Chapter Seventeen

Della had been unconscious for fourteen hours. Not that Leo was counting or anything—he was just hyper aware of every second that passed as he sat beside her hospital bed. He'd left only to have his own wounds checked and to check on Raj in a room down the hall, who was thrilled with the outcome of the fight despite technically losing because, in his words, "It doesn't count if you lose because your opponent can literally drain the life from your body."

Given that he was already almost healed—one of the benefits of fighting as a werewolf—all they could really do was set his broken nose, which meant re-breaking it, and he'd likely always have the bump on the bridge to remind him of what had happened. To remind him of Della stepping into the ring to fight for him when he was barely conscious but still terrified for her. Terrified that she'd be injured trying to protect him, to support his challenge.

He'd had no idea how powerful his woman was. This was underscored by the tale of the Alpha of Apex River, who had come to check in on her sometime around hour four and wound up staying to talk for several hours after that, the two of them discussing the relationship that they could form between their packs now that Leo was officially Alpha.

That was a concept he was doing his best not to think too hard about. Though talking to Simon about it had made the idea significantly less intimidating. That was partly what had kept the Apex River Alpha there for so long—discussing the way he led his pack—so Leo had an example he could try to follow that wasn't just "What would James not do?". A few of the Blue Crescent wolves had come by as well, shifting their requirements for leadership from James to Leo without a moment for hesitation. He was starting to wonder if he was making this hospital room his base of operations the way James had Horatio's. He also wondered how long he could insist on being by Della's bedside before the nurses—especially Della's tiny human friend Magnolia, who had been popping in and out regularly since her shift started a few hours ago and made an impression on Leo to say the least—officially kicked him out. He couldn't stand the thought of leaving, though. Couldn't stand the idea of Della waking up without him there. As his skin and bones slowly knitted back together, he couldn't stop seeing the moment she'd pulled the energy from Raj's body into her own, her skin lighting up like her power had turned her incandescent, her body rising from the ground like she was the Messiah returning from the heavens. And then the moment when that blinding glow had winked out and she'd fallen, collapsed in a heap in the centre of the circle of gaping onlookers, and he'd barely been able to drag his broken body to her.

For you.

Simon had told Leo what Della had done earlier in the night, how she'd held off the full force of the attacking wolves on her own as the other witches had flagged one by one. Clearly, his woman was far more powerful than he had realized—to be able to do that and still have the power to hold off Raj without permanently injuring him. It wasn't something he'd put a lot of thought into, how powerful a witch he'd fallen so desperately in love with, and he questioned his own wilful blindness on the topic, how he'd barely even acknowledged her magic beyond the times she'd used it in front of him, until he realized the reason for it. The fact that Della was phenomenally powerful made no difference to him. He had loved her before he knew she could drag the energy out of his body with barely a thought; he loved her now that he had that knowledge. Della's strength made no change to the way he felt about her, beyond being even more impressed by her.

He was jolted from his thoughts by the door to the room opening. He'd come to expect the quiet knock of the nurses or his pack members hesitant to interrupt his mooning over Della's unconscious body. The woman who entered the room showed no such hesitancy. She walked in like she owned the entire building, long grey hair streaming behind her, and went immediately to Della's bedside, all but ignoring him beyond a quick assessing glance before she took Della's hand in her own.

"Hello," Leo said hesitantly. "I'm Leo."

"The one the universe chose for Delphinia," the grey-haired woman said without looking up. "I know."

"The universe?" Leo echoed, his sleep-deprived brain struggling to process her words. "What?"

"She came to me to see if I could explain the unfamiliar magic drawing the two of you together," the woman said, still holding Della's hand and assessing her with her gaze. "You werewolves call it a mate bond. Witches know it as supernatural magic."

"Isn't all magic supernatural?" Leo asked slowly.

"I didn't come here to debate semantics, Alpha," the woman said. "My granddaughter is in a fragile state and having your anxious energy constantly in the room is likely not helping."

"M-my energy?" This woman was Della's grandmother?

"Della drove herself within inches of complete and total burnout," she explained. "If she'd pushed herself any further, she might not have been able to return to us at all. She's been depleted like this once before, when that piece of scum was dosing her with freyroot, but active burnout is different."

"Are you telling me what she did for me is like… like what he did to her?" Leo asked, horrified.

