Chapter 157: A Willing Patient
The medical facility sat near the center of the compound. It smelled of vinegar and mint, comfrey and boiled roots; the kind of smell that reminded Orion a bit of his mother.
Lamps swung gently from beams. Curtains on the curtained beds rustled now and again as healers moved about with the small efficiency of people whose days were full of other people's hurts.
Orion pushed the door open and the room froze. For one ridiculous, breathless second it looked as though someone had tied a taut wire through the middle of the place and stopped the world.
Rita, who was mid-bind on a child's scraped knee, blinked as if she'd just laid eyes on a ghost.
The strip of linen sagged, then slipped from her fingers. "Alpha?" she said, and the question came out like a hiccup. "Alpha Orion?"
He gave a half smile meant to ease the moment. "Evening, Rita. Don't look so scandalized."
Her mouth worked. "We weren't..." She swallowed. "We weren't expecting…you."
