Hours later we are waiting in a room, the doctor hasn’t been in for a while. I am really starting to worry. I started pacing. It’s not even my reports and I am going crazy. Darius is watching me. “If I didn’t know any better I would say that you care about me.”
“Duh, I care about you Darius. I may not like everything that you do, but I care about you.”
Darius looks like he is about to say something when there is a knock on the door and it opens to reveal the pack doctor. “Darius, it’s good to see you. This must be your lovely mate.” He points to me. He is a short balding man. He does that comb over thing that some older guys do, it’s not fooling anyone, just stop.
Darius smiles. “Hey Doc. Can you tell her that nothing is wrong with me?”
The doctor gets a serious look. “I’m afraid I can’t. Darius a couple of the tests came back with anomalies.”
“What kind of anomalies?” I inch closer so that Darius can’t cut me out.
He sighs and puts a film on this lighted box. He flicks it on and we are looking at Darius’s brain. “You see right here, this dark spot?” I nod to where he is pointing. “It’s a tumor. Now there are some treatments we can try. We can also try to remove it. It’s a complicated process and there is no guarantee that it won’t come back or that the treatments won’t work.”
“What do you recommend that we try first?”
“I recommend that we try to remove it first. I won’t know how deep it is until we get in there and start removing it. Hopefully it is just on the surface and we can get it out.”
Finally Darius says something and I want to punch him in the face. “NO!”
I look at him like he is insane. “Darius. This thing could kill you.”
“So could the surgery, right doc?”
“Darius is correct.” The doctor nods in answer.
“See, not happening. I am not leaving you yet.” He folds his arms over his chest.
“So then you are just going to die anyway. The surgery could save you.”
“Or it could kill me.”
I turned to the doctor, “What are the chances of the tumor killing him?”
He takes only a minute to contemplate his answer. “If we leave it in there with no treatment, we are looking at about a year.”
“What are the chances of the surgery killing him?”
“I would say the chances of that happening are about ten percent.”
I turned back to Darius. “You sure you don’t want to rethink those odds.”
He glares at me, “I am not doing it Sophia.”
I turned back to the doctor, holding my temples. I felt like I was arguing with a five year old. “What are these other treatment options? Medications right?”
“Yes. We can get him started right away. That would be the best option since surgery is out.”
Darius growls. “No.”
I can not believe I am hearing him correctly. “Did you just say no?”
“Yes, I said no. I am not going to take a bunch of pills that are going to make me sicker than I am now. I am not doing it.”
The doctor just nods his head. “I’m going to give you guys a little time to talk about this.” He bows out of the room.
“Do you want to die? Is that what this is?”
“No, I don’t want to die. I just don’t like my options.”
“Darius, I don’t like them either, but you have to do something. You can’t ignore this. You will die if you do. How long have you been having these headaches?”
He shrugs. “A while I guess.”
“How long is a while?”
“Since I rejected Sasha.” He sighs. “I thought it was just a side effect of the rejection. I didn’t think it was life threatening. Do you think I would have ruined our day together if I did? Just don’t tell my parents ok.”
“Are you insane? I can’t keep this from them. I can’t keep the fact that their son is just letting himself die.”
He gets an angry look on his face. “You will do what I say. Did you forget who you were? You think because you are my mate that you still aren’t that little mutt?”
I look at him hurt. “You know what you’re right. I am nothing to you.” I turn and run. I won’t stop. I can hear him trying to follow. I can hear him calling my name. But I am not stopping. That was the last straw. I did training, one of the things that I focused on was my speed. I am a lot faster than most wolves.