Chapter 7
seven
. . .
The trip back to Gloria’s house was a blur of painful bumps as every one of them sent a thousand darts of agony through me. Finally, I got home, took some aspirin, crawled into the top bunk, and fell asleep to dream of bullet pix chasing me all night.
It felt like I’d no sooner closed my eyes when Danny calling my name had me rolling out of bed and tripping over softies.
In the living room, Sammy was on the floor, convulsing, like she hadn’t done since she was four, but I hadn’t forgotten what they were like. Seizures. I pushed past Danny and crouched over her, checking her forehead for a fever, and there it was, so deadly, dangerously hot.
“We were just sparring, and then she said that she needed a drink, and the next thing I know, she’s like this,” Danny said. “I thought she was fine.”
“Go get some rags and a canteen. We’re taking her to the coffee shop.”
“I’ll get my van,” Tom said from the corners of the room, very unobtrusive, considering his height.
I was alone when Gloria came through the beaded doorway of her ‘office,’ turban indicating that she’d been doing some palm reading over the phone. She crouched next to me and Sammy where she convulsed, Gloria’s bony knees sticking up like a grasshopper.
“We’ve had several foster kids like that,” she finally said, catching Sammy’s hand before she could hit herself with it. “Still scary, after all this time.”
I nodded and put my head on her uncomfortable shoulder for just a second. I was so tired, so soul-weary of watching my daughter suffer when I couldn’t do anything about it. What if all my fighting and suffering was pointless because not even Joe could save her?
“My aunt used to always say that death was the real adventure, that holding on after your time had come was like trying to swim upstream instead of shooting the rapids. You can’t fight destiny.”
“If my daughter’s destiny is to die, I will fight it with everything I have.”
“I know. You always were a fighter. Not the brightest at knowing when to quit, but certainly the best at fighting for what you loved. Your bruises are really weird, like polka dots. Did you fall into a giant cheese grater?”
“How would a cheese grater give you polka dot bruising? Never mind. No, it was a pixie.”
“Ah. That explains it. What’s a pixie, like Tinkerbell?”
I smiled and closed my eyes. “It’s nice to be with someone else who doesn’t know everything. Pix are like normal humans only with neon green eyes and hair.”
“That’s disappointing. Just some punk with contact lenses? No wings? No fairy dust?”
“He had wings, but they looked more techno than magic, and the fairy dust were these creepy bullet ticks that crawled all over his face. I’m bruised from his fairy dust, so worse than disappointing. No one likes going up against the pixies, even the big bad wolves.”
“But they had you do it? Why?”
“I’m fighting for Sammy’s place in the pack so that Joe will help her with the transition. He promised in front of everyone to do his best not to let her die, which I thought meant something earlier, after she had that octopus shake and was doing so much better, but now… She should have finished her seizure, shouldn’t she?”
“It varies. I still think that’s fishy about Joe. If I read his palm, I don’t think I’d ever see a future where he liked watching women suffer. I would say he was a protector, not a sadist, so what does he get out of watching you in over your head?”
“He’s angry at me. You saw him in the coffee shop, so angry at me for leaving like that. Anyway, I think it’s just the pack rules that someone has to fight to get in.”
“Well, I’ve never read his palm, so what do I know?”
“I’ve got it,” Danny said, coming in with a whole box of medical stuff. “Didn’t the wolfman say that she’d be doing better?”
I sighed and moved into position to lift her up. “Only after it gets worse.”
“So, this is worse? I hate it.” He made a face and then scooped her up without giving me a chance to help. I grabbed her hands and Gloria grabbed the rags and canteen.
The trip to the coffee shop in Tom’s old muffin van wasn’t more than ten minutes, which I spent trying to cool her off with the wet cloths while she thrashed and twitched periodically. The back of his van looked like a landscaper’s truck, with all sorts of weird tools attached to the grid metal along his wall opposite the door. The more I looked at the tools, the creepier they looked.
