Nolan POV
The world drifted back to me in pieces.
Sound came first — soft, rhythmic, almost like waves rolling in against a distant shore. A steady beeping followed, too familiar to be comforting. Machines. Hospital machines. Then came scent — sharp antiseptic layered over something warmer beneath it.
Something soft. Something impossibly familiar.
Moonlight and wildflowers.
Ellie.
The realization cut through the fog of pain and sedatives like a blade. Even before I opened my eyes, I felt her. The faint hum of the mate bond tugged at me, gentle but persistent, like a silken thread looped through my ribs. No matter how much distance I’d tried to put between us, it always reached for her.
And right now, it thrummed with something fierce. Worried. Afraid. Close.
I drew in a slow breat
