Chapter 175 Sick Thomas
_Rowena’s POV_
I hadn’t expected him to directly say it, but he did, and it made me happy, actually.
After the conference that day, my phone rang the next morning just after i woke up from my sleep. I gently picked it up from the bedside table and looked at the screen. Nana Seraphine’s name flashed on the screen.
I answered and placed it on my ear, getting out of bed and heading to the bathroom. “Good morning, Grandma.”
“Don’t good morning me,” Nana Seraphine said in the voice she used when she had already decided something and was calling to inform me rather than discuss it. “When are you coming home?”
I stopped walking. “Soon, Nana. Things are still—”
“Rowena.”
“I’m serious, there are still things I need to—”
“Rowena Ashthorne.” She said my full name, a sign of her seriousness. “I am not asking, Ro. In four days, you will come home and you will take me to my hospital appointment personally. Not Celeste or one of those serious looking men that follow you everywhere. You.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “Nana, I just got back to the capital and there are things—”
“The capital will survive without you,” she said firmly. “I am your grandmother. I am getting old and I have no wolf now. I need my checkup and I want my granddaughter to take me. Is that too much to ask?”
She knew exactly what she was doing, she had always known exactly what she was doing. “Fine,” I agreed.
“Good.” Her voice immediately became warmer since she finally got what she wanted. “Also I watched the press conference.”
I said nothing.
“He said it very nicely,” she continued, “Very clearly, without mumbling.”
“Nana.”
“I’m just saying. A man with good posture who speaks clearly is a rare thing.” She paused and took a deep breath. “In four days, Ro. Come home, I’ll be waiting.”
She hung up before I could say anything else.
I put the phone down on the bed beside me and looked at the ceiling.
I spent those four days doing what I always did when I needed to feel in control of something, that was working.
Going through the remaining documentation with Celeste, following up on the legal proceedings, checking in with the people who needed checking in with.
My body eventually healed and became better than they had been.
Alice was also jailed, we needed to capture Drake and get rid of all of them for good.
On the fourth day, the driver brought me back to my father’s house.
Nana was ready when I arrived, which meant she had been ready for at least an hour before I got there because that was how Nana was.
She came down the front steps in a pale blue dress that she had clearly chosen carefully, with her handbag on her arm and her hair done.
She looked at my car, at me, and then smiled. I got out and hugged her. She held on for slightly longer than usual, her small hands firm on my back.
“You look better,” she commented when she pulled back, studying my face. “That silly girl kidnapped you. I was worried but Alaric gave me his words, I just had to stay calm even when he said you wouldn’t be coming home almost immediately you arrived here.” She explained.
“I feel better,” I said instead, which was true.
She patted my cheek once and turned toward the car. “Good. Let’s go before we’re late.”
The drive to the pack hospital took about twenty minutes. Nana spent most of it telling me about things that had been happening at home since I left.
I listened and asked questions.
“He chose well,” she said, somewhere around the fifteen minute mark, in the middle of a sentence about Kaelen.
I glanced at her. “Who?”
She gave me a look. “Don’t do that. You know who I’m referring to.”
I looked back at the window. “Nana.”
“I’m just saying. Out of every woman he could have chosen, he chose you. My Rowena.” She folded her hands in her lap with a satisfied smile. “He has good taste.”
“He announced it at a press conference without telling me first,” I lied.
“Men in love do foolish things,” she said serenely. “The important thing is that he did it. So, will you say yes?”
“He hasn’t asked me anything yet,” I pointed out.
“He will,” she said, with absolute confidence. “And when he does, will you say yes?”
I was quiet for a moment, thinking about it. “I’m still thinking,” I replied.
Nana turned to look at me with an amused expression. “Still thinking,” she repeated. “The Alpha King declares his love for you in front of the entire world and you are still thinking?”
“I like to be thorough,” I shrugged..
She made a sound of exhaustion. “Ro. I swear, if you decline that man I will host another banquet. A bigger one this time. I will invite every eligible man in every pack I have connections with and I will sit there and interview them all personally until I find you a husband.”
I turned to look at her.
She looked back at me with complete seriousness.
I giggled, just a little. “Fine,” I said when I could speak again. “Fine, Nana. I won’t decline.”
She settled back in her seat with a satisfied look. “Good. That’s all I needed to hear.”
The hospital was busy when we arrived, Nana checked in at the front desk and I sat in the waiting area while she went through the initial part of her appointment with the nurse, reading through some messages on my phone and half watching the room.
A few minutes into reading the things on my phone, I noticed someone at the far end.
A boy sitting in the corner of the waiting area near the wall, slightly apart from the other people in the row of chairs, wearing hospital clothes that were slightly too big for him.
His head was down, his shoulders were hunched forward and he was very still. One look and you could tell he was sick.
I looked at him more carefullyc dark hair, thin in the way that could tell he was sick. There was something familiar about the shape of his face that I couldn’t place immediately.
Then a woman came through the door on the far side of the waiting area, pressing her phone with both thumbs and walking fast.
“Sit up straight,” she said sharply. “You look pathetic slumped over like that.”
The boy didn’t move immediately, and she looked up from her phone long enough to glare at him.“Thomas. Did you hear me? Sit up straight.” She said his name with irritations. “You’re an embarrassment, you know that. Having an omega wolf that keeps falling sick every other month. What exactly is wrong with you?”
Thomas.
I looked at the boy again and the familiar shape of his face clicked into place.
Thomas Varkos, Kaelen’s younger brother.
He was trying to sit up straighter, I could see the effort of it, the way his body was working against him.
Elvira just continued pressing her phone, she didn’t see what I was seeing.
The way Thomas’s hands stopped gripping the edge of the chair properly, the way his head was dropping forward slowly despite his efforts to keep it up.
He was not having a bad posture moment, he was literally about to pass out.
I was already moving before I had fully decided to move, crossing the waiting area fast, reaching him just as his body gave up the fight entirely and tipped forward off the chair.
I caught him before he hit the floor.
Behind me I heard Elvira’s phone clatter onto the floor.
“Thomas.....” Her voice came out completely different from the harsh tone of a moment ago.
“Get a nurse,” I said calmly, not looking up. “Now.”