Chapter 5 5

“But my business⁠—”

“Nico has quite a bit of pull around here. I’m sure if he took the time to bring you to me, he’d have someone make sure the bar they found you in is fine. Don’t worry about that.”

I sighed, exhaustion rolling across my body. I was in no condition to go anywhere, but it was hard to admit. I looked at the doctor and slowly shook my head. “Why did those guys attack me? I never did anything to them.”

The penlight disappeared into his chest pocket. “That, I’m afraid, is the million-dollar question we’ve all been asking.” He paused. “How do you feel? Pain-wise?”

I was honest. “Pretty bad. My sides hurt.”

“Okay. I’ll have my nurse get you another Vicodin, but a smaller dose than last time. I don’t want you getting dependent.”

I nodded, and he left the room. I didn’t feel like I was in danger. There was no way to know for sure if he was telling the truth, but it felt like he was being honest.

A nurse came in a few minutes later with a small plastic cup. I took the small pill from the cup. As soon as I swallowed, I realized that it might not have been the smartest idea, but it was too late. Plus, the pain in my sides was getting worse by the second. The nurse left without a word, and I lay there. Ten minutes later, the drug kicked in. It was like someone was pouring warm honey all over my body. My eyes fluttered shut, and I drifted into sleep.

“Your bloodline should have been completely wiped out,” the shifter said. His eyes were a glowing, bloody red, his teeth like steak knives ripping out of his gums in crimson spikes.

“I don’t know what you mean!” I screamed.

“You’ll be dead soon enough.” His face had completely changed, a full wolf’s head, but a wolf from the bowels of hell.

The others had shifted, too. The howls were loud enough to crack the walls. Crevices formed in the ceiling and floor, blood erupted from each fissure. It spurted up until it was inches deep on the floor.

The wolves were on me. Their paws tearing my clothes, shredding my skin. Me, screaming as their jaws clamped onto my body. The flesh ripping from my breasts, my cheeks, my stomach. The leader tearing at my insides while I screamed. Raising his maw to the sky, blood flying from his teeth, and howling⁠—

I screamed and sat up, waking from the nightmare. The quick movement sent a fresh barb of pain into my brain. I clasped my hands to my head and lay back on the bed. I shivered and realized I was covered in a cold sweat.

The nurse came in a moment later, her eyes worried. “Are you all right, miss?”

I nodded. “I—sorry, it was a nightmare.”

She shook her head. “No apologies needed. Here, I brought you dinner.”

Dinner? I glanced outside and saw the window had a faint purple glow. The sun was almost down. There’d been bright Florida sunlight blasting through the glass before I fell asleep. It hadn’t felt like that long of a dream, but I’d been out for hours. My stomach grumbled, though. I was starving. I sat back up, slowly and carefully this time.

She set the tray on a rolling table that she positioned over my bed. It didn’t look like standard hospital food—a still-hot burger and fries with a pudding cup and container of diced fruit. There was a bottle of water beside it.

“I’m going to change some of your gauze while you eat, if that’s okay?” the nurse asked, twisting off the water bottle cap for me.

“That’s fine,” I said, my words muffled by the burger I’d already started to stuff into my mouth.

She started pulling the old bandages off, and I didn’t get the same buzzing sensation I got from the doctor. The nurse was human, which surprised me a little. I’d assumed the whole operation was run by and for shifters. I hissed while she pulled off the last strip of gauze. It was painful, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

I finished the fries and was chewing the last of the burger by the time she was done. Other than the one painful moment, she’d done a great job changing the bandages without causing me discomfort. She was pulling her gloves off when I decided to ask the question that had been percolating in my head since I’d talked to the doctor that morning.

“Is…uh…Nicolas around? Nico?” I asked, not sure which name he went by. “The doctor said he’s the guy who saved me.”

The nurse tossed her soiled gloves in the trash and started washing her hands. She spoke to me over her shoulder as she worked. “Alpha Nico isn’t here right now, miss.” She turned the water off and pulled some paper towels from a dispenser. “He’ll be back soon, though. He said so. Don’t worry.” She gave me a weird look, then left the room.

I pulled the top off the pudding cup and ate dessert. Just what the hell was going on? What had that look been about? I finished the pudding and ate half the fruit before my stomach told me it was full. More than full, actually. It had been over twenty-four hours since I’d eaten anything, but I didn’t want to make myself sick.

The nurse returned ten minutes later to take the tray. She put it aside and straightened my sheets, then checked my pulse and blood pressure again. “I know you asked about Nico earlier,” she said. “It’s kind of strange how he’s been acting. Do you want another blanket?”

“Uh, sure, that would be nice. Nico’s been acting strange?” I asked, not sure where the conversation was going.

She grabbed another blanket from a drawer and draped it across my legs, then nodded. “Very strange. Really protective of you. He spent most of the day with you, sitting right there”— she pointed at a stool that was beside my bed—“and making sure you had whatever you needed. Pretty strange for him. Do you…um…know him?” she asked, trying to shrug nonchalantly.

“No. I’ve never met him before. If he walked in right now, I’d have no idea it was him.”

“That’s what the doc and I thought, too. That’s what makes his reactions so strange.”

“Reactions? What do you⁠—”

The door opened and Dr. Carter walked in. “How are we after a nap and some food?”

“Better. Thanks,” I said, wishing he’d waited another minute or two before coming in. I’d wanted to know what the nurse was talking about.

Dr. Carter nodded to the nurse. “Thank you, Cleo, I think she’ll be fine now.”

The nurse mumbled a few words to him before leaving the room. The doctor stepped over and slid his fingers into my hair, probing gently at the base of my skull where I’d been hit. I winced in pain, and he pulled his hand away, making sure not to get his fingers tangled in my hair.

“Swelling is going down, but you’ll have one hell of a knot on the back of your head for a couple of days. It’ll probably be tender for at least a week.”

“Do you think I’ll be able to go home tomorrow? Has anyone talked to my friends?” I was still worried about Abi. I’d even glanced around the room from my bed while I ate, trying to find my phone. I was pretty sure it was still lying on the bar, though. That’s the last time I remembered seeing it.

“I don’t know about your friends, but I know Nico will be here soon. He wanted to check in on you once you woke up. He’s been…very worried about you.”

“Okay, but what about my first question? When can I go home?”

Carter’s eyes swept away from mine, breaking contact. His right hand fidgeted with a pen and the left slipped in and out of his coat pocket. Every bit of his body language screamed I’m hiding something.

It didn’t sit well with me. I was about to press the subject when a throat cleared in the doorway.

Dr. Carter glanced over his shoulder. “Ah, Nico. I just told her you’d be here soon.”

The doctor moved out of the way, and Nico stepped into the room.

My eyes widened, nostrils flared, and my heart rate went through the roof. I was glad I wasn’t on the monitor, which would give away what I was feeling. I could imagine my embarrassment as my heartbeat went beeping all over the room as he walked in.

I sighed a breath out of my lungs, even as breath escaped me when he took another step into the room. Things had somehow moved into slow motion. Something inside me sparked to life. Something I didn’t even know lived within me. I couldn’t explain it. Was it an ache? A pang?

I watched the muscles in Nico’s arms flex, and my eyes moved across his body and back up to his face. A burning need swept through my body, desire like nothing I’d ever experienced in my life. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on in my life. A voice in my head started murmuring a single word. As he drew closer, the voice rose in volume, first a whisper, then a shout, then an earth-shattering scream, all inside my skull.

Mine.