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“I’m getting more water on the floor than in the tub,” he chuckled when he started to get back in.

“Are we done?”

“Five more minutes, Mum,” he teased and slid in.

Yeah, five more minutes for sure. The bath was like perfect.

I snuggled back against him and sent a few emails and messages basically telling the correct people that I wouldn’t be in the office until Monday. Almost immediately I had responses from people asking what they should do about this or that.

I snorted, and in the most polite way possible, I told them to handle it. I didn’t need to be there for the employee presentations. Most of them were a joke or fucking annoyed me. Honestly, the non-doctor ones were the only worthwhile ones besides Ha-joon’s.

There was nothing on my calendar that was pressing for me to be there. Honestly, I’d spoiled a bit too many people taking on so much that they were confused as to what to do if I didn’t handle it for them.

And I’d run myself into the ground that way. Like what did I pay them for if I had to hold their hand every step of the fucking way? Or comfort them when they got yelled at for fucking up? I got a few messages asking if I was mad at them.

For wanting them to do their jobs? I was a bit pissed I had to waste time responding and they were so tone-deaf they didn’t understand their reactions were the problem. I was having to put too much time and effort in to cover for the job they were paid to be done.

The question was more—why hadn’t I been pissed sooner?

So a few people got responses saying if they were confused how to handle what was in their job descriptions and I’d been covering for them, then their job roles and compensation packages needed to be reevaluated. I also included the head of HR on those emails.

That was about the nicest way to say if I had to double check your work to that point then you didn’t deserve what you were getting paid.

There were a few meetings that I said I’d listen in on from my laptop. I got pissed when I got some pushback from the department heads saying it wasn’t the time for this. I reminded them of vacations they took or family emergencies they had no matter what was going on at the hospital.

Things I never had … Ever. I didn’t even take fucking sick days.

Sometimes I didn’t work Saturdays and/or Sundays, which I wasn’t supposed to anyways.

I was glad when Alan jumped in and told people to shut it.

It was three fucking weekdays and to grow up already.

They ran directly to me with everything way too often and that had to stop too.

He was one of the people always bitching at me to delegate, but the department heads got bitchy when they had to deal with anyone but me.

Any of the doctors actually which honestly summed up my job in a nutshell and why I was so burnt out.

Alan did message me on the side and asked if I needed anything. What I was going to be doing with my time off?

Shockingly, I knew right away. The best I’d felt in recent months was when I went through that section of my closet after things ended with Tommy. It wasn’t just about the breakup, but—I never had a chance to just reflect on my life and where I was at.

Okay, fine, the best I’d felt besides having sex with Ha-joon. And not just sex. Spending time with him. I enjoyed… The best I’d felt adulting and like I was handling my life. I wanted more of that.

Hell, I wanted to do my whole condo.

“Do what to your whole condo?” Ha-joon asked, sounding half asleep.

“What I did to my closet,” I answered, wondering how he knew what was going on. Right, I’d probably said something out loud or mumbling while typing. “Yeah, that’s what I want to do.”

“Good for you. You should.”

Yeah, I should. I pushed to stand and set my phone to the side so I could finish up in the shower.

“Oh, like now? We’re doing this now?”

“You don’t have to,” I told him as I turned on the shower. “You asked—everyone’s pushing me for what I want or need. This is it. I want to get shit done in my own life instead of always for the hospital.”

“I thought were relaxing and maybe having sex though,” Ha-joon whined as he shut everything off for the tub and got out.

“You don’t have to help,” I repeated.

“No, I want to spend time with you,” he said firmly as he joined me at the shower. “I just wanted to spend time with you and my cock inside your cunt. Not—are we cleaning? That’s what you did to your closet, right? You cleaned it out? Will you do it naked?”

I burst out laughing. “Tell me I’m half as fun high as you are.”

“You’re adorably sexy when you partake in the funny brownie, my sweet kimchi,” he muttered as he backed me under the warm water. “I get a bit whiny. Mostly petulant and annoying. My mates make baby noises and cut me off.”

“I think you’re adorbs,” I admitted. “As long as you don’t ask me to change your diapie.”

“That’s enough out of you,” he growled playfully before kissing me.

He got his wish of putting his cock inside of me, but then we really showered and got to work. We were totally high after more brownie, but we were still productive. I was. He basically was the muscle who helped and brought up food which made it all go easier.

Which was why he got a blow job and more sex.