"In a way," Della's grandmother said evenly, finally meeting his eyes. "In this case, by dragging someone else's energy into her body, Della forced her own magic to rebel. It had to burn up that outside energy in any way possible—it's toxic, otherwise, to have the wrong person's energy transferred into your own body. Because she was already so depleted, that used almost all her reserves. Which is what put her in this state." She shook her head. "That is precisely why we tell young witches not to do that exact thing. Still, I suppose one has few other options when facing a werewolf in hand-to-hand combat."

For a brief moment, Leo flashed back to Della rising into the air like a glowing angel, a scream tearing from her. "Will she be all right?" he asked, knowing he was moments from begging.

"Her body needs time to rejuvenate," Della's grandmother said. "Her magic is very slowly replenishing—it'll be several days before she's back to full strength. Her energy levels are a different story. In layman's terms, she's just very, very tired. It'll be another day or two before she regains consciousness, I suspect, and then some time after that before she is fully recovered. I can't tell you how long that will take—think of it as her body recovering from a severe illness."

"Another day or two before she's even conscious?" Leo gaped.

"Burnout is not a simple state," Della's grandmother said. "We warn witches very early on to avoid it at all costs. The price of pushing one's body and mind so close to that precipice is a steep one indeed. I wouldn't be surprised if she was very weak and tired, even after she awakens, for some time."

"I'll look after her," Leo rushed to say. A part of him almost reveled in the fact that he'd be able to take care of her. That he'd have a chance to look after this woman who had pushed herself to the cliff's edge for him. "I'll do whatever she needs."

"I would expect no less," the old woman said evenly. "And once she's back to being able to handle herself, the two of you will come around for a meal."

"That sounds… lovely. Thank you." Had he just taken an order from this woman? Something about her made it very easy to imagine her as a kind of Alpha in her own right, the Elder of a coven perhaps? Maybe that was why she had this aura of command about her.

With gentle hands, she pushed Della's hair back from her forehead. "Silly girl," she said, so softly Leo wasn't sure he was meant to hear it. "Silly, brave girl." She pressed a kiss to Della's forehead, then straightened, her hard gaze on Leo again. "All this for love?" she asked.

"For her?" Leo replied, his heart in his mouth. "Anything."

He thought he caught a trace of a satisfied smile on the witch's face as she walked out the door.

***

Della floated. She was tired, so tired, and the floating took care of at least some of the exhaustion. It took the weight of feeling her wiped-out body off her hands. So, she drifted in and out of a darkness that was both light and heavy at the same time, feeling herself returning by increments. She was aware of people around her, checking on the function of her apparently dangerously depleted body, having conversations—many of which revolved around her. And Leo. Always, always Leo.

She recognised Emmett's voice, one of the times she was almost present within her body. But her eyelids were too heavy for her to lift them and greet him.

"I was going to say we're going to have to redefine the rules of a challenge so only werewolves can participate, or after the way she took out Raj, everyone will want to bring a witch as their Second," he was saying. "But if this is the cost of it, somehow I don't think the witches will exactly be lining up to play along."

Leo's laugh sounded almost painful, like it was torn from somewhere deep in his chest. "She'll be fine," he said. "It might take a while, but they said she'll be fine."

"Of course, she will," Emmett agreed. There was a pause. "So, you know, if it's going to be a minute before she wakes up, it might not be a bad thing for you to come and deal with the uproar the pack is in right now. Raj and I have been covering your ass pretty well since he got on his feet again, but people are starting to wonder when their Alpha's going to make an appearance."

"I need to be here when she wakes up," Leo said, his tone brooking no argument.

She wanted desperately to open her eyes and look at him, to tell him that she was here, that she understood, that he should go and take care of his pack. But her eyelids were as heavy as boulders and her body didn't respond to her commands. Floating, floating.

She heard the door open and prepared herself for the assessing touch of the nurses, but it was Petra's voice she heard. "My gods, Della!" Her hand was pulled into a tight grip. "How could you let her do this to herself?"

The sound of a throat clearing, and Petra stepped away, dropping Della's hand. "Sorry, Alpha."

Simon's voice now. "We didn't mean to interrupt."

"You didn't," Leo said. "Em was just leaving."

"I need to speak to the Alpha, man to man," Simon said. "Petra, if you wouldn't mind waiting…" There was a pause. "Petra?"

"Yes," Petra said, her voice sounding slightly confused. "Waiting. I-I'll be outside."

"I'll talk to you later, Emmett," Leo said. Then, slowly, "And thank you."

