Hank smiled at Bishop—actually smiled, like a normal person.
Or like a smug jerk who enjoyed me getting called on my shenanigans.
“To be continued,” I warned Hank on my way in.
“I hope not,” he muttered at my back.
“How are you going to lead these people if you pester them within an inch of their lives?” Bishop kept pace with me to the elevators. “You should work on inspiring loyalty, not annoyance.”
“Leading these people is Midas’s job, not mine.” I mashed the button marked with a red medical symbol I had assumed, until recently, was an emergency call button if the elevator got stuck. “Why does everyone take Hank’s side?”
“Hank does his job and doesn’t talk smack. That’s why.”
After the doors shut behind us, I glared at him. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you hinting at me.”
“Midas is courting you.” Bishop’s smirk gleamed on the silvery walls. “What do you think happens after courtship ends?”
“I don’t get crowned High Queen Alpha of the Atlanta Gwyllgi.” I glowered at my own reflection. “Wait.” A shot of panic hit my bloodstream. “Do I?”
“Midas won’t be alpha until Tisdale steps down, so no. But you would be co-beta for all intents and purposes.”
“I’m already co-potentate.” I made a round shape with my hands. “My plate, she is full.”
“Either you accept him, or you rebuke him. Rebuke him, and it’s done.”
“Ugh.” I thumped the back of my head on the wall. “I make a lifetime commitment, or I lose him?”
“Pretty much.”
“That sucks.”
Shrugging, he repeated himself. “Pretty much.”
The doors opened onto the infirmary, and we went in search of Abbott.
Meant to accommodate various species, the space was much larger than I had been expecting the first time I saw it. More advanced too. It was basically a mini hospital. How it had sat neglected for so long boggled the mind. Unless you had witnessed firsthand the gwyllgi tendency to require house calls for emergency treatment.
“Bishop, Hadley.” A young woman dressed in scrubs found us first. “Abbott is waiting on you.”
She led us to a large room where Lisbeth sat on the bed, chatting away with someone hidden by privacy curtains. Expecting it to be Abbott, I walked in and stumbled when I spotted Ford and Abbott.
“Hey.” I tried for a hesitant smile. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”
“I wanted to try an experiment,” Bishop said, gesturing Ford out of the room. “Lisbeth is an LPN. She works at a large clinic that keeps her chained to a desk, a victim of admin drudgery, but she’s an excellent nurse.”
The dots connected in my mind, and I said, “Oh.”
“I recruited her to take care of Ford,” he continued. “I was curious if he would remember her.”
“Did he?” I checked with Lisbeth. “Remember you?”
“Not until he entered the room.” Her brown eyes sparked with amusement. “Watch this.”
Cautious about involving Ford again, I started to protest. “I don’t think we should—”
“Ford,” Bishop called. “Can you come here, please?”
Ford sauntered into the room, pulled up short when he spotted me, then nodded to Bishop and Abbott. A heartbeat passed before he noticed Lisbeth, and he smiled when he did, but it was only politeness.
“Ma’am.” He took a step back. “I don’t mean to intrude.” He checked with Abbott. “Should I go or…?”
“Ford, this is Lisbeth.” Abbott introduced them. “Lisbeth, Ford.”
She stuck out her hand, and Ford was too much of a gentleman not to take it. The contact sparked instant recall, as best I could tell, and he laughed.
“You got me again, didn’t you?” He shook his head. “That’s the darnedest thing.”
It was one thing to hear a geas had been laid on someone, even to experience the limits of the ones on me, but it was startling to watch one in action on someone else.
“They spent enough time together,” Bishop told me, “the geas doesn’t work quite right on him anymore. One touch brings it all back.”
That could explain how I remembered her too. We talked every day. We may not have shared physical space often, that I recalled, but we had an emotional connection that might have anchored her in my mind during a moment of trauma.
“I guess that settles it then.” I joined Ford at her bedside. “You can stay with me until you’re over the hump.”
“Midas is staying with you.” She kept sneaking glances at Ford. “I don’t want to impose.”
True, my apartment was the size of a shoebox, and I already had a whole lot of gwyllgi male in mine.
“You could stay in Midas’s apartment maybe?” I would have to ask first. “That way you’d be close.”
“You can stay with me,” Ford offered. “Or I’ll stay with you.”
Frowning at this change in his tune, I asked, “How long do you have before you go?”
“Long enough.” He smiled at Lisbeth. “I’m not on any set timeline.”
That wasn’t the impression I got during his speech to Midas and me, but I wasn’t about to stick my nose into his personal life. The intersection of a member of Midas’s pack and a member of my team threw up a stop sign I was all too happy to obey.
“You don’t have to do that.” Roses blossomed in her cheeks. “I can manage on my own.”
“You took good care of me.” He covered her hand with his. “I don’t mind paying you back.”
“That’s not why I do what I do,” she protested. “You don’t owe me.”
“Hadley,” he said, dragging me into their argument. “Tell the stubborn woman to accept help when it’s offered.”
“Stubborn woman,” I parroted, “accept help when it’s offered.”
“Fine.” Her complexion glowed as she gazed up at him. “We’ll have to stay at your place or mine, though.” She checked with me. “Humans aren’t allowed in the Faraday, right? That’s why I was under house arrest until Ford recovered?”
The shock of learning one of my team was human struck me mute. It wasn’t that I was prejudiced against them, or that I didn’t see the value in them, but I hadn’t expected one to
