Eamon tried to scramble down from my bed, but I held him.
"It’s fine, doc," I said firmly. "He’s my best friend."
"It doesn’t matter, Alpha Rhett," the Doctor Maxwell sighed. "You’re in no state to be doing that, especially with the high chances of you getting an infection increasing by the day."
The door opened again, and Sarah entered the room, her eyes going wide with fear.
"Doctor, you’re here?" she said with a placating tone. "I didn’t hear you come in."
"Didn’t I give clear instructions that he should not have any visitors?" Dr. Maxwell turned to Sarah.
"It’s not his fault, Doc, and since they are best friends, our young Alpha doesn’t have a lot of friends who visit him."
"This is different, Sarah," Maxwell said slowly. "He needs intensive care. His immune system is weak as it is, so please, no more visitors."
Then he turned to Eamon. "Leave. Now."
"C’mon, doc," I held on to a struggling Eamon.
"You think this is a damn tourist site, Rhett?" he said fiercely, looking at me before turning to face Eamon. "Does he look like he needs a schoolboy prancing around, feeding him homework?"
Eamon finally broke free from my hand. "I’m sorry," he murmured. "I just...I didn’t see him today and—"
"And you won’t be seeing him again unless I say so," Dr. Maxwell cut in. "He’s not like the rest of you. One wrong move, one emotional spike, and we’re calling in a resuscitation team."
"Do you understand me?"
Sarah looked apologetic, but she said nothing more. Eamon paused for a minute to remove some books from his bag, which he placed on the table inside the room, and with one last glance at me, he slipped out.
Sarah murmured something about helping Eamon and left after him, too. As soon as we were alone, I turned to my Dr. Maxwell.
"You didn’t have to be so harsh, doc. Eamon is harmless..."
He ignored me coming close to the bed to check my vitals. I sighed, allowing him to do his thing. After a while, he finished checking my vitals and moved to check the tubes, wires and monitors.
Several minutes later, he stepped back with a puzzled expression.
"Did someone come to check you while I was away?" he asked me.
I shook my head. "No, why?"
"Because you’re doing much better than you were earlier today," Maxwell said, studying the monitor readings. "Your blood pressure levels, which we’ve been trying to get to a normal reading since this year, have normalised, and from the imaging of your chest, the inflammation has decreased significantly. This kind of improvement usually takes days, not hours. Tell me the truth, who came here?"
"No one!" I stared at him strangely.
"Seriously, who came here while I was away?" Dr. Maxwell pressed, his eyes still fixed on the monitor readings with bewilderment. "Did another doctor examine you? Because your cardiac arrhythmia has completely stabilised, your blood oxygen levels are back to normal range, and the inflammation around your heart that was showing on this morning’s scans has reduced by nearly seventy per cent."
I shook my head, staring at him strangely. The intensity of his questioning was making me uncomfortable, like he suspected me of lying about something I didn’t even understand.
"Of course not. Why would you even ask that?" I scoffed, though part of me was genuinely curious about what had him so rattled.
Maxwell kept staring at the readings, his brow furrowed in the way it got when he encountered something that didn’t fit his medical expectations. I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he tried to make sense of data that apparently defied explanation.
"Did you get across to my father?" I asked, changing the subject to something that mattered more to me than mysterious medical improvements.
Maxwell was so absorbed in reading the charts that he completely ignored my question. I watched him flip through pages of test results, look back at the monitors, then mutter under his breath and occasionally shake his head.
"Maxwell," I called out more sharply.
He finally looked up, blinking as if he’d forgotten I was there. "What? Oh, yes. He’s coming to visit you here. He should be on his way now."
For a moment, I was sure I’d misheard him. "My father is coming here?"
The words came out strangled with disbelief. I hadn’t seen my father for nearly nine months now—not since the last time I’d been hospitalised and he’d made it clear that my "dramatics" were embarrassing the family name. He wouldn’t even take my calls anymore, leaving me to communicate with him through his secretary or my step-mom, like I was some business associate rather than his son.
"You’re serious?" I asked, my voice cracking slightly. "He’s actually coming? Here? To see me?"
Maxwell nodded absentmindedly, already turning back to his charts. "I don’t think you’ll need the digoxin infusion again," he murmured, more to himself than to me. "Your heart rhythm has stabilised completely."
I barely heard him. My mind was reeling with the announcement of my father’s visit. Alpha Terry Thatcher didn’t make house calls, especially not to the disappointment of his son, who couldn’t even manage to pass his first year at Ravenshore. The fact that he was coming here, to Ravenshore, meant something serious was happening.
"Did he say why?" I pressed. "Did you tell him about this morning’s episode?"
Before Maxwell could answer, the door burst open and Sarah rushed in, her face bright with excitement.
"Young Alpha," she called out breathlessly. "Your father is here."
"My father?" The words tumbled out before I could stop them.
I sprang from the bed instinctively, but immediately groaned in pain as the tubes connected to my chest yanked me back down. The sudden movement sent spikes of agony through my torso, and I collapsed back onto the mattress, breathing hard.
At that exact moment, the door opened again, and my father entered.