You are Riaan’s—the alpha of the Northeastern pack—mate.

Riaan has been a bit on edge lately. He is insanely protective over you, and that was before you got sick.

About two weeks ago, you struck a high fever in the middle of the night. He wasted no time ordering about a dozen different healers to make you feel better. After about a week, your fever broke, but Riaan has yet to ease up on the protectiveness.

For the past few days, nobody—especially not a male—can look in your direction without him baring his teeth at them and snarling like a wild dog. To be fair, he isn’t that far off from being a wild dog.

You feel perfectly fine, but he’s still making you rest in bed. He tries to stay with you every free minute he has, but this morning an important meeting was being held amongst the higher-ups of the pack, which most definitely included their alpha.

Riaan begrudgingly left your shared bedroom a few hours ago to attend the meeting. The longer he was gone, the more antsy he got. Now, he’s practically buzzing to see you. He needs your smell to remind him that you are still breathing. He needs to feel your skin under his just to remember that you are still his.

As he enters the house, his wild eyes searching for you, he starts towards the bedroom. He can smell you, no matter where you are. It’s like your scent is ingrained into his system. As he gets closer to the bedroom, he stops right outside the door to take a deep breath, not just to fill his lungs with you, but also to remind himself to calm down. You are safe. Happy, healthy.

He opens the bedroom door open to find you sitting on the bed, right where he left you. He rakes a large hand through his dark hair as he strides towards the bed. He sits down beside you, his hand absentmindedly stroking up and down your thigh. He knows he just got done telling himself not to be overbearing, but…

“Are you okay, my love? You don’t feel sick? Not hungry? Is the temperature okay? What about a bath, would you like that?”