Two Star Healers And A Forgotten Fated Mate Chapter 06

Two Star Healers And A Forgotten Fated Mate Chapter 06

**POV: Cameron**

I finished the last of my hospital rounds, and my text inbox stayed empty—no reply from Penelope.

I pushed open Amelia’s exam room door. “Amelia, has Penelope texted you back at all these past few days?”

She lifted her head, shaking her head helplessly. “Not a single word. She’d never shut me out like this when we fought before.”

My wolf stirred with a sharp, unshakable panic, pacing restlessly beneath my ribs, whimpering nonstop in my mind. My fated mate’s slipping away from me.

I forced the anxious energy down, pressing on with my questions to Amelia. “What exactly did she say to you that night you visited her?”

“Nothing much,” Amelia frowned. “I just thanked her for taking the fall for my surgical error.”

At her words, dread crashed over me, thick and suffocating. My wolf whined louder.

I scowled, running a hand through my hair. “Who told you she volunteered to take the blame?”

Amelia blurted out the answer without hesitation. “If she didn’t step up on her own, who forced her to take the punishment?”

My throat locked up, my face turning cold and grim.

Amelia stared at me for a long beat, then her pen slipped from her fingers and clattered onto her desk.

Her eyes blew wide with disbelief. “You made her take the blame?
How could you do that to her?”

I dragged a hand over my face, exhaling a long, weary sigh.

“You know how you get. If you’d taken the fall for dropping that
hemostat, you would’ve marched straight to the chief and handed in
your resignation before sunset.”

“Penelope’s only a pack nurse. Minor mistakes get brushed off easier
for her. I never imagined word would spread to every staff member
and patient in the hospital.”

Amelia shot to her feet the second I finished speaking, her eyes
glistening with angry tears. She bit down hard on her words to keep
from shouting.

“Cameron, Penelope cared more about her nursing job than anything
else in the world. She never made a single error in all her years
working there! How am I ever supposed to face her after what you
did?”

Our gazes locked, and I had no single word to defend myself with.

I walked back to our shared apartment in a daze, stumbling over my
own feet once.

My wolf thrashed wildly inside my chest, desperate and hurt. He knew
our mate bond was fraying apart, even if my human mind hadn’t fully
processed what I’d broken.

I pulled up Penelope’s chat log, scrolling all the way back to the very first messages we’d exchanged.

No matter how swamped her shifts were, she’d always snuck spare minutes to send me little updates throughout the day.

Nearly every thread was only her side of the conversation. I’d always been too swamped with surgery prep to send more than a one-sentence reply.

She’d been such a sweet, clumsy little pup, but beneath that soft exterior was an unbelievable amount of grit.

Even as the Alpha and Luna’s daughter of Norhaven Pack, she’d never used her family name to skip hard work or earn special treatment.

That’s exactly what had drawn me to her all those years ago.

When we’d come of age and the Moon Goddess revealed she was my fated mate, my wolf had howled with joy inside my skin, screaming at me to confess my feelings right away.

I’d pulled her into my arms, and she’d covered her mouth in shock, eyes huge. “Moon Goddess—this can’t be real. The boy I’ve had a crush on for three years is my fated mate?”

I’d laughed and held her tighter, and we’d become mates right then.

She’d always been that sweet, resilient girl, and I’d destroyed every bit of trust she had in me. I’m nothing but a selfish, terrible mate.

I splashed cold water over my face to clear my foggy head, murmuring quiet reassurance to my restless wolf.

“It’s fine. She’ll be home in a few days.”

“I’ll go explain the full truth to the hospital staff and every patient that heard the rumors, get her suspension and black mark erased from her file.”

“We’ve got all the time in the world to beg for her forgiveness.”

The stabbing ache in my chest from the strained mate bond dulled slightly.

The next morning, I showed up extra early at her nursing station, waiting for her shift to start. She never appeared. When I glanced closer, another nurse’s supplies sat spread across her desk space.

I grabbed a passing nurse I recognized, my voice tight with unease.

“Excuse me—has Penelope come in for her shift yet?”

The woman stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “Penelope? She turned in her resignation a full week ago.”

“What?”

That couldn’t be right. Penelope wouldn’t walk away from the career she’d fought so hard to build just to stay beside me.

I gripped her arm lightly, my hands shaking. “Do you know which hospital she transferred to?”

“Transfer? She said she’s leaving nursing entirely, switching careers for good.”

Leaving nursing behind for good.

Those words echoed on a loop inside my skull.

I pulled out my phone to shoot her a text, but a bright red exclamation mark popped up instantly. Message failed to send.

She’d blocked my number.

Black spots swam across my vision. I reached for the wall to steady myself, but my legs buckled out from under me.

The last sound I registered before my vision cut out was my wolf letting out a raw, mournful howl inside my mind.

“My fated mate had left me for good.”