Dia O’Four looked at the wooden room door and hesitated. She knew what waited for her on the other side and needed to take a minute to gather the strength to pass through the threshold. Self-conscious, her fingers lingered on her throat in an attempt to calm down. The sensation of the leather collar had once been soothing, almost comforting.

Now it felt alien and out of place. Like a dress that was tailored for someone else.

With a shake of the head, the Rapha made one last do-over, eyes glancing down at herself. Shoes were polished, uniform was nice and smooth, her hair was nice and brushed. Nothing out of place.

Reaching out towards the door, she pushed it open.

The first thing to greet her was a growl.

But she was prepared, pushing aside her desire to growl back. “Good morning to you too, Monica.” She put up the brightest smile she could summon, reaching into her pocket and pulling out some dried boar jerky. “Want some?”

Dia’s gaze paused in ‘her’ two patients. Rick was currently in a forced coma, and the feline had refused to step away from him for so much as a second. Said feline, naked and currently turning the room into a hairy biohazard, was doing her best to keep the glare on the pink-haired nurse. But it was failing whenever her attention moved towards the generous piece of meat Dia was holding onto.

Meat wasn’t exactly cheap, a good thing she’d managed to sneak the jerky-costs into the hospital’s budget.

With a quick toss, the Sabertooth snatched the piece, finally stopping the growl and starting to chew on her snack. But not for an instant had Monica stopped glaring at Dia. “I’m here to help Rick, you know.” She mumbled to herself, approaching the unconscious patient. There was a tightness in her chest, seeing him like that, hurt, pale, weak. The world felt like it was wrong if he was in such a state.

Dia’s lips pursed as she approached Rick’s wounded side, making sure her movements were deliberate and slow as she was under Monica’s watchful gaze.

No pressure, just one slip-up and the feralborn cat could maul her.

With extreme care, Dia focused on increasing the protective barrier in her hands. Slowly, she removed the bandages that covered the stump that was Rick’s right arm. She made sure to put the soaked cloth on the tray and made extra sure they would not touch anything else. Her fingers lingered on the discolored skin. The regeneration was going smoothly, the elbow would be forming sometime tonight. It would mean she’d have a long shift to make sure the bones and cartilage were connecting properly.

And despite how smoothly it was going, Dia still felt frustration within her.

Rick was pure-blood human, and their tolerance for elemental energy in every form was horrible. If they’d tried healing him the same way, they had the Major when he’d lost his leg… Rick would’ve likely died ten times over. They’d had to dilute the potion and slow down the treatment, which put him at higher risk of developing osteoporosis if there wasn’t very tight supervision.

It would take at least another week of this. And the human wouldn’t be able to be conscious for even a second. The pain of reforming nerve endings would be no different to torture.

“He suffered, just to rescue you.” Dia’s eyes moved to Monica, meeting the feline’s glare for only a moment. “If it weren’t because of you, he… none of this would’ve happened.”

Her hands clenched the fresh bandages.

“Rick.”

Monica spoke a single word, drawing Dia’s attention back to her. The feline leaned over the human, placing her paw on his chest, her head on his shoulder, her other arm wrapping around it. Her naked body leaning over him and leaving the larger, taller woman practically enveloping him in her embrace.

The only way to be more possessive would’ve involved shoving Dia away.

The message could not be clearer.

The nurse felt hot anger boil within her, fingers trembling slightly as her heart began to beat ever so faster. “You…” How many people had the feline maimed since showing up in the wilderness outside their village? How many wounded had Dia had to treat? How many dead? Her eyes fell on the black collar the feline wore. The black collar Rick had put on her before they’d returned. The simmering inside her chest turned into fire. “You!”

The growl returned. The room became a degree colder and Monica’s claws extended, fangs bared at Dia. But the nurse wouldn’t back down. She clenched her fists, tightened her jaw, anger overcoming fear.

“Ugh.”

Both flinched as soon as Rick made the sound. Monica leaned back to get a better look at his face, and Dia leaned to touch his bare shoulder, muttering the small spell to confirm his status. His vitals were stable, adrenaline slightly higher than two hours ago, blood pressure rising.

Had the bond done this?

Not important right now. Dia had a job to do. She reached out for the bandages and soaked them in the medicine, carefully making sure none of Monica’s fur or hairs were present on Rick’s skin as she applied them. She made extra sure the bandages had enough give to account for the growth that would happen before the next shift.