When we got to the coffee shop, I realized how it would look to carry a seizing child in demanding to see their big bad wolf, but I didn’t particularly care. Once again, Danny carried her, with Gloria and Tom helping hold her steady as she writhed and convulsed, her skin shivering before little tufts of fur protruded, then disappeared.
Once inside the shop, everyone looked at our group, for a moment just staring before the guy behind the counter gestured us to come with him into the back. We followed past the big bathroom and went down another hall, then up some stairs, and it was a whole new world. It felt like a hospital, only a nice specialized clinic where rich people went to get seriously invasive beauty things done.
The guy passed us off to a professional-looking woman in a clean lab coat who greeted us with a smile at Sammy as she twitched and frothed.
“We’ve been expecting you. This way, Mrs. Benton.”
I lurched, because that was the first time in my life that anyone had ever called me Mrs. anything, much less Benton. We’d totally kept our marriage down low, not communicating with the others in my circle about my impulsive stupidity. And now this professional person was calling me Mrs. Benton? I guess I was legally married, but I’d certainly never changed my name, I mean, other than the multiple times I’d changed my name with fake I.D.’s, but none of those were Benton.
“Sure,” I mumbled, because this wasn’t the time to argue about something I treated so lightly. What’s in a name?
The room was spacious, light, with a cot next to the bed with a comfortable-looking mattress, so I wouldn’t have to sleep on a chair in the lobby.
“Go ahead, and put her on the bed,” the woman said with a nice smile at Danny.
He smiled back, because she was more than reasonably attractive, and he was him. Once she was on the bed, the woman snapped restraints on Sam’s arms and legs, locking her into place. When she put the neck one on, I grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?”
“Self-harm is very likely when the patient is in this state. Would you rather she hurt herself?”
I hated constraints, but her safety had to come first, at least while she couldn’t function to choose for herself.
The woman, who I imagined was a doctor, hooked her up to an IV, and it was definitely a good thing that the arm wasn’t flailing around wildly, because needles would rip up her skin terribly. Sammy started to relax almost immediately, but with the stillness came a waxy blue sheen to her skin.
“Is she not breathing?” I asked.
“Here,” Joe said, coming in and holding a bag filled with blood, dark rich blood that made my stomach turn.
The doctor took it and hooked it up into her other arm. “That should do it,” she said brightly, smiling at me once my daughter was safely secured to the hospital bed with needles sticking out of her like a pincushion. “If we could clear the room, that would be ideal. Feel free to go get breakfast in the cafeteria, where the chef is renowned. Mrs. Benton, you may stay if you’d like. Try to get some rest, and I’ll have an orderly bring something to you.” She smiled oppressively until Gloria and Tom took off, but Danny lingered, looking between me and Sam with a worried frown. Finally, he grabbed me into a hug, which sent a million pinpricks of agony through me, but I still hugged him back, because what if Sam didn’t make it?
“It’s going to be okay,” he said in a low voice, then kissed my forehead, which wasn’t bruised, and left the room quickly, looking like he’d find a nice pretty girl to distract him from his worry. If only I could be so easily distracted. I looked over at Josiah, where he was standing above Sammy, looking thoughtful. What I wanted to do was to wrap my arms around his waist from the back, and press my face between his shoulder blades.
I was moving before I’d fully formed the thought, sliding my hands over his stomach and breathing in his rich, spicy scent. He jumped when my arms came around him, but he didn’t push me away. He hated me for leaving without a word, for not telling him about his daughter, but I didn’t want to think about that, about anything, just soak in the way he felt, and if I was the one touching him, it wouldn’t hurt me very badly at all, in fact nothing else in the world could touch me when I was holding onto him. It felt so good to sink against him, his muscle, his strength.
“I’m going to bite her,” he said in a low growl that sent a shock of warning through me. He could be dangerous, but he felt like my bastion against every terrifying thing in the world, the worst being Samantha’s illness, then the meaning of the words registered and I released him, stepping to the side so I could look at his face, and at Sammy where she looked so unnaturally still.
