Chapter 3 The Friend Who Knows

• Emily didn’t sleep.
• She spent four hours staring at her ceiling in yesterday's clothes. Her mind kept looping the same images: smoking blood, a strange scar, and green eyes that didn't look human. By the time her alarm went off, she was exhausted but wide awake.
• By 2:00 PM, Emily was back at St. Aurora hospital. She was running on coffee and stubbornness. She had survived nursing school as a foster kid with no safety net; she knew how to push through. During the day, the hospital felt normal. Sunlight filled the halls, and visiting families walked by. It was easy to pretend everything was ordinary.
• "You look like something Dr. Thornwood would refuse to operate on."
• Emily turned to see a man leaning against the nurses' station. He had a rumpled, easy charm—sandy hair that looked like a mess and scrubs a size too big. He looked like he found the whole hospital ridiculous.
• "You must be Dr. Hayes," Emily said. "Ortho, right?"
• "Ethan," he corrected, shaking her hand. "I know who you are. Everyone in the ER is talking about the new nurse who made Kael Thornwood actually come back to check on her." His eyes were sharp. "That never happens. In three years, I've seen that man walk past bleeding nurses without blinking."
• "He wasn't checking on me," Emily said. It sounded unconvincing. "He was warning me."
• Ethan’s grin flickered. "Warning you about what?"
• Emily weighed the risk. She was exhausted and reckless. She decided to be direct.
• "Restricted Access. Sub-Three. A man with smoking blood and silver poisoning that isn't in any textbook. Does that mean anything to you?"
• Ethan didn't answer immediately. That silence told Emily everything.
• "Come with me," he whispered. He led her to a private on-call room and shut the door.
• "How much did you see?" he asked.
• "Enough to know I wasn't imagining it."
• Ethan sighed and looked suddenly older. "Listen. I've known Kael since residency. He's my best friend, but what I'm about to tell you could get us both killed. Are you asking because you're curious, or because you're not going to let this go?"
• Emily thought about the mysterious codes and the feeling that she couldn't walk away from a question. "The second one," she said.
• Ethan nodded. "There's a world beneath this one: werewolves, vampires, witches—real ones. St. Aurora is neutral ground where they don't fight. That's the law."
• He paused. "Kael isn't just the Chief of Trauma. He's an Alpha—the King of the Shadowmoon Pack. He's been the leader since he was twenty-two, after someone murdered his parents."
• Emily sat on the edge of the bed. "That's insane."
• "I know."
• "He's a surgeon... and an Alpha?"
• "Exactly," Ethan said. "He believes saving a life with a scalpel is more valuable than any battle he could win as a leader. He's completely alone because letting people get close makes them targets."
• Emily felt a strange tightening in her chest. She pushed it down. "And the man in Sub-Three?"
• "One of his own. He was hit by a 'hunter' with silver. Silver poisoning is slow and ugly; that's why the blood smoked. It was the poison burning its way out." Ethan looked at her seriously. "This is the important part: hunters exist because wolves exist. If people find out a human nurse can identify silver poisoning and survive a trip to Sub-Three, you become a target too."
• The room felt very small.
• "He told me the same thing," Emily said. "That I'm a liability."
• "He wasn't exaggerating," Ethan warned. "There's a rogue Alpha named Magnus circling this area. If he suspects a human knows these secrets—" He didn't finish, but he didn't have to.
• Emily's phone buzzed. It was a text from her brother, Noah.
• "Noah:" "Em. I need to talk to you. Not over text. Can you meet after your shift? Something happened at the clinic today, and I don't think it's nothing. Please."
• Emily froze. Last night, Noah had told her to lock her doors. Now he was acting strange.
• "Everything okay?" Ethan asked.
• "My brother is a second-year med student at a free clinic downtown," Emily said. "He's been acting weird for two days. And you just told me a rogue Alpha is looking for leverage."
• Ethan’s charm vanished. "Text him back," he said quietly. "Tell him not to leave the clinic alone. I'll call Lucas."