Page 6 of Threads of Fate

Mate. Mate. Mate.

Whoa. Finn has his hands on a patient who is also his mate. While at work. A potential fated mate who is ahuman. This is a small (but significant) violation of the Were Medical Code of Conduct and his personal one, too. Finn is surprised the hospital’s Physician’s Oath Spell (not one person called it POS in front of the hospital’s President) hasn’t sent security thundering down on his head.

He has to get another doctor in here before he is out of a job. He doesn’t want to leave Austin alone, but if he can get another doctor in here, he can satisfy both his professional obligations and his personal need to protect. “Uh…one moment? Let me get some things to fix up your arm and knees, and…uh…I’ll be right back.”

Austin’s apparent surprise at his abrupt departure mid-conversation is not lost on him. Heart pounding, Finn stops on the other side of the curtain. He bends at the waist, hands on his knees to get his bearings.

His mate’s deep voice timidly asks, “Hey. Dr. Merritt? Are you all right? I can see your feet underneath the bottom of the curtain. Did I do something wrong?” His question reeks of uncertainty and fear. Finn’s wolf growls and reminds him he has a job to do and to get his act together; their mate is distressed.

Yes, his mate. Okay, he has this.

“Sorry, Austin. It’s not you. It’s me. I’ll be right back.” He walks toward the sliding glass doors where Dennie is poring over his screen with an intensity that usually means a juicy novel or a thirsty social media edit. Finn isn’t the only one who gets bored on slow days.

“Dennie? Could you get Dr. Kennedy, please? I need a consult.” Finn trusts his mentor and it will ease his worry over his injured mate.

“I will tell him, Finn, but he’s in surgery for the patient from the accident earlier. They’re doing that reconstruction. All surgical teams are busy. There are also four babies being born, and everyone else is gone already. Do you want me to get the on-call in? Although, I think Dr. Hildebrand’s specialty is Geriatrics…” Small Were hospitals are both a curse and a blessing, though the curse was currently tipping the scale.

Dennie wouldn’t have said there was no one if there had been any other choice. “I was just going to try to get your attention.” The beta hesitates, and that twinge in his instincts Finn had felt since Austin had lied burst into flames. He nods for his colleague to continue, hoping against hope that what comes next isn’t going to break his heart or send him on a rampage.

“He’s been to every ER in Nashville. Sixteen broken bones in the past five years, several concussions, burns of all degrees, and various soft tissue traumas. He’s either the most accident-prone human alive or…” Dennie looks away, and Finn’s heart breaks. “There are notations on the file that there is suspected domestic violence. The last notation from a month ago states that they attempted to assist, but he protested. His partner was present.”

Rage bursts behind Finn’s eyes. Dennie’s eyes widen as he rolls his chair back slightly against the L-shape of his desk, covering his nose with his hand.

Domestic. Violence.

Finn’s sudden rage and anguish at someone treating hismateso viciously and for so long makes him see red and turns his black currant scent acidic, overpowering his scent blocker patch. Breathing in and out through his mouth, Finn struggles to get a grip on his anguish. Normally, Finn is even-tempered in the faceof any adversity. Jay says they rely on him to always have his head in the game—but right now? He has only white-hot fury.

And that growl is not helping at all. Is it coming from him?

Turning abruptly, he slams his fist into the metal filing cabinet behind him. The top two drawers cave in, but the sight of the crumpled metal and the residual pain in his hand help him get his temper in check. If only slightly.

“Shit. I’m sorry, Den,” he says, reverting to his co-worker’s nickname, which he usually only did during after-work drinks at the local karaoke bar. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Dennie rolls bravely back toward his desk, hand still over his nose, opens the drawer, and wordlessly offers a scent blocker spray and a small smile. “Understandable. He’s too sweet to be stuck in a relationship like that. So go help that boy, and I will bring him a sandwich in thirty minutes. See if you can get him to let us help. Use your puppy dog eyes for something other than trying to convince me to get you a nine pm white chocolate latte.”

The scent blocker spray is cold and antiseptic-smelling when he applies it, but at least he isn’t sending run-for-your-life pheromones throughout the ER, and it might get him and, hopefully, Austin inside the door at home later without sending his pack into a frenzy.

“Thanks. I’ll see you in thirty.”

As he makes his way back toward his new mate, he can hear Dennie grumble, “How the hell am I going to get my bag out of this cabinet now? Finn, wait! Get back here.”

Grabbing the items he needs to treat Austin, Finn tries to formulate a plan to persuade him to let them help. Domestic violence is uncommon in the Were community, given the nature of the bond, so his training is light in this area. If he’d been able to get a consultation from a coworker, he could have taken the role of potential mate instead.

It’s a fucked up situation. He suddenly wants his mates here: take-charge Jay, strong-but-silent Leo, or even I-own-knives-and-I-know-how-to-use-them Gideon. But it was just him, his Physician’s Oath, and hopefully, a bit of luck.

It felt like hours since he’d left Austin behind the curtain, and when he pulls it back, the human asks, “Is everything okay? I heard a crash…” He looks exhausted now. The pain—and maybe something deeper—wearing his shiny, happy facade thin around the edges.

Rolling the tray over, he meets the human’s eyes and gets a better look at a darkening bruise on his human’s face. “Everything is okay. Just a cabinet falling over. What happened here?” Finn smooths a single, light-as-a-feather finger over Austin’s cheek. His mate shivers and licks his lips.

Austin’s eyes are unfocused, and he breathes out, “I got hit in the face with an apple yesterday. It had a bruise. Now, I have a bruise, too.” Hearing what he’s said, his eyes widen so much that the whites show around his irises. “What?! No, I’m joking. Ha.” Hearing the truth, it seems, is a surprise to them both.

“Austin. Are you saying someone has hit you in the face with an apple?” This can’t be true. It couldn’t. That is downright cruel and so much worse than he thought.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t. C-Could you please fix my arm now? It really hurts.” If Austin had been pale before, he now looks like he’s seen a ghost.

The rage simmers below the surface, and human senses or not, he can tell it’s triggering Austin’s fear. The last thing he wants is for his mate to be frightened, so he forces it down to deal with later. Firmly grasping Austin’s frail shoulder in one hand and his arm in the other, he explains, “You’ve dislocated the arm and possibly torn the rotator cuff. I’ll set it, and then we can get you further imaging to see if it might need surgery. It’s going to hurt a lot.” He’s nauseous at the thought of hurting hisnew mate. This is theexactreason that the Oath prohibits them from treating their mates. He still never expected it to feel like this.

Austin braces himself and breaks Finn’s heart for what feels like the fiftieth time since he’d met him. “That’s okay, Doc. It’s not the first time. I can take it. Just do it.” His small smile is not the encouragement he intends it to be. Not at all.

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