“What do you mean? Why would you bite her?”
“I’m giving her my blood, which should be something she can handle, since she is my cub, but my antibodies will ease the transition, which are in my bite. The bites will heal very quickly. Do you want to watch, or would you rather leave the room?”
“You can’t bite my daughter!”
He gave me a slight smile. “You make it sound so shocking. They won’t be more than scratches that she won’t even notice. You look…”
“Tired? Terrified? At the end of my rope?”
“Beautiful. Your protective instincts are beautiful to see. You raised her very well.”
I swallowed hard. How could I argue when someone was telling me how well I’d done? “I didn’t plan on getting pregnant. You specifically said that we didn’t have to worry about that, remember?”
He raised a dark brow. “You regret having your daughter?”
“No, of course not, but it’s not what I wanted. I wasn’t ready to be a parent any more than I was ready to be a wife. I wasn’t ready for anything, honestly, but there I was, hiding from you in that little dojo, and unable to keep anything down until Danny said that I was probably pregnant and that I should start taking prenatals. You said that it wouldn’t be a problem, and since I didn’t know anything about it, I just trusted you.”
“Werewolf children are extremely rare, particularly my breed. You kept the child. You could have given her up for adoption, or terminated the pregnancy early.”
I bared my teeth at him. “Right? I could have just thrown her into the wonderful foster system, because a child of mine would fit in so well. Raising her has been a struggle every step of the way. She’s anxious and aggressive, distracted when she’s not obsessive, and I wouldn’t have her any other way, but most people wouldn’t be up for that kind of challenge.”
“You could have asked me to help you.” There was something fierce in his eyes, a low burn that made me want to tackle him to the ground and bite him until he submitted to me, or wrapped me in his arms and squeezed all the fear out of me.
“How did I know that you wouldn’t put both of us in a cage?”
“You can never know anything when it comes to other people, as you illustrated to me so viscerally.”
I had an almost irresistible urge to punch him as hard as I could, somewhere in that strong body, to give him my pain, the pain I’d had every day for years after leaving him. I’d left because I was desperate not to be put in another cage, not because it’s what I wanted. I’d let him in, when I never let anyone in, and he’d had this other side of himself that was always going to be a huge barrier between us, but he’d never told me, never hinted that he was anything other than a down-to-earth coffee shop owner who loved martial arts and saving the vulnerable. Trusting him had cost me almost everything, and now the one thing I’d taken with me from that pain was on a precipice.
I looked away from him, refocusing on Sammy where she lay so still and eerily quiet. My emotions were too unstable to deal with my past, not when I had so much riding on the present. He was still furious at me for running out on him, or he wouldn’t have suited me up like a disco-ball to go catch a pixie, even if he had fed me carrot cake afterwards. Why had he done that? Did he want me to want him? Here I was, wanting him all over again, stepping into him to hold his body’s warmth like a shameless addict. “If you really have to bite her, I don’t think that I can watch.” I left the room, closing the door behind me while I tried to breathe and not scream. I’d come so close to lashing out at him after hanging onto him, turning him into my focus, the pole around which the rest of my crazy life swung. I couldn’t do that. Once Sammy was stable, we’d go back to a life as normal as it could be for a werewolf kid, and maybe I’d even go out to dinner with Dr. Soares.
I couldn’t afford to fall back in love with Josiah, Benton, werewolf, father of my child, not when he was in a world where I’d never fully belong, however many pix I caught.
I wandered around, looking for the cafeteria. Coming around a corner, I stopped abruptly when I saw Clarissa Rowlings talking to a doctor, the one who had brought us to the room, actually. I edged back out of sight, but I could still hear Clarissa’s voice, dripping with all kinds of syrup.
