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Steven. I memorize the name so that I can give it to the coroner when he signs his death certificate.

Konstantin says, "He won't be here physically. He'll just be talking to her."

I growl again.

"This is for Aleksej," Georgy says.

"And we can all be in the room," Dr. Roger says.

"No, that won't work. I'll be too nervous with you guys leaning over my shoulders. Patients' families are not allowed in operating rooms for a reason. It will be on a video link. You guys can watch the video feed."

"No," I say. "If my brother is being cut open, I should be in the room."

"And how am I supposed to operate with you standing over my shoulder?" Cienna asks.

Konstantin raises a hand. "She's got a point, Ivan. If it were me, my hand would be shaking like a leaf with three big tiger shifters watching every move I made."

She looks at me, her eyes still wide and soft brown. "He's right. There are a lot of moving pieces. Our attraction," she whispers softly, "my impending heat, a risky operation I've never done before. I don't need any more distractions. And you, my tiger, are a big distraction."

My tiger practically rolls over and meows when she says the words my tiger.

I look at the X-rays again. Aleksej lies in the next room, unable to shift, unable to heal, and I stand here arguing about a man who won't even be on the same continent as my mate. Fucking ridiculous. My brother needs the best chance I can give him, and if that means listening to Steven's voice for a few hours, I'll suffer through it. Probably.

"Fine," I say. "Call Steven." I sneer his name. "And let's get this shit done, so I can have my mate, and my brother can have his life."

I step away from her touch, and she bites her lip. "I'm going for a run." I pull her lip from between her teeth and give her another two short kisses. "I'm going to need a lot of runs."

I leave the room before I hurt my brother's chances any further. But I hear Konstantin and Georgy say, "We'll go with him. You guys do whatever you need to do."

Chapter 5: Cienna

Fourteen hours and forty-two minutes. That's how long it takes to rebuild the arm of a four-hundred-pound Amur tiger shifter, in case anyone ever asks. Nobody will ever ask because what just happened in that operating room will stay in this compound.

My hands don't shake during the surgery. Not once. Not when Dr. Roger hands me the graft, and I seat the prosthetic. Not when Aleksej's healing abilities begin reaching for the artificial lattice like ivy finding a fence. Beautiful. Terrifying. Beautiful. The graft is seated. His body has accepted it so far. Whether it'll survive the tremendous forces of a full tiger shift is another question entirely. But for the first time since he was shot, Aleksej has a chance to get his tiger back.

Now that it's over, my hands are shaking so hard I can barely unbutton my surgical gown.

On the monitor above me, Steven's face is still there, pixelated and exhausted, staring at me from his Minnesota office. "You did it, Cienna," he says quietly.

"We did it," I correct him. "I couldn't have done this without you, Steven. You know that."

His eyes move past my shoulder, and I don't have to turn around to know who's standing behind me. He has been there the entire surgery, pacing outside the glass like a caged storm, restrained only by his brother's life.

"He has done his part," Ivan says through the thin flat lines of his lips. "He is done."

Steven's jaw tightens. His eyes meet mine, and there's a whole conversation in them that I'm too tired to have. "Cienna—"

"Thank you, Steven," I say, meaning it, and I also mean goodbye. He hears both because his smile flattens before the screen goes black. Ivan's hand is on the power button.

"He'll get the journal publication," I say to the dark screen. "He earned it."

Ivan turns me around by the shoulders, and his face, God, his face. A lifetime of waiting is carved into his face. My omega yearns to brush those lines away. Every part of me softening now that the surgery is done.

"And my brother?"

"His healing was already knitting to the new bone." I smile and pat his forearm. "If the next forty-eight hours go the way I hope, your brother will shift again, Ivan."

He closes his eyes. His forehead rests against mine, and he just breathes, and for one second the vor of the Brusilov Bratva is just a man whose brother is going to live.