Chapter 344

IVORY

“I’m explaining the protocol,” I said.

“You just made that up.”

“The protocol,” I said, “has existed for twelve years. It may have been in small print previously. We’re increasing the font size for clarity.” I walked to the examination room door and opened it.

“I’d like you to leave my clinic now. Think about whether you’d like to pursue the authorization process. Consider your options carefully, because the silver poisoning isn’t going to improve on its own and the people you’ve been seeing who were treating it at two hundred moon cedis are clearly not managing the progression, or you wouldn’t be here.” I held the door.

“I’ll be available for the evening session if you’d like to pursue the correct channels.”

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then Sera moved. And the movement was not graceful or composed or any of the things she’d presented as since walking into my clinic. She swept her arm across the nearest surface of my examination counter, and the items there trays and instruments and three glass jars of reference specimens that I was going to have to replace

—

―

went to the floor.

She hit the second surface before I could intervene, and the crash of glass and the clatter of metal filled the clinic with the specific chaos of someone who’d run out of controlled responses and defaulted to the uncontrolled ones.

She was screaming. Words, mostly – about her rights, about the policy, about what she was owed, about Damon, about Aria, about me. The words ran together into something that was less coherent language and more the sound of a person who’d spent a long time managing a situation that had finally exceeded her management capacity.

I stepped to the side of the room and let it happen.

–

Kael came through the door within approximately ninety seconds, which told me he’d been close

probably monitoring from nearby because that was the kind of Alpha he was, regardless of what else was going on. Nina was directly behind him with the alert efficiency of someone whose threat assessment had activated on the way in.

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Chapter 344

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They took in the scene. Sera, still in the middle of it. The floor, which was now considerably more interesting than it had been before. Me, standing against the far wall with my hands clasped and my expression settled.

I met Kael’s eyes briefly. His read the room in the specific way he had – comprehensive, rapid, filing everything in order of significance.

“Luna Sera,” Nina said, and her voice had the particular quality it got when she was done asking.

“You need to leave this clinic. Now. If you don’t leave now you will be removed, and the manner of removal will not be comfortable.”

Sera stopped. The screaming and the motion both stopped, simultaneously, with the slightly shocking quality of a storm cutting off. She was breathing hard.

–

not hers

Her expression, stripped of all the composed layers, was a face I recognized specifically, but the type. The face of someone who’d tried everything available and found none of it had worked.

She left.

She walked out of my clinic past Nina and Kael without looking at either of them, and I heard her footsteps in the corridor outside going in the direction of the temporary accommodation Margo had arranged, and then they faded.

The clinic was very quiet in the way that spaces are quiet after something loud has been in them.

I looked at the floor. At my reference specimens, which were not salvageable. At the tray that had landed upside down and was going to need sterilization. At the collection of small objects and instruments that were now in positions they weren’t designed to occupy.

“The maintenance bill,” I said, to no one in particular and also specifically to the room, “will be sent to her pack tonight.”

Kael was looking at me with the expression I recognized from years of him assessing whether I was alright. Not asking directly – he’d learned, a long time ago, that asking me directly whether I was alright produced a professional answer rather than an honest one, and he’d developed more reliable methods of obtaining honest information,

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I know,” he said, which meant he was still checking.

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Nina was already photographing the floor with the systematic efficiency of someone documenting for a record that was going to serve multiple purposes.

“I’ll need you to write up

the interaction for formal record,” she said. “Everything she said. In as

much detail as you can provide.”

“I’ll write it up tonight,” I said. I looked at Kael.

“There’s something I should tell you. About the authorization protocol.”

His expression shifted to attending.

“I’ve decided,” I said, “that the open door policy requires a new rule. Effective immediately.” I kept my voice even. “Despite the requirement that I see any person who comes to this clinic, the administration of actual treatment the full treatment, not just assessment — requires authorization from the Luna. The Luna decides who receives care versus who receives referral. It’s a protection measure. For the healer and for the pack.”

–

―

Kael was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t entirely read. Something moved through it that was partly recognition of what I’d done and partly something else that was more complicated.

“That,” he said, carefully, “is a very good rule.”