Chapter 225 One Thing at a Time
ADRIANA
Having one working arm turned out to be significantly more inconvenient than I’d anticipated.
I couldn’t dress myself properly. I couldn’t pour a full cup of coffee without it becoming a structural challenge. I couldn’t pick up Lana, which was the one that actually hurt, not in my shoulder but somewhere much deeper, because she would start to fuss and I would reach for her instinctively and then my body would remind me with a sharp, decisive pain exactly why that wasn’t happening.
The maids had essentially moved in. Hazel had arranged it without asking, which I didn’t bother objecting to because she was right and we both knew it. I slept more than I had in months, which I suspected was partly the injury and partly my body deciding this was its one opportunity to collect on six months of debt.
The kids had migrated into my room. All of them, at various points of the day and night. The twins had established what appeared to be a permanent base at the foot of my bed. Lorain had claimed the armchair by the window with a book and the attitude of someone who had decided proximity was the same as watchfulness.
Leo came in every morning before he left for his own activities and every evening when he came back, and he always checked the sling and always pretended he wasn’t doing it.
Hazel threw a fit every time she caught me standing at the window for too long. I let her, because she needed somewhere to put the worry and I was the only viable target.
When the doctor finally came to remove the sling, I was out of the chair before he finished telling me the range of motion would take time to return.
“You’ll need to take it easy,” he said, packing his bag with the particular resignation of someone who had said this to me before and did not expect it to land. “Your blood pressure is elevated. You’re still breastfeeding. Your body has taken significant trauma and it needs time to process that.”
“Understood. Thank you.” I was already moving toward the door. “Before you go — Lana. How is she?”
He stopped. Set his bag down.
That pause told me everything before he opened his mouth.
“Her fever hasn’t resolved the way I’d hoped. She’s losing weight faster than I’d like to see in an infant. I’d like to bring her in for a more thorough panel. Today, if possible.”
I heard what he said. I processed it. I kept my face completely still.
“How serious?”
“I don’t want to speculate before I have results. But I don’t want to wait either.”
After he left, Hazel was in the doorway.
“I heard.” She came in and closed the door behind her. “Leo and I will take her this afternoon. You have the Alphas’ meeting.”
“I should be the one taking her—”
“You can’t be in two places, Adriana. She won’t be alone. I’ll have someone call you the second there’s anything to report.” She held my gaze. “Let me help you.”
I wanted to argue. I didn’t have grounds to argue.
“Fine.” The word came out rough. “Keep your phone on.”
“Always.”
The meeting with the Alphas was exactly as exhausting as every meeting with the Alphas. They’d all heard about the shooting, which meant the first forty minutes were spent on speculation, concern that ranged from genuine to performative, and increasingly loud competing theories about who was responsible. I sat at the head of the table and let them talk until the noise became genuinely unproductive and then I put my hand flat on the table.
The room went quiet.
“We have someone in custody,” I said. “He’s being questioned. When there’s something definitive to report, you’ll be informed through the proper channels. What I need from each of you is to tell your packs that I’m alive, I’m functional, and anyone who is currently entertaining the idea of a leadership change can take that idea and bury it.” I looked around the table. “Are we clear?”
Murmurs of assent. A few nods.
The meeting moved on.
Afterward, when the room was mostly empty, Alpha Damon appeared beside my chair. I was checking my phone for a message from Hazel and it took me a moment to register he was there.
“My Queen.” His voice was different. Not the aggressive bluster from before. “I wanted to speak with you privately.”
I looked at him.
“I owe you an apology,” he said. “What I said in the last session was inappropriate. You’ve been managing this kingdom under conditions most people couldn’t survive. I was out of line and I know it.”
I studied his face. He kept his expression even, which made him difficult to read. His eyes, though, were flat in a way that didn’t quite match the words coming out of his mouth.
“First strike,” I said. “I don’t give second ones.”
He nodded. “Understood.”
“Then we’re done here.”
He turned to leave, then paused.
“Trust me,” he said, “I never make the same mistake twice.”
I watched him go.
Hazel found me still sitting in that chair ten minutes later.
“How did it go?”
“Fine. What did the doctor say about Lana?”
Her face shifted.
“She has to stay. At least for now. They want to monitor her closely and run the full panel. Leo is with her.” She crossed the room and sat down beside me. “She’s going to be okay. She’s tougher than she looks.”
“She’s a newborn, Hazel.”
“She’s your daughter.” She said it simply, like that settled it.
It didn’t settle it. But it helped.
“I need to go see her.”
“I know. We’ll go tonight.” She put her hand over mine briefly. “She has Milo. She’s not alone.”
I nodded. I looked down at my hand on the table.
Elijah would have known what to do. He always knew what to do with Lana specifically, some instinct he’d had from the moment she was born, this certainty about exactly how to hold her and when she was hungry versus tired versus just wanting to be held. He would have had her at that hospital himself before the doctor finished the sentence, and he would have known exactly which questions to ask and which answers to push back on.
He would have been there.
“Adriana.” Hazel’s voice brought me back. “One thing at a time.”
“I know.” I straightened up. “Where’s the man we have in custody? I want to question him myself.”