She was methodical, working out of habit from hundreds of times she’d done exactly this. Feline and nurse shared a glare as neither moved away from the human. One protective, the other healing. The clock ticked slowly, and Dia’s work might have intentionally been slower than it should have, though she wouldn’t be able to tell whether because she wanted to spend more time with Rick, or just to keep the glare with the feline.

When she finished, she picked everything up, making sure to give one last check.

Monica leaned over him protectively the moment the nurse’s gaze had lingered a second too long on Rick’s face. Blue-green eyes and sharp fangs bared at her, blocking the view of the man’s sharp features.

With a scowl, Dia turned to leave the room, closing the door behind herself with a sharp snap.

The instant she was back in the corridor, she felt the breath she’d been holding back release. Her fingers tightened around the clipboard as she stiffened her lips into a tight horizontal line. The wood groaned in complaint.

“Just one more week.” She whispered under her breath.

Slowly, she swatted at her clothes to make sure none of the fur had been left on her. Her thoughts were a turmoil. She was slowly trying to calm back down.

“You sure you don’t want to add some sedatives to the jerky next time?”

Dia was quite sure that particular trick, if it worked, would only work once. “What’s next on the schedule?” She asked without removing her focus from cleaning her dress.

Bana let out a bark of laughter. “For you? You’ve got a talk. The Doctor called.”

That caused Dia’s neck to tense. “R… right…”

The dark-haired nurse didn’t miss the shift. Stepping closer, she grasped Dia’s hand tightly. “Hey, don’t worry. It’s probably only be him telling you to get a session with Irene.”

“What do you mean?” The nurse blinked in slight surprise, brain not quite entirely caught up.

“Some of the girls of the skeleton shift complained about having night-terrors, probably caused by the Baron’s death and the bond snapping, so…” She shrugged. “You know, the usual, get your head peeked at and prodded, maybe patched up.”

“Oh.” The Baron’s death. “Oh.”

Dia’s shoulders deflated, her smile faltered ever so slightly, her hands tensed at the hem of her dress uniform.

“You’ve been giving off all the signs of burnout, you know?” Bana’s voice was becoming distant. “Everyone’s concerned, it must have been pretty tough seeing White Claw kill the Lord right in front of you.”

The dagger was cold in her hand, warm blood drenched her fingers, her bond screamed at her, burning, searing itself as it crumbled. Her mind could pick out as the human’s body failed and collapsed, its internal systems deprived of impulses stopping his lungs. She could still heal him, she-.

“Yeah… it… it wasn’t…”

“Mustn’t be easy having to look at her face every other hour, I…”

Dia stopped paying attention. Her steps felt heavy, feet stuck in the mud. “Could I… could I have a moment? Gotta clean up a bit.”

The door to the bathroom opened with a creak. Dia locked it behind her. Fingers were numb. Cold water ran at full blast. She drenched her wrists, splashing her face liberally. In her mind she still held the blade, felt the warm blood, the same blade she’d used to cut Rick’s arm off to stop the Nuptia from spreading and claiming his life as well.

“That’s an order.”

A shudder ran down her spine, fingers reaching up to the collar, hastily searching for the latch and freezing in place. Every instinct and every rule she’d lived by told her to stop, that she was about to start her way down the path to going feral, to losing her sanity. No, she mustn’t do this.

With a click, the collar came undone, and Dia took a deep breath of cool air, her lungs filling out and her legs going weak. Her reflection stared back at her, collarless, afraid. Light purple eyes with contracted irises, lips pale, and mouth slightly agape as she breathed hard.

She should feel it now, the bond breaking, the ‘snap’ followed by that void of being alone, truly alone.

But it never came.

He was still there, within her. Rick. His words echoing across her mind the moment she focused upon them.

“That’s an order.”

She… she was bonded, truly, fully, in a way that shouldn’t be possible. If she focused, he could almost tell where Rick was, exactly how many steps away. She should’ve been terrified, scared. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

But it felt like a warm blanket all the same.

“Rick.” She spoke his name, breathing slowly, focusing on the other memories. His smile, his laugh, the little ways he treated her like… like…

Looking at herself in the mirror again, her gaze moved downwards to her exposed throat. If not for the slight discoloration to mark it, she might have almost fooled herself into thinking she was a human. Maybe pass for someone with strong Rapha ancestry that miraculously hadn’t gone through the threshold.

The thought summoned a ball of fear within her. No, this wasn’t how she should behave.

Dia’s lips pursed as she quickly pressed the green collar back into place, clicking it shut before anyone could notice she’d taken it off at all. She tightened it enough to keep herself strictly aware of its presence, that it wasn’t gone.

That everything was normal.