Page 106 of The Florist and Her Alphas

The doctor doesn’t answer right away, and that hesitation says more than anything he could say after it.

“I can’t promise you that,” he says finally. “The head trauma, the surgery, the strain on her body. I’d put her chances at sixty percent over the next forty-eight hours.”

Mira’s face crumples. She presses both hands over her mouth and cries without sound, her shoulders shaking.

“I want to see her,” I say.

“One visitor at a time. She needs quiet.” He looks between the four of us.

My brothers all look at me at once. And they all nod at me to go. I follow the doctor down the hall. My heart is a fist against my ribs the entire way.

He stops outside a door with her room number stenciled on a small plastic placard. He turns to me before opening the door.

“Sanitize your hands at the door,” he says. “Keep your voice low if you speak to her. No pressure on her body. No leaning on the bed, nothing against her incision or her ribs. The nurses will be in every hour to check vitals.”

He opens the door.

I stop at the threshold.

The room is dim, lit only by the pale glow of monitors along the wall. It smells of antiseptic. There is the low, continuous beep of the heart monitor.

I use the sanitizer mounted by the door and quickly cross the room.

She is so small in that bed, swallowed by white sheets and machines. Her hair has been swept to one side to clear the gauze bandage wrapped around her temple. A small dark spot of old blood has soaked through the white. Her face is pale, nearly gray, and her freckles stand out starkly against that paleness, scattered across her nose. Her lips are parted around the tube taped at the corner of her mouth. An IV runs into the back of her left hand. Another line disappears into her right wrist. A small clip glows red on her index finger.

I stand there and look at her for a long time without moving.

Slowly, I sink into one of the hard plastic chairs.

Anger moves through me. If it weren’t for Silus, for his father before him, she would be home right now, laughing at something Pepper said, arguing with me about closing time. Then the anger drains out, and grief takes its place.

I take her right hand in mine, careful of the line. Her skin is cool. I turn her hand over and press my mouth to the inside of her wrist. I feel her pulse against my lips, and it’s comforting.

I have been holding myself together for hours.

Something in my chest cracks open. Tears slowly run down my face as I look at her. She looks so helpless on the bed and should have been under my protection. I failed her. I failed her so fucking bad.

My face is pressed against the inside of her wrist where her pulse is.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her skin, again and again. “I should have been there sooner. I should have known. I wish it was me in this bed instead of you, so you could be home with your flowers, so you could be happy.” My voice breaks apart entirely on the last word.

I don’t know how long I sit like that before a nurse steps in quietly and tells me visiting hours have ended for the night. An hour has passed. I hadn’t felt a single minute of it go by.

I press one more kiss to her wrist before I stand.

“I’ll be here first thing in the morning,” I whisper. “I promise.”

Julian

The next morning, I’m sitting with Liana in the hospital room. I’ve claimed the morning shift today. Ezra had visited her all night.

I pull the chair closer. I take her hand carefully, the way the nurse showed us, thumb resting lightly against her knuckles, nothing that could tug the line taped into the back of it.

“Hey, honey,” I say. “It’s me.”

She doesn’t answer or move.

The monitor beeps steadily, and the ventilator hisses its slow mechanical breath.