“I saw him come through here, and I just wanted a few words with him about my sweet Carrie, who you know is feeling so terrible. If you could tell me where he is, I’d be ever in your debt.” Her persuasive voice made my neck hairs prickle. Who was she stalking now? Had she seen Danny? This was more effort than she usually gave for someone without a portfolio.
“I’m sorry, but Mr. Benton is busy right now. If you leave me your cell number, he can contact you when he gets some time.”
She was stalking my husband? I walked around the corner before I could think better of it.
“Clarissa, what a small world. How delightful to see you here. Did I hear that sweet Carrie isn’t feeling well?” I should be worried about her daughter, and I was, but something about the idea of her stalking Josiah Benton made everything else secondary.
Her smile faltered and then faded to nothing. “What happened to you? Did you get hit by a bus? What bizarre bruises. Makes you look like a green-spotted leopard.” She laughed, flashing perfect teeth that felt like a challenge.
She wasn’t wrong, though. I looked legitimately awful and felt even worse. Still, I wasn’t about to back down.
“You mentioned Mr. Benton, that you’re looking for him?”
Her eyes brightened. “That’s right. Do you know him?”
My heart pounded so hard, and felt restricted, like someone had reached a hand into my chest and was slowly squeezing it to bursting. “You could say that. I’m his wife.”
The silence that came over the hall was suffocating. You could have heard a pin drop, or a dust mote strike another dust mote, like two miniature galaxies crashing together, or a werewolf clearing his throat directly behind you. Talk about crashing galaxies.
I whirled around and there he was, Josiah Benton, apparently having come after me for reasons I didn’t want to know, or maybe I did, but not in front of Clarissa. I put a hand on his chest, because I absolutely could not stop myself.
“This woman is looking for you,” I said, my voice suddenly hoarse as his heart pounded beneath my hand, his eyes showing something that filled me with aching stupidity, the same idiocy that had gotten me to drag him to the courthouse in the first place so long ago. “You should shave,” I added, because that was only one way I could be certain to be able to control myself around him.
He smiled, slow and sweet, then covered my hand with his, before he grasped it and removed it, dropping it to my side, and then he stepped past me towards Clarissa. The rejection felt like a slap, like a shove off the edge of the world. “If you have a question, please address it to Doctor Bridger, who is more than competent.”
Clarissa flashed her teeth in another feral smile. “She’s not really your wife.”
Josiah crossed his arms while I braced myself for an even worse rejection, the one where he told her that I was his estranged wife who had betrayed him and he couldn’t wait to get a divorce from once Sammy was stable. Maybe he had already started the paperwork. This was going to be so humiliating. Why had I said that I was his wife? What was I trying to prove? Why had I let the catty woman get under my skin?
“She is the only woman I have ever married. You did notice my wedding band, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but?—”
“Why do you think that I would fund such a specialized clinic if not for the treatment of my own child?”
Clarissa sputtered for a moment while my bruised heart perked up.
He looked at me, and my heart came to life. “You should come back with me to Sammy’s room. Your food should be there by now, and I know how much you hate cold mashed potatoes.”
“I’d eat them, anyway.” Something was wrong with my voice, all cracked and rough.
He smiled, soft and sweet. “But you shouldn’t have to. Shall we?” He offered me his arm, which was ridiculous in his casual clothing, but he was so smooth at it, like he’d had centuries to practice being chivalrous. Right, because he was an actual knight from way back when.
I put my hand over the warm skin, the silky hair, the sinewy muscles, and walked back the way I’d come, feeling too many things to have the slightest idea how to put it into words.
“You dislike her rather strongly,” he said once we were down a few hallways from her. He hadn’t pushed my hand off this time.
“Thank you for covering for me.”
“I spoke honestly.”
“Honesty can be brutal, but you weren’t. Why not? I know that you’re still furious with me.”
“I admit that I used you for protection from her advances. I hope you don’t mind, but that kind of woman can be very tenacious. I used her fear of you against her. Why is she afraid of you? Did you bite her like Samantha bit her daughter?”
