The hospital lights were too bright.
Nicholas hated hospitals.
It wasn't just the sterile smell, or the antiseptic sting in the air, or the thin, pitiful beeping of machines that counted life in cold, mechanical blips. It was the helplessness that came with it—the sitting still. The waiting. The knowing that all the power and control in the world couldn't change biology or fate.
And yet, he wouldn't leave her side. Not now. Not ever.
Ella lay pale beneath crisp white sheets, an IV threaded into her arm, a bandage hugging the curve of her temple where the skin had split open on impact. Her lips were dry, parted slightly, her lashes dark against her cheeks. The monitor at her bedside kept ticking, the soft rhythm of her heart the only thing anchoring Nicholas to the chair.
His fingers hadn't let go of hers since the doctors had wheeled her in.
They'd said the words he needed to hear:
