I looked in the mirror every morning in that penthouse.
I sat with her for ninety minutes.
Not just treating symptoms.
Listening.
Actually listening, the way I’ve learned to listen since I started understanding what it truly costs a wolf to hold pain this long.
When she leaves, she doesn’t look fixed.
She looks seen.
Sometimes that is the medicine.
Jamie pokes her head in at noon.
“Dr.
Grey?
There’s a walk-in.
Says he knows you.”
I look up from the patient file.
“Who is it?”
Jamie glances at her notepad.
“Alexander.”
A pause.
“Alexander?” I ask.
“Yes ma’am.”
I smile in spite of myself.
“Send him in.”
Alexander looks better than he did in the safe house.
Which, admittedly, is not a high bar.
But there is something easier about him today.
He is in plain clothes, no tactical edge, just a man in a grey sweater who fills the doorway of my office more than seems entirely necessary.
“Nice office,” he says.
“You’ve been in it.”
“Under significantly worse circumstances.
It looks nicer when people aren’t being investigated for financial crimes.” He sits without being asked, which is either presumptuous or comfortable, and I find I don’t mind either.
“How are you?”
“Genuinely fine.
You?”
“Getting there.” He studies me.
“Damien said you turned down the pack council’s request for a formal interview.”
“I gave a written statement.”
“They wanted you on camera.
They said your story could help drive Omega rights reform in the council charter.”
“My story isn’t their tool.” I meet his eyes.
“I’ll help where I can.
But I’m not a symbol.
I’m a doctor.”
“I know and that’s what I told them.”
“You told them for me?”
“You were busy.” He leans back slightly.
“I have a habit of doing things for you when you’re not looking.
Ask Jiang.”
I consider that.
“How long have you been watching the Ashford situation?”
“Eleven months officially.
Before that?” A pause.
“About three years.”
“Three years.”
“Your brother asked me to.
Off the record.
He was worried and couldn’t do it himself without triggering a territorial response.”
“You’ve been keeping track of me for three years,” I say slowly, “and you never once introduced yourself.”
“You were married to someone I was investigating.
It would have been inappropriate.” His eyes hold mine.
“I also thought you’d be out within the first year.
Any wolf with your instincts, I couldn’t understand why you stayed.”
“I stayed because I loved him.”
“I know.
And then?”