Chapter 147

Noelle POV The courtyard was still glowing with lantern light when I slipped away. Music and laughter drifted after me, warm as the midsummer air, but my thoughts had already wandered to the hospital. It had been months since I officially took over as pack hospital administrator, and the role consumed me in ways I hadn’t expected. Every day was a puzzle of rosters, supply counts, healer schedules, and emergencies that didn’t care about the hour of night. I told myself I was holding the pack together in my own way, and maybe that was true. But it also meant my life outside the hospital had quietly withered to scraps of time between shifts. Charlie never said much about it, but I saw the truth in the way he looked at me. The quiet sighs when I was called away mid-dinner. The faint hesitation before he asked me if I would be home that night. We had spoken once about having our binding ceremony soon, but I had always found a reason to delay, the winter flu outbreak, the healer shortage, th