She looked up at Adrian, whose blue eyes were now fully flecked with gold. "I'll wait to do the press conference until after your final match."
"Let's just focus on your healing right now," Adrian said, his voice carefully controlled. "We can worry about everything else tomorrow."
The door opened again, and Dr. Harrison entered with Riley's chart in hand. The middle-aged physician had kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, but his expression was professionally neutral.
"Well, Miss Vaughn, you got very lucky," he said, settling into the chair across from her bed. "It's only a partial ACL tear. However, you won't be able to compete until you've had surgery and completed a full recovery program. The timeline varies for everyone, but we're typically looking at several months."
Riley felt her heart sink even as relief flooded through her. Not career-ending, but devastating nonetheless. Months without competing meant lost sponsorship opportunities, diminished rankings, and the constant fear that her body might never be quite the same again.
"That's good news," her mother said quickly, squeezing Riley's shoulder. "You should be able to bounce back and be competing again in no time."
Adrian's expression had turned granite-hard. "She's not competing for a while. She needs to take her time with recovery and not rush back."
Riley wanted to argue, wanted to insist that she'd be back in the ring as soon as humanly possible. But she could feel Adrian's fierce protectiveness through their bond, the way his tiger was demanding he keep her safe from any further harm. And honestly, the thought of rushing back before she was truly ready terrified her more than she cared to admit.
"I'll be smart about my recovery," she said finally. "I won't rush back."
Dr. Harrison nodded approvingly before leaving to prepare her discharge paperwork. A few minutes later, a nurse arrived with a better knee brace and a pair of crutches, efficiently fitting Riley with both before handing over a stack of forms.
"I'll head to the gym now and tell Lila what happened," her mother said, gathering her purse. "And I'll see you both tomorrow for Adrian's final match."
After her mother left, Riley stood slowly with Adrian's help, his hands gentle but steady as she found her balance. He handed her the crutches, and she could see the frustration in his eyes when she stubbornly used them to make her own way to the truck.
"I'm not going to be babied," she said when she caught his expression.
Adrian's jaw ticked, but he didn't argue. Once they were both settled in the truck, his phone rang. Mark's name appeared on the dashboard display.
"I heard your match on the highlight reels," Mark said when Adrian put the call on speaker. "Knockout in two minutes andthirty seconds. The sports announcer said that's never been done before in tournament history. The pride is impressed."
"It was nothing," Adrian replied, his voice carefully neutral. "I was just trying to get through it so I could get to Riley. She was attacked."
"Yeah, I heard about that on the news too. The pride is concerned about her."
Riley felt a warm flutter in her chest at the thought of Adrian's pride caring about her wellbeing. "It's a partial ACL tear," she said. "I got lucky."
"That's a relief," Mark said. "Just drive safe, and I'll give you both space tonight."
As they pulled out of the hospital parking lot and headed back toward the countryside, Riley found herself dozing off despite her best efforts to stay alert. The pain medication was finally catching up with her, pulling her toward the peaceful darkness of sleep.
But even as consciousness slipped away, her last coherent thought was of tomorrow—and the satisfaction she'd feel when Adrian destroyed Darius in front of the entire kickboxing world.
Riley's consciousness surfaced slowly, like swimming up from the depths of a warm, dark ocean. The familiar scent of Adrian and the soft cotton of his sheets anchored her to reality as her eyes fluttered open. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the tall windows, casting golden rectangles across the hardwood floor of his bedroom.
Adrian sat beside her on the bed, his broad frame creating a comforting presence in her peripheral vision. He'd changed out of his tournament clothes into a simple white t-shirt that stretched across his chest, and his dark auburn hair was slightly mussed as if he'd been running his hands through it. His blue eyes, still flecked with traces of gold from earlier emotions, studied her face with genuine concern.
"How long was I out?" Riley's voice came out rougher than expected, her throat dry from the medication and stress.
"A couple hours." His voice carried that controlled gentleness she was learning to recognize—the way he spoke when his protective instincts were running high. "The pain medication and everything that happened today clearly wiped you out. I figured you needed the rest more than anything else."
Riley shifted slightly, testing the limits of her injured knee, and immediately noticed the thoughtful touches he'd arranged while she slept. A glass of ice water sat on the nightstand beside her, along with two white pills that she recognized as the prescription pain relievers from the hospital. Across the room, on the coffee table in the sitting area, she spotted a plate of sandwiches cut into neat triangles—the kind of precise presentation that spoke to Adrian's methodical nature.
She reached for the water first, grateful for the cool liquid against her parched throat. The domestic scene felt surreal after the chaos of the day—this powerful man who commanded boardrooms and pride politics had spent his afternoon making her sandwiches and watching over her sleep.
"Are you hungry?" Adrian asked, his gaze tracking her every movement with the vigilance of someone who'd claimed responsibility for her wellbeing. "You haven't eaten anything substantial today."
Riley's stomach chose that moment to growl audibly, making her cheeks flush with embarrassment. "Starved, actually."
Without hesitation, Adrian rose from the bed with that fluid grace that spoke to his shifter nature. His movements were purposeful as he crossed to the sitting area and returned with the plate of sandwiches. The gesture was simple, but Riley felt the weight of care behind it—the way he'd anticipated her needs and acted on them without being asked.