The Pack's Doctor by Cooper

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Chapter 173

Kennedy

As I wake, I realize several things at once. First, it’s like there’s a tight hold on my mind, like the entire pack is holding on to me. Second, Echo is silent. And third, for the first time that I can remember, Quirin’s mind is open to me.

‘You’re awake,‘ his voice floats into my mind.

‘What’s going on?‘ I ask, shifting and realizing that I feel still.

What do you remember?‘ he asks softly.

I try to focus my mind, try to remember what happened. I was captured. I was injured. I ran … “Echo!” I say out loud, terrified that I’ve lost my wolf.

“Shhh. I’m right here,” Quirin says from beside me. “Raif, your family, and the pack all have a tight hold on Echo. No one is letting her go. We’re all giving her the strength she needs to heal. Your mom says she exhausted herself and that you were both very weak…

He stops and I turn to look at him. He looks awful. His eyes are red–rimmed and haunted looking, his face has at least a day’s worth of growth on it, and his clothes are wrinkled as if he’s been sleeping in them.

“How long have I been unconscious?” I ask.

“Two days.”

I reach my hand out to him. He takes it quickly and pulls it to his lips. Then, more gently than anyone who knows my mate would believe, he lifts me out of bed and into his lap, careful of the wires coming out of me.

“You scared me Little Pu… Little Mate.”

I smile at him, snuggling against him. “You can call me Little Pup. I sort of feel like one right now.”

His eyes are intent on mine. “I can’t though, can I? You’ve been keeping secrets from me.” I can see the hurt in his eyes, but my mind doesn’t want to work. Why can’t he call me Little Pup?

“Is this because I yelled at you? I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings…” I begin, but he shakes his head.

“That’s not why, Kennedy.”

I frown, forcing my mind to focus and understand what he’s trying to tell me. Keeping secrets? What secret… and then it hits me. My hands fly to my stomach.

“Are they okay? Is our pup okay?” I ask. If something was wrong with our pup and Echo was silent, I could have lost him or her.

“Your mother has been working overtime to make sure that she saves the three most important beings in my life – you, Echo, and our pup. You, however, are in so much trouble for keeping this from me.”

“I didn’t mean to. It all happened in the middle of everything else. I actually planned to tell you the night we were supposed to talk. That’s what I wanted to talk about. It’s why I went to the overhang. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me being pregnant so soon and with the problems between us, but I wasn’t going to keep it from you. I would never hide your child from you, Quirin, no matter how upset or angry I am with you.”

I realize that I can feel the worry inside his mind. His fear wasn’t that I would keep our child from him. He thought I was planning to leave him.

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never leave you. You are my mate, my love, my life. I was angry with you, yes. I want things to change, definitely. I don’t want what happened to Christy to happen to anyone ever again. But I would

wraps his arms more

link. Curious, I begin to enter his mind, wondering why he’s suddenly so willing to keep the link open. I feel his body tense, but rather than shutting his mind down, he opens it wide for me, giving me

feels like acceptance, acceptance of

protecting you. But a wise man recently reminded me that I tend to underestimate you and that your light, your inner beauty, is so much stronger than my darkness, he

dad?” I’m so surprised that I ask out loud as I sit up to look at him.

“Yes, I did.”

snuggle against him, smiling when Raif begins purring at me. I tentatively begin going through his conversation with my father, gasping when I get to the

father?‘ I can feel him wanting to close his mind, wanting to protect me from that information, but

in his psyche, the one where thirteen–year–old Quirin watched my father kill his. In his mind, I wrap my arms around that teenage boy and

mate can take everything that I give him and it’s time for him to

mine. I reach up, cupping his face in my hand as I continue to pour my love into him. I let my

going to wear yourself out,” he says, panting as if

energy on my part, Quirin. It’s like breathing. It just comes naturally.”

me. ‘I love you so much,‘ he says in

stole my heart?” he asks out loud

of Quirin. “My

shakes his head. “It was long

“It was?”

that we would be mates. I just thought maybe your father had some witch in his bloodlines and that you had

he says, watching me as I think.

It wasn’t

night in the garden? Henry’s eighteenth birthday?” I

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one. The one where you came searching for me. You were so small, but so confident.

been fearless.”

wouldn’t say I’m fearless. I’ve just never been

Even Henry was taken aback at the level of violence that I used when I killed

afraid of you,” I say softly, watching him. “Tell me

his face transforms from the gentle man who loves

If I had known that

another Alpha,”

Henry killed him.”

know how to get to

to be Slater and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about that night. I was going to warn you that he’d gotten away. I think it was Terrance that didn’t lock the cell properly that night, but when I realized his mate was having a rough labor, I couldn’t really blame him. The other guards should have checked and they obviously didn’t. They got extra

is Slater?” I