Chapter 251: The Man She Rejected Carried the Man She Loved

ASH’S POV

Ash had imagined Dove asking him to stay so many times that the real request took a moment to become words he understood.

Take my husband. Keep him alive.

He looked past her into the treatment room. The panther lay pale against the sheet, one hand hanging over the edge until Edrik lifted it back onto the bed.

"Where?" Ash asked.

Dove gave him the receiving clinic’s location. He knew the building, a former dental center beyond the canal, with a fenced yard where delivery vans used to turn. He had seen it during a patrol flight. Knowing that felt like the only decent thing his days of following her had produced.

"Say it back," she demanded.

He did. She watched his face until he finished, then nodded once.

"They know you’re coming. Stay until somebody tells you he’s stable. Send word to the tire-shop relief road. We’re going that way."

"Come with me."

The words escaped before he thought about the straps, the injured weight, the helpers who would need room to work. He wanted to take both of them. He wanted to take her most of all.

Dove looked toward the bed. "You can carry him safely. That’s what matters."

Ash shut his mouth. He hated that she had to explain it to him.

Edrik came out with the flight harness and a clinic worker. The bear checked every fastening while the worker cleared the yard. Ash could have told him he knew how to carry a man. He remembered the drill, the way a secured load moved differently from an animal caught in his claws, and said nothing.

Dove stepped back to give him room to shift. She did not look away in fear. She looked toward Thorne.

That hurt in a small, mean place beneath the larger fear of failing her.

Ash left his clothes with the worker and changed. His claws struck the paving, and people moved farther back beneath the awning. One man froze in the middle of the yard. Ash lowered his head until the man stumbled clear.

Edrik and the staff brought Thorne out. They settled him against the prepared support and secured him as they had practiced. Ash held absolutely still. He could smell the panther’s blood beneath the rain, and Dove’s familiar sweetness beside it made his muscles strain with the urge to turn toward her.

Her hands checked the strap nearest Thorne’s shoulder. She leaned close and spoke too quietly for the frightened people at the gate to hear.

"I’m coming. Don’t decide you’re doing anything without me."

Thorne tried to smile. Ash wished he had not seen it.

Then Dove stepped to Ash’s head and put her palm against him. The touch lasted barely a breath.

"Please."

He would remember how badly she had needed that answer. He would remember it even when she stopped needing him again.

Ash lifted carefully, keeping the injured man secure. The courtyard fell beneath him. A guard raised his arm to keep somebody from running forward too soon. Edrik stood beside Dove, his hand at her back, and they both watched until the clinic roof hid them.

Ash wanted to turn and take the armed men in the street apart.

He flew toward the canal instead.

The red shower thinned abruptly beyond the next few blocks. Water still marked the roofs behind him, but ahead the pavement shone with heat. He glanced back once. The narrow patch of falling red looked wrong, too sharply ended for the weather he had flown through before.

It might matter later. Thorne’s breathing mattered now.

Ash kept the flight short and steady. Below, the main crossing was crowded with trucks and men dragging barriers into place. One pointed upward. Ash bared his teeth without changing direction.

Let him remember being seen.

The dental center came into view with people already clearing its yard. A worker stood beside a white-painted square, waving a bright towel. Ash circled once to line up the landing and came down as gently as the weight allowed.

Hands reached for Thorne only after Ash settled. Staff released the straps and carried the panther through the back doors. Ash waited until everyone was clear before changing again. A worker brought a borrowed pair of trousers and a shirt without meeting his eyes.

He dressed while watching the door.

Inside, the building smelled of cleaned floors, hot equipment and too many frightened people. A desk stood where patients had once checked in for ordinary appointments. Somebody had covered the old price list with a handwritten list of missing relatives.

Ash gave Dove’s name to the radio operator and repeated the message route. He watched the man write it down.

"Delivered alive," Ash said. "Tell her that first."

The operator nodded quickly.

A nurse tried to make Ash wait in the front room. He stopped outside Thorne’s treatment room instead, far enough from the door that nobody had to ask him to move twice.

The clinic kept working around him. They had stores, staff and a covered water supply. They were also careful with everything they opened. He heard a doctor ask for a replacement shipment that had not arrived and another worker say they would use what they had.

Ash could protect this building from men. He could not force time backward inside it.

Hours passed before a nurse let him sit beside the bed. Thorne looked smaller without standing between Dove and something dangerous. Ash disliked the thought enough to move the chair closer.

The panther’s eyes opened slowly. His hand caught Ash’s sleeve with more strength than Ash expected.

"Dove?"

Ash looked at the hand gripping him. He could have softened the answer. He could have pretended the road was clear.

"Edrik’s with her. They’re coming around by the relief road."

Thorne did not release him.

"You left her there?"

Ash had no answer that would make the look on his face easier to bear.

"She asked me to bring you," he said, and stayed where she had told him to stay.