In Aiden’s rage, he had not seen the few Knots who had gathered to witness him putting down the Moderator’s partner. Durant wasn’t dead, no. There was only one way to kill a peluda.

And Don Idlewood knew exactly how to kill his partner.

After cutting through Rowan’s clothes to get to the quill lodged in his side, the Doctor assigned nurses had had to cut through the binding encircling Rowan’s chest so the boy could breathe easier. They had also struggled with Aiden, who refused to set Rowan down on the bed and continued to hold and maneuver him even as they worked. In the state Rowan was in, they didn’t argue. They managed to use Aiden’s insistence that he would not let Rowan go to their advantage, getting him to position the teen accordingly for them to work on. While one gave Rowan something to numb the pain, the other administered the antidote in time. Aiden then spent the duration of his time in the infirmary watching the green tint drain from Rowan’s skin.

The nurse bandaged Rowan’s torso from the wound up. She cleaned and bandaged the boy’s torn forearm, working quickly and quietly as Aiden hovered. Once they deemed their jobs for the most part done, Aiden settled in bed with the boy cradled to his chest. Rowan was so small and light in comparison, but he felt heavy here.

Aiden watched his skin change color, listened to the IV drip and the emergency monitors attached to Rowan. The poison just needed to leave his system so they could further assess the internal damage done. They wanted to avoid cutting into him or sending him to a bigger facility if at all possible.

It took every ounce of strength he had to sit there and not squeeze the boy too tight or shake him to consciousness or disturb him in any way. His wings remained unfolded, acting as curtains surrounding the both of them. He resolved to wait until Rowan was warmer to the touch to leave. He monitored the boy’s pulse with his fingertips, matched his own breathing with his so he would know of any changes immediately. He waited and he held the student, the Loose String he had resolved to keep at arm’s length.

He had failed at that spectacularly.

The haze of his anger and the sting of his adrenaline had nearly dwindled until a set of heavy footsteps caught his attention. Feathers and wings bristling once more, there was an absence in his chest that tightened noticeably with this particular kind of anger. He glared over his wing at the man who entered.

The Moderator.

His superior.

Don Idlewood looked like he had aged ten years. The marks on his palm from his and Durant’s bond had started to fade. There was blood on his sleeves.

There was blood on his hands.

The only way Rowan could describe Idlewood’s fogged gaze was desperate. He was hunched like someone who had lost a week’s worth of sleep. His fingers trembled in ways Aiden had sometimes seen addicts’ hands tremble. When Idlewood opened his mouth and the words, “Give him to me,” fumbled from his mouth . . . .

Aiden bared his fangs and watched as the Moderator ground to a halt at the side of the bed.

Silence passed between them. Idlewood’s face turned to stone as his palms continued to tremble. Aiden’s glare seemed to paralyze him for a short time. Good. Idlewood needed to feel the weight of the incident Aiden just now decided to hold him responsible for.

“Your partner did this,” he growled, as if that would explain to Idlewood his aggression towards the elder.

“He paid for it,” Idlewood responded lowly.

“Why?” Idlewood’s hands went still with the question. “Why did he attack him?”

“I’m only going to tell you one more time—,” Idlewood straightened up at the hiss that erupted from Aiden’s throat, eyes widening as a whimper escaped Rowan’s throat. The boy did not wake up though.

And Idlewood had dropped the devastated facade in a blink. “He could have died.”

One would expect the Moderator to start trembling at that statement, not go colder. But colder he went. “I’m aware.” His tone was flat. All pretenses had dropped. The man very well could have enough emotion to care that Rowan had been hurt, but when it came to expression it was a struggle for Idlewood. He was usually the master of such falsified expressions.

Not in this moment. Aiden wasn’t fooled by his facades. “Why did he attack him?” he reiterated the question. What had Durant known?

Idlewood grew colder still, practically freezing the room with his gaze. “One day you may attack him too.” The very statement ruffled Aiden’s feathers and pulled a snarl from him. Rowan coiled and cried out in his arms and that was enough to silence him. “And when you do, I’ll show you the same courtesy I showed Durant.”

The threat almost had Aiden launching forward at the Moderator. The boy held tight against him stopped him. Idlewood turned away, his point made but his battle not fully won. He hadn’t gotten Rowan. He left the room swifter than he had come.

Rowan cried in his arms and Aiden cooed to him. He scratched Rowan’s scalp lightly and rocked gently. Eyes closing, he ignored the words of the older man. What did he know about Aiden?

Nothing.

There was nothing that could make Aiden harm Rowan. Nothing he could think of.

Nothing now . . . .

--

The first time Rowan stirred awake, he was surrounded by black feathers. He was struck by the stereotypical albeit inaccurate image of an angel, more accurately an angel of death. His fingertips brushed the feathers and suddenly there was a hand pushing his palm back to its resting place on the uninjured side of his stomach. Aiden’s voice vibrated against his ear, murmuring, “Go back to sleep, kid.”

Shame filled him when Rowan remembered where he was and what had happened. The lack of pain told him just how well the pain medicine was working, but it did nothing to assuage the guilt he felt. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t know how to f-fight . . .,” he was on the cusp of crying. His side stung. His arm throbbed. He remembered the pain, the pulling, the shaking.

He didn’t remember how he came to be lying against Aiden in the infirmary . . . but the warmth was enough to make him reluctant to leave.

Aiden shushed him, brushing his finger backwards through his hair. The opposite of what Don did. “Get your rest.” For whatever reason, Rowan closed his eyes and obeyed his instructor. “You’re safe here.”

“But . . . Durant . . . .”

“He won’t bother you again.” The words chilled him, but sleep crept up on him all the same as Aiden cooed.

These moments were hazy to him. Hazy and disproportionate. He’d wake up sure the wings belonged to some entity of death only to be greeted by Aiden. Only to be told he was safe. He went back to sleep with the words that he was safe here. At one point the palm that put his hand back on his stomach didn’t let go. And Rowan didn’t let go. He held the warm hand in his and was comforted by its callouses.

One time he went to sleep in the infirmary. Then he woke up in his bedroom in the penthouse suite.

Aiden’s warmth was gone and replaced by someone else’s. Rowan tried forcing himself back to sleep, seeing neither the wings nor the familiar calloused hands he’d grown used to holding as he went back to sleep. He was still drugged up, but he now felt the gaping wounds received from the peluda. Chunks of him were missing and he felt it. The hands that held him near now were harder and one brushed his hair forward.

Don.

Rowan recoiled within himself as he had done while younger, as he had done upon first glimpsing Don. He didn’t recoil physically, but mentally he did. Though the man had been nothing but gentle and kind to him, complimenting and taking care of him, he wanted him to leave him to sleep and recover in peace. He lacked the warmth Aiden had provided and the words he spoke, while nonthreatening, were in some ways foreboding.

“I’m sorry,” Don whispered. “I’m so sorry.” Rowan tried not to hint that he was awake as the Moderator spoke. “But I can’t let you go.” In fact, he was trying to convince himself he was asleep more than he was trying to convince Don. “I won’t let you go.” His tone was chilling enough to negate the small bit of warmth his body provided as he held Rowan. “Not again.”

The next time he woke up, he was a little less achy. He easily convinced himself that the last memory he had had actually been a dream. Just a dream. Only a dream.

Accepting it as anything other than a dream left him feeling like the promises of safety were lies.