Chapter Six
“Get her downstairs. I’ll take a look at her. See—”
“You’re not touching her,” Jonah snarled at Tony as he swept his mate up into his arms.
“Jonah, I swear I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Tony swore.
“No, you just wanted to push and push and push until you got what you wanted. She didn’t speak for three weeks!
She was talking, opening up, but you had to get what you wanted on your timeframe.
” Jonah glared at the man he’d always respected, always protected.
Hell, Tony was a brother in the way only men who’d fought together, who’d had each other’s lives in their hands, could be.
Jonah knew Tony crossed lines, but this time, with Bre, he’d had gone too far.
“Take her to Jess or Abby. Hell, get her to Gideon,” Mitch urged. “Get yourself looked at, too. You’re bleeding.”
Jonah glanced down and saw the proof of his mate’s trauma in the claw marks on his skin.
Some were deep, and now, that he was aware of them, there was pain, but nothing like what Bre had experienced.
He’d do anything for her, but he didn’t know how to fight the ghosts in her head.
Her screams would fill his nightmares for the rest of his life.
“You’re mated,” Murphy commented. Everyone stared at Jonah. “It’s fresh. Just beginning. But the scent is there. Subtle but there.”
“Last night,” Jonah told them. He’d taken her again this morning when they were both soft from sleep. He’d managed slow and easy then, and Bre had come alive under his touch.
“Tony didn’t call me here. I didn’t know she’d left her room. Oakley and I have been gone for the last few days. We got in late last night,” Murphy shared.
Jonah’s gaze flew to Tony. He saw Tony’s hurt but knew there’d been truth in what he’d said to Tony. “She doesn’t trust you. Until that changes, I can’t let you treat her.”
Tony gave a jerk of his chin. “Take her to Professor Mueller. She’ll be okay with him. I’ll call and let him know you’re on the way.”
“I’ll drive,” Mitch said.
“I want to come. I won’t be in the room. She won’t know I’m there,” Murphy swore. “I just need to know she’s okay.”
Jonah nodded. “She woke screaming last night. She dreamed of the day your mother died. When you were beaten and Finn’s leg was broken. It’s fresh for her. The abandonment.”
Murphy nodded, devastation sharp on his face.
As much as he felt for the other man, Bre came first. With Jonah, she would always come first. He turned with her in his arms and followed Mitch out of the house.
He didn’t pay attention to whether Murphy followed.
He slid into the back of the Jeep, holding Bre close while Mitch closed the door and ran around to the driver’s seat.
“I’m here, love. I’m not leaving you,” he swore to her as Mitch drove. “Never again.”
“What did Tony want to talk to you about?” Mitch asked.
“Bre. Last night. He said I might be more of a crutch to her than a help. That she was hiding in me, hiding with me, and not facing what was in her head.”
“And?” Mitch prompted when Jonah paused.
“I told him to fuck off. It’s been three weeks. People deal with trauma in different ways and in different lengths of time. I told him if he doesn’t stop pushing, I’ll walk.”
“Jonah.”
“I know,” he admitted with a sigh. “But I would. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. She’s my whole world.”
“I know how that works,” Mitch agreed. “Quinn and Emery are everything to me. That’s how it is when you mate a shifter, even if Quinn isn’t the same as Brenna.
But for all his pushing and probing, you know Tony does it because he cares.
He wants to help her. His means might not always be the best, but he cares.
For all he tries to hide it, he has the biggest heart of any of us. ”
“I know,” Jonah admitted. He hated what he’d said. Hated more that he’d meant every word, despite knowing the man Tony was.
“He was up all night, going through files, reaching out to contacts, trying to find anything he could on where she was held, what they did to her. He’s been nonstop since she got here, but he revved it up even more last night. After the dream. After she spoke. He cares, Jonah. Don’t lose that.”
“I know,” Jonah said again, and he’d deal with it later.
Once Bre was awake. Once he saw her green eyes filled with something other than the horror he’d witnessed when he’d run into the room minutes ago.
He’d been terrified. He’d been in many situations, rescues where screams had echoed off the walls while he fought to get to them, to help them, but none had ever hit him the way hers had.
Mitch parked and jumped out to get the door.
Professor Mueller stood at the top of the steps of the new medical center.
Jonah wondered if he’d been waiting since Tony called and told him they were on the way.
They were still working to rebuild the places where the original structure had been rigged with explosives.
Tony planned to make it bigger and better and had already begun filling it with all the latest and greatest equipment.
