Page 113 of Alpha Heat
Ray shuddered and coughed again. Xan hustled into the bathroom and ran the tap. Once he had a cold, wet cloth, he hurried back to his brother. “What are they doing for the fever?”
“Elderflower tea and tablets.”
“I’ll get more for you.”
Ray didn’t protest, clearly too sick and weak to argue. Xan’s heart ached and his fingers shook as he stroked his brother’s hair off his forehead with the cool cloth. “I’ll be right back. We’re going to get this fever down. No arguments.”
Ray said nothing, his eyes so glassy and distant that it made Xan’s insides quiver.
The house was still quiet as he took the back stairs down to the hall where his pater’s study and the telephone resided. He paused outside the doorway, listening for any sound, but there was nothing. Unsurprising since his father was, according to Joon, with his pater every moment.
Standing next to the massive oak desk, he dialed the house in Virona. It rang five times before Ren picked up and Xan sent him for Urho.
While he waited, he gazed around the room, taking in the family portrait across the wall. His father stood tall and proud, his big hand resting on his seated pater’s shoulder, while Xan and Ray stood off to the side. It had been made when Xan graduated from high school, before his failures became too well-known for his father to ignore.
Xan stared at the painting. His father’s dark, curly hair, so like Xan’s, and his bright blue eyes were striking. He was bigger than Xan could ever hope to be, muscular and handsome, with a strong jaw and a masculine cruelty to his features. His pater, though, was nearly opposite in his looks: slight and short, with light brown hair and hazel eyes. Almost unremarkably bland in appearance. Handsome, yes, but in a dull, easily overlooked way. Of course they were both older now, in their early sixties, but they were much the same.
Xan’s eyes drifted next to the portrait of his pater when he was young, and the photograph of Jordan, an alpha, given a place of pride over the fireplace.
He wondered about Jordan sometimes. Xan had been so young when Jordan died that he didn’t remember him. And his pater never spoke of him, not even when he made his yearly visits to the graveyard to leave flowers on the stone. His father, on the other hand, spoke fondly of his lost son—memories of swimming in the sea together in the Lofton house, and Ray teaching Jordan to ride a bicycle while Father ran uselessly behind saying, “Pedal! Pedal!”
Xan wondered if his father would speak so fondly of him if he were gone. He imagined not.
He was relieved to shove aside morbid thoughts when Urho’s voice came on the line. “Xan, is all well?” Urho sounded troubled.
The rasp of his voice was enough to make Xan relax and breathe a sigh of relief. This was a man who loved him. This was an alpha who’d take his demise very much to heart. “No,” Xan murmured, collapsing into his father’s giant leather desk chair and rubbing his forehead. He was so damn glad to have Urho in his life. “My brother isn’t being well-tended here. It’s not the staff’s fault. Everyone is gone except for old Joon and the cook. They’re trying to hold the place together.”
“Wolf-god. Do you need me to…” Urho trailed off, and Xan knew he’d bitten off an offer to come down to the city. His commitment to Vale and the baby prevented that. And as much as Xan wanted him here, to feel his steady presence and have his support—not to mention get his help in caring for Ray—he understood the promises Urho needed to keep.
“Ray’s fever is very high,” Xan went on. “They’ve given him elderflower tea and tablets, but there must be something else I can do to help him. I think he’s been hallucinating from the fever.”
“Isn’t there a doctor who—”
“No. None. The epidemic here is beyond what we realized in Virona. Every doctor is occupied.”
Urho was silent for a long minute but then he finally said in a no-nonsense tone that gave Xan strength, “Go to my house. Upstairs, in my bedroom, there is a cupboard with medicines inside. The tin with the willow-tree label has tablets normally reserved for doctors alone, and given for only the worst fevers. Take the whole tin with you, but only dose Ray and your pater twice a day. There’s also a bottle with black elderberry on it and a dark star on the brand’s label. That’s a prescription strength whole system booster. It also relieves congestion and over-production of mucus. Give it three times daily, with or without meals.”
“Will your servants let me in?” Xan felt doubtful that the men he’d glimpsed in Urho’s house would trust his word alone, and they shouldn’t. No doubt they’d be protective of Urho’s place with the city turned upside down with sickness.
“I’ll call them.” Then Urho added, a hint of worry in his voice, “Hopefully they’re well.”
“Surely they would have called you if they weren’t?”
“I’d like to think so,” Urho said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “But you’re safe?”
“So far,” Xan replied with a snort. He didn’t know how safe he’d be if his father discovered him in the house.
“Wash your hands in hot water, as hot as you can stand, after visiting the sick rooms and any time you can. Please, Xan, for the love of wolf-god, stay well.”
“I’ll try.” His stomach fluttered, and a tender fondness that he wanted to roll up in like a blanket washed over him. “You too.”
“I’m not worried about me.”
Xan smiled. “I know. That’s my job.”
Urho huffed softly. “You should go. The sooner you get the medication into them, the faster the fever will drop.”
Xan hesitated another moment and then confessed, “I’m not sure if I leave the house that I’ll be granted access back inside. My father doesn’t know I’m here. Our oldest beta servant snuck me in to see Ray.”