"Yes," Emmett's voice said. He, too, sounded distracted. "You're welcome. I'll, um… I'll just go, then."

There was the sound of the door closing, and then a pause. "Did you just see that too?" Simon asked.

"I don't know what it was, but something just happened," Leo said. He cleared his throat. "So, Alpha, what can I do for you?"

The darkness reclaimed her. Floating, floating, weightless, and pure. It gave her time to think, the darkness. Time to consider what she had done, and what it might mean.

She'd thrown herself in front of the proverbial bullet for Leo. Jumped in the ring with the largest werewolf she'd ever seen, on a day that she'd already thrown herself into the middle of a conflict between two packs. On a day when she'd worn her magic down to far from full strength. A day when she'd discovered that, despite what Dane had done to her those years ago, she was far more powerful that even she had realized. She still almost couldn't believe she'd held off the Blue Crescent wolves for that time all on her own, as the other witches' magic had faltered and failed. What did this mean? That she'd need to be far more deliberate about siphoning off bits of her power to keep it under control, now she knew how deep the well inside her ran. More than just encouraging her garden to grow and keeping sensor spells around her house. Now that she'd come close to touching the bottom of that well, it would likely be far more insistent about being used regularly. She'd need to find some way she could regularly drain part of her overflowing river of magic, ideally some way that would do some good in the world, to keep it from breaking its banks and bursting out of her without warning, the way it did with inexperienced young witches.

And, she supposed, on some level, what she'd done would mark her as a threat. Despite her involvement in local government and the Council of Witches, she'd always been politically unassuming. They'd put her on the council in part because she was something of a public figure following Dane's trial, and in part because she was powerful once she'd recovered from the reroot poisoning, but she was certain no one had known how powerful.

I am here, her magic seemed to whisper in the weightless darkness. I am waiting. I am here.

Now… now, she'd lost that veil of anonymity. Surely by now, every witch on the council knew about the one who had held off an entire wolf pack's attacking force, then gone on to defeat one of them in one-on-one combat. Had dragged his energy into her body on an almost totally depleted supply of magic, burned it up and lived to tell the tale. She'd be viewed as a force to be reckoned with on the council now, a power in her own right, to be courted or avoided when there were decisions to be made. Not to mention how the werewolves would view her. Would there be a punishment meted out for meddling in their affairs? Gods, she hoped not—she'd been specifically asked to come and show her support for Apex River, after all. She'd done nothing she hadn't been explicitly invited to do.

Except volunteer as Leo's Second. That she had done entirely of her own volition. As if in answer to that thought, the tether between them tugged, deep in her belly, drawing her back into an awareness of her own body. The same bond that had seen him in peril and known she had to act, even if it meant putting herself on the line in a werewolf conflict once more. Because Leo was… important. Vital. Hers. Hers to protect, to cherish. She felt him beside her every moment she had even partial awareness of her own battered body. Waiting for her to return from this weightless darkness, and for what? To tell her she shouldn't have done what she did? To tell her he'd missed her? To ask her not to leave him again, after she'd just shown she'd do anything to keep him safe?

In truth, even if she'd wanted to, she wasn't sure she would have had the strength to walk away from him again. This man who had taken her criticisms on the chin like a broken boxer in the ring, knowing full well that the only way to make the changes she so arbitrarily demanded was to put his literal life on the line going up against his Alpha… and then did it. This brave, beautiful man, who had tried to keep fighting when he couldn't even stand, just to keep her from stepping into the fray. Who the universe's magic had driven her towards and refused to allow her to stay away from.

When Simon had told her he was going to see the Blue Crescent Alpha that night to demand an explanation, she'd known she'd accompany him even before he asked for her to join the group. Known she couldn't turn down a chance to see Leo again when it was dropped into her lap like that, even if they were on opposite sides of the Alphas' dispute. Even if it was just a glimpse of him across the room, even if it had been with him fully supporting his Alpha's actions. She couldn't keep denying the part of herself that unceasingly dragged her back to him.

She couldn't stay away from the man she loved, could not have refused, after all this, no matter what issues they needed to work through, to even try.

He was hers, and she was his, and they had already shown that they would fight for each other. The tether in her belly pulled as though in approval of her thoughts. No matter what the world threw at them now, with him as pack Alpha and her a force to be reckoned with among the witches, they would face it together.

Della floated. And she knew, when she awoke, it would be to him.