Chapter209 Recovered

Chapter209 Recovered
Third Person POV
Emma's head fell back. Her fingers twisted into the sheets.
Klaus made a low, rough sound. He began to move.
He started with some restraint. It didn't last.
The Alpha's raw instinct and months of suppressed need took over completely. His pace turned hard and fast. The sound of their bodies together filled the quiet bedroom.
The friction between them built to an intense heat.
Sweat dripped from Klaus's forehead onto Emma's chest.
Emma locked her legs around his waist and moved with him. Her nails dragged down his back and left red lines across his skin.
The headboard knocked against the wall with each movement.
Klaus drove deep on every thrust, landing exactly where it unraveled her.
Emma's breathing disintegrated entirely. She could only manage broken sounds.
The overwhelming physical sensation and the emotional release pouring through the mate bond wound together into something neither of them had felt before.
Klaus drove faster. He pulled her close and buried himself fully inside her.
His muscles contracted hard, and he let go.
Emma came at the same moment, her whole body shaking in his arms.
Klaus caught his breath and eased his weight off her.
He shifted carefully away from the injured left side of his chest and lay down, drawing Emma in against him with one arm.
The room went quiet. Nothing left but the sound of both of them gradually coming back to themselves.
Emma rested her head against the right side of his chest. She could hear his heartbeat, strong and steady.
Klaus set his chin on top of her head.
His fingers moved slowly down Emma's back in long, unhurried strokes.
It was a soothing motion, but it was also something more deliberate. He was using the contact to confirm that she was real, that she was actually lying against him and not somewhere in his imagination.
Emma opened her eyes. Her gaze settled on his left chest.
The wound had torn open during the exertion. A wide patch of red had spread through the white gauze at its edge.
Emma's brow pulled together. She pressed a hand to the mattress and started to push herself up.
"I'll get the first aid kit," she said.
Klaus's arm came down over her waist and pressed her back into place against him. He looked at the concern on her face, and something quiet and amused moved through his expression.
"Now you're worried about me?" he asked quietly.
Emma gave him a look that said several things at once. But the last distance between them was gone from her eyes.
She reached out and let her fingertips rest lightly against the skin beside the gauze, where there was no fresh blood.
"Does it hurt?" Her voice dropped.
Klaus looked at her.
"Yes," he said. "But it was worth it."
--
After that night, everything between Klaus and Emma changed.
Neither of them brought up the phrase "starting over" again. There was no formal conversation, no stated terms or promises made aloud. But the way they moved around each other had become entirely what two people looked like when they were falling.
Klaus handed the pack's affairs to Steven and stayed in Redstone City to recover.
During the day, Emma went to the lab at Redstone University. Klaus came with her.
He wore his plain black coat and sat in the corner of the lab with a laptop on his knees, working through whatever the pack had sent over.
Every few minutes he would look up from the screen, and his eyes would find Emma across the equipment benches.
One afternoon, Emma picked up her water cup and stepped out of the lab to fill it at the dispenser down the hall.
Klaus set down his tablet and followed her.
Emma was standing at the dispenser when she heard his footsteps and turned around.
"I'm just getting water," she told him.
"I know." He came and stood beside her, watching the cup fill. "I wanted some company."
Emma gave him a sideways look and told him he was impossible. But when she picked up her cup and walked back, she didn't walk faster to leave him behind.
Klaus fell into step beside her. Their shoulders bumped together occasionally as they walked.
At night they came back to the dormitory, and when they slept, Klaus held her the same way he always had, his arm across her waist, keeping her inside the boundary of his space.
Some nights he still woke without warning. His hand would move to the empty side of the bed before he was fully conscious. Only when his palm found her shoulder would he close his eyes again.
In the beginning, Emma had been uncertain about the constant physical closeness. But a few times, when Klaus shifted in his sleep and his arm pulled away from her waist, she would feel the warmth disappear and turn toward him in her sleep, pressing herself back against his chest before she was fully awake.
Neither of them said anything about those moments.
But the dependence that came from nearly losing each other had woven itself through the restored bond between them. It had taken root without either of them deciding to let it.
After some time had passed, Andrew came to Redstone City with his medical equipment and arranged a full follow-up exam for Klaus.
Andrew removed the bandaging from Klaus's chest and checked the wound carefully.
The tissue destruction from the silver bullets had stopped progressing entirely.
Under the effect of Emma's white wolf healing, the damaged blood vessels and muscle tissue were actively regenerating.
Andrew logged his findings and confirmed that Klaus was out of the danger period. Continued rest was all he needed to make a full recovery.
--
A few weeks later, the temperature in Redstone City began to drop.
Something in Emma's state at the lab started to change.
She began feeling nauseous with no warning. When colleagues opened certain chemical reagents nearby, the smell that had never bothered her before would hit her stomach like a fist.
At first she assumed it was exhaustion catching up with her. Too much travel, disrupted sleep, an irregular schedule. She didn't mention it to Klaus. She drank more warm water and kept working.
Then one afternoon it got worse.
Emma was standing at the bench, holding a glass sample tube, about to transfer the contents into a culture dish.
A wave of dizziness hit her without any warning, so severe that her vision went white at the edges.
Her legs went soft. The strength left her fingers. The tube slipped out of her hand.
It struck the edge of the bench and shattered, scattering glass fragments and sample fluid across the surface.
Emma grabbed the edge of the bench with both hands and barely kept herself upright. She stayed bent over it, head down, breathing carefully, her face drained of color.
Alistair heard the sound from across the room and came around his desk.
He took one look at her pale face and the sweat at her hairline and his expression shifted.
"You need to stop for today." His tone left no room for debate. "You're not well. Go to the hospital now and get checked out."