I bolted up in bed, my heart beating in my ears and sweat covering me.

“You okay?” Ha-joon asked, his voice heavy with sleep. “Nightmare?”

I swallowed a sob and started to nod but then stopped. “Is it a nightmare if it really happened?”

“Yes, because it’s while you slept and haunts you,” he answered gently and sat up as well. “Can I touch you or do you need space.”

“I’m sweaty,” I mumbled even as I leaned into him.

“I’ll live,” he promised as he moved his arm around me and kissed my hair. “What haunts you, my sweet kimchi?”

If he had asked it any other way, I probably would have brushed him off. But I’d already made the mistake of pushing aside his comfort and offer to help and regretted it.

Maybe it was time to be more vulnerable with him when he offered?

“When we were outed, before the real wars started, monsters took advantage of the situation,” I told him.

“I’ve heard a lot about that from my family. Mum’s parents go on and on, but they’re human haters. I get it because of the way wolves—natural and supe—were hunted in Asia, but—they’re extra on a lot.”

I nodded. “After running—Amanda Hope was about as close as a woman could get to being a doctor. She taught me a lot. When she died—”

“How did she die? I looked into the foundation more and you guys just have it listed that she died protecting a woman she…”

“Yeah, it was me,” I rasped, pulling my knees to my chest and wiping my eyes. I swallowed a yelp when he moved me between his legs and cuddled me closer.

“So you taught others medicine? I wish I had known you back then. I bet you were just as badass.”

I snorted. If only he knew. I was so much more badass then. Now… I felt weak now. I felt like the paper pushing admin too many thought me.

Maybe it was time to really change that? If not for myself, to honor Amanda and what she sacrificed for me.

I told him about the woman I’d been teaching to be a nurse and how the local sheriff wanted her and used all the rumors to his advantage.

He told her to marry him or he’d have her named a witch and her whole family burned.

She was going to do it, but her father couldn’t even hear of selling her to such a horrible man.

Her father had faith in the people of their town. That they were good people and could see through the lies and corruption and stand up for them.

Fools and their hope in people got more killed than evil sometimes.

He was wrong and no one was willing to be named a witch next or get on the wrong side of the “law.”

I sighed when he flinched. “Yes, I’ve killed. I’ve killed many, but I’m not—”

“I know. I know, Ellie,” he whispered, kissing my hair. “I’m not judging. I know you did it for the right reasons and when you had to.”

“You’re just realizing how old I am?”

“And how hard your life has been. You talk like Mum and Da about the tough choices they had to make before we were out. I’ve not had much interaction—my mates are all my age.”

Fair enough.

“What I arrived to was monstrous,” I whispered, still feeling the fires that night the “good” people of that town set. “People were watching with awe like it was an air show or something cool instead of people about to be burned alive.”

“So you rescued them and killed the bad guys?” he checked.

Yes, yes, I had. One of my biggest regrets was leaving after I was outed and trusting they had the situation in hand.

I told Ha-joon that and what happened after when I came back and found the family dead, nailed to crosses and clearly having been left there to die that way.

There was nothing to show they had been stabbed or killed then hanged.

No, the monsters of that town had mounted a family of ten onto crosses to die of dehydration while people went on with their lives.

The girl was seventeen, but she had younger siblings who were killed.

The children would have died first, and the rest would have had their last moments filled with agony because of that.

“What did you do?” Ha-joon whispered when I stopped talking.

“Something just as monstrous,” I confessed. “I found some other vampires I’d come across who were fighting and told them the truth. We handled it.” I scrubbed my hands over my face and snorted. “That was how ASH came about. The founder was part of that.”

“It’s nice something good came from something horrific,” he whispered, his voice sounding hollow.

Yeah, it was a horrible story and it gutted me as well.

I wondered how people would feel if they knew the actual site of the massacre we unleashed on those evil humans was actually the center of ASH?

That was why it was built in Atlanta of all places.

That girl and her family were buried deep under the atrium garden of the main, original building of ASH.

After her torturous death, she fulfilled her wish of bringing comfort to those in pain. I saw more patients and staff enjoy that garden and haven over the years than I could count.

And it was time to get back to those roots.

It was time to get back to being the woman who was brave enough to found ASH even if I originally fought for it to be for humans too and failed. I wanted it to be a haven from evil, a place for healing that saved those worth saving.

Yeah, it was definitely time to get back to that.