“Bring her this way,” Mueller said, waving them to follow.
Jonah noted the changes in the older man since he’d been shot and almost died earlier in the year.
Tony had given him a low dosage of the serum he’d developed for his alpha team.
The shot contained shifter DNA and acted as a booster for the human soldiers that worked for Tony, infiltrating hunter groups.
The injection gave them an increase in senses, strength, and healing ability.
The soldiers weren’t on par with full-blooded shifters, but they were as close as a human could get.
Mueller was showing obvious physiological changes. His salt-and-pepper hair was more pepper now, and the glasses that had always been perched on his nose before were pushed atop his head—if he even had them on him.
“Hurry,” Mueller ordered as he pushed a door open.
“I’ll be out here if you need me,” Mitch said as the door closed behind Jonah. Jonah knew Mitch would make sure no one came in—which meant Finn. The man would lose his shit again when he heard what had happened.
“She remembered something?” Mueller asked as he patted the bed.
Jonah laid her carefully atop the mattress and eased back, taking her hand in his as Mueller bent over her, checking her with a stethoscope then taking her other hand and monitoring her pulse. Jonah walked him through what had happened the night before then what he’d walked into at the house.
“The hits just keep coming. So much damage. Families ripped apart, over and over again. Brenna, Murphy, Finn. A bond that was warped and twisted until hate, blame, fear override the love they once had for one another.” Mueller shook his head in disgust. “Just once I want a happy story. A shifter who grew up in peace, surrounded by love. No capture or torture or death.”
“Someday,” Jonah agreed. “We’ll get there.”
“Will we?” Mueller asked then answered his own question.
“We have to. We can’t stop fighting until we do.
These children. Tah and Abby’s Regan. Zane and Diane’s Amala.
Calloway and Darby’s twins, Andy and Cahl.
Gabriel and Kenzie’s Hudson. Quinn and Mitch’s little fighter, Emery.
Brenna’s nephew, the son of her twin and his wife, Sean.
The babies on the way. This pride is growing, and each new life is precious.
We have to protect them. To wrap them in love and joy.
To keep them far from what their parents experienced.
To let them live a life free from hate and zealots’ desires to see them bleed and die.
We have to find a way to end it for good. ”
“We’ll get there,” Jonah repeated, thinking of all the babies born into the pride Tony had aligned them with.
It was easy to picture Brenna with her belly swollen with their child.
A little boy or girl who looked just like their beautiful mother.
He’d never allowed himself to dream of a home or family.
He was a soldier, a warrior who would most likely die fighting for the freedom of shifters.
Now, with her, he wanted their happily ever after. “We have to help her.”
“We will,” Mueller vowed. “Now, tell me again what she said before she collapsed.”
“Let’s begin.” The words meant nothing to him. He needed to ask her about them. “I’m guessing it has something to do with what happened during her captivity.”
Mueller sighed and shook his head. “I need you to get Gideon for me. Maybe, Quinn. They’re more familiar with shifter labs than any of the rest of us.”
“I’ve seen the labs,” Jonah said.
“Seen but not experienced the torture firsthand. Get Gideon or Quinn. I’d say Oakley, but that’s a conflict right now since she’s mated to Murphy.”
Jonah glanced at Bre. “I won’t leave her again.”
“I…” The look on Jonah’s face must have backed his words because Mueller didn’t push.
“I need to take blood.” He held up his hand before Jonah said anything.
“I know she fears needles. That’s why I think it best to do it while she sleeps.
If possible, I won’t cause her any more pain.
I know Tony pushed. It’s his way. He’s right, though, and we both know it.
We need to take a look at her blood to see what they’ve done.
We can’t help when we’re all in the dark. ”
Jonah was torn in two. He clung to the fact she needed answers. Not them. Her. She needed to know where she’d been and what had happened.
“Take it, but this is all you’ll get. I know Drake took some when she first arrived. Tony ordered it while she was still out. Compare the two samples and find answers, Professor.” It came out as an order, but Jonah knew he was really begging the other man.
“We won’t stop until we do. I’ll get my supplies.”
Mueller moved around the room, pulling out everything he needed. He took eight vials before he seemed satisfied. He left the room, blood in hand.
Jonah slid onto the bed beside Bre, tugging her against his chest. He stroked his hand up and down her spine, soothing her as he always did, as he always would. “Wake up, love. Open those gorgeous green eyes for me.”
Why wasn’t she waking up?