the stained-glass windows, showering the white sheets. The fragrance of flowers was soothing. A fresh breeze wafted in.
He hoped this young woman found the space as rejuvenating as he did.
Not long afterward, he heard shouts. Footsteps tramped in his direction. He saw a group of people through the window, hastening his way.
His heart jumped up into his throat, and he scarcely knew if he should step outside to wait, or stay within the shed so as to appear calm and collected.
“She comes, Second,” Halvor said, popping his head in. His eyes were tight, his reaction to pain.
And then Romulus felt it, like hot, stinging needles along his skin and in the backs of his eyes. The healers surged into the room with their patient. Known to be the calmest of his people, they seemed unusually flustered.
“Bring in the Alpha Shifter,” one of them shouted, supporting the girl’s head.
“Spin her toward the bed! Spin her!” Alvine coached in a brash tone Romulus had never heard from her.
The group of four turned, and as they did so, Romulus got his first good glimpse of her. His breath dried up and his composure fled. He had to grab the edge of the bed to keep from going to his knees.
He didn’t need to see her photograph. He didn’t need to hear her story.
He saw it all in her face.
The set of her eyes and jaw matched that of his beloved, but every other feature spoke of Arcana blood. She had an uncanny resemblance to his mother, in particular, with the same dainty features and button nose, although her auburn hair, which crested to a widow’s peak, had been inherited from his grandmother. He wondered if her eyes were a similar color, and if, when she was healed, the ethereal glow of her magic would bring every man in the village forward begging and pleading for her hand in marriage.
But he was getting ahead of himself. She was sick. Very sick. It was a miracle she wasn’t dead.
“Where is the First?” he barked as a powerful, dark-haired man in a loose robe someone had clearly lent him walked in with a killer’s grace. His deep-set eyes scanned the room, the woman, and finally landed on Romulus.
The confidence he saw there told him this was the Alpha Shifter, as did the rush of pleasing magic that filled the room.
No. Not pleasing…thrilling.
As though a heavy blanket was pulled back, suddenly Romulus couldn’t wait to get to the battle yard. He couldn’t wait to brandish a sword and fall headlong into the magic that gave his kind its namesake of guardian.
He struggled out of the feeling. His child needed him.
He allowed the strong shifter magic to flow around him, suddenly understanding how this Alpha Shifter had been able to turn the tide in the young woman’s—his daughter’s—magic.
“Hello,” Romulus said, offering a light bow. “I thank you for escorting…”
“Charity,” the man said in a rich, deep voice.
Color danced in Romulus’s vision. His legs wobbled, barely holding him.
“There, you see?” Romulus found Halvor by the door, blocking a crowd of people that rudely lingered outside.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow, Second,” Halvor said.
Romulus tensed within the flood of emotion. “I told my beloved—her mother—that if she honored me with the gift of a child, it would be undeserved charity for an impure soul. That I must beg, being as flawed as I am, and hope. She called me foolish at the time, but in the end…” He blinked away the sudden moisture in his eyes. “In the end, she gave me a child, and honored me with the name I would have chosen.”
Romulus shooed Alvine from Charity’s right side and gestured for the Alpha Shifter to stand to her left, as was proper for her protector.
The Alpha Shifter filed in without hesitation, not needing a verbal directive. How pleasing.
“We must seek more facts before we—”
Romulus made a small gesture, quieting the healer.
“The First,” Halvor announced.
Antonia entered the room, regal and unhurried. Not for the first time, Romulus cursed the decorum that dictated their every action.
“Mother,” he said, motioning for her to join them at Charity’s head. The boiling desire to fight thankfully quieted in his mother’s tranquil presence.
“Yes, hello. Thank you for the note about the elves.” His mother’s gaze lingered on the Alpha Shifter for a moment—a silent request for an introduction.
“I apologize; we are not yet properly acquainted,” Romulus said to the Alpha Shifter.
The young man’s jaw clenched and his body leaned just so—the Alpha Shifter was clearly