I winced and tried to pull away from his arm, but I couldn’t do it. “I only threw her. Judo. It wasn’t my best moment.”
“No? Perhaps you should do more training so that you can be at peak performance the next time you find yourself in a similar situation.”
My heart pounded. Because if he was talking about training with him, there was nothing I’d find more irresistible. I was a hundred percent sure that it would end with him naked, if at all possible. “I’m not sure what training would do against bullet ticks.”
“Bullet ticks? Ah, the pix’s sparks. No, judo won’t do much against them, although if you are fast enough, you can kill the pix before the sparks kill you, and then if you’re lucky, you can get the sparks out before they reach a necessary organ.”
“Do you speak from personal experience?”
“Naturally. Experience is one thing that I have in vast quantities.”
“Clarissa has much more experience getting married than you do. Why didn’t you ever get married before me?”
“The question is why did I marry you after I proved for countless ages that I wasn’t interested in marriage?”
That made it sound like I was irresistible to him, which freaked me right out. I pulled my hand off his arm and turned to face him. “Samantha already asked you that.” I did not need to hear him say that he loved me again, not if I wanted to keep my heart out of his cage.
“True.” He cocked his head and pursed his lips while he studied me. “Try to get some rest. Moonrise will come too soon.” He took a step away from me, but still watching me, thinking thoughts that I couldn’t parse. What was he thinking? How glad he was that I’d said that I was his wife to Clarissa Rowlings so that he could finally get something useful out of the marriage?
He wasn’t leaving as abruptly as he had after the sorbet with Sam, but it still felt too soon. “Are you running away again?”
He smiled softly. “I have to check my stove, or I should say one of my stoves, for I have six or seven.” His smile broadened while my skin flushed for no apparent reason.
“Only six or seven?”
“In this city.”
“Ah. That makes more sense.” The idea of him working over a hot stove, steam surrounding him while he taste-tested a perfect sauce made me all hot and achy. Or maybe that was the flu.
He said, “Samantha took the bites well. She should rest quietly and then wake up tomorrow morning with the energy to get out of bed. Perhaps your Daniel will stay with us, so he can teach her lessons along with some of the other cubs. Do you mind if I invite him to use a local apartment?”
“He’s not my Daniel.”
“Is that a no?”
I frowned at him. “You think that we’ll be staying here for Sammy? You’re offering all of us an apartment? I don’t love living with Daniel. He always steals my shampoo, and eats all my groceries, and leaves his shaving mess in the sink every morning without cleaning it up.”
“And you said that I should shave. My beard would clog all the drains.” He tugged on it while his eyes twinkled. He had the most beautiful eyes, so warm, so soft and welcoming, like a warm fire that would cuddle you on the stormiest day. “No, there is an adjoining apartment off the clinic that would be better for you and our daughter, but there are only two bedrooms, unless your Daniel would share your bed.”
“He’s not my Daniel, and he’s not coming anywhere near my bed. He’ll sleep with anyone, and has had loads of uninhibited adult entertainment with Clarissa Rowling, the woman you were so wise to avoid.”
“Are you jealous of her relationship with him?”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Daniel is my foster brother. I wish that he would choose someone that he could settle down with instead of jumping from one shallow relationship to the next, but on the other hand, I’m a little jealous that he can find companionship so easily when I have such a hard time letting anyone close.”
“Then two bedrooms should do it for you, and he should be comfortable rooming with some men who run our studio. They are very wise, and will help rein in his weakness for covering up his loneliness with physical pleasure.”
The words ‘physical pleasure’ jolted through me like lightning. Being with him had been so much more than that, but that alone would have been enough to keep me obsessed with the man.
He turned and strode off, his movements smooth, graceful, powerful, so certain. He’d carried me to bed with that exact walk several times. I leaned against the wall and watched him go, hating myself for wanting him so much, for my inability to want anyone else.