Chapter 11 The Hospital Director
The Hospital Director
His full name was Dr. Enoch Lane, MD, FACC, Hospital Director, according to the gold nameplate on his desk in the surprisingly cramped office that reminded me of my own living room, with piles of papers covering every little space of floor, cabinet, and the desk too.
It was quite surprising, really, that such a relatively young man had risen up enough in the ranks to become a hospital director.
“Want something to drink?” Enoch now said as he settled behind the desk. “My secretary, Jamie, makes one mean coffee . . .”
“It’s all right,” Lucien replied as we sat down on the two available chairs. “Instead, we have a few things to discuss first.”
Enoch nodded. “I suspect I know what it’s about.”
Lucien’s lips curled. “I had a feeling you do,” he said darkly. “Tell me everything.”
Hesitantly, Enoch glanced at me. “All right.”
“She’s the one who saved my life,” Lucien stated, as though reading Enoch’s mind, which made Enoch’s brows rise. “And I believe she will be a great asset for our cause.”
Enoch looked at me fully now, a furrow between his brows.
“I read The Hallowing Hour once, a few days ago,” he said.
“A colleague sent me an article from there. It was about something you titled the shadow mark.” He paused, smiling slightly.
“It was a fascinating read, seeing things from the viewpoint of those who speculate. I also rather like the fact you named the portals shadow marks. It’s an apt term. ”
It was the first time someone had ever complimented me in person about an article I wrote for The Hallowing Hour. In all the years I had written for the magazine, not once was I thrown a good word beyond my editor’s “good work” comments when I submitted an article.
Embarrassingly, Enoch’s words brought tears to my eyes, and I looked down, trying to hide how emotional I was over what he’d said. “Thank you.”
Lucien grabbed my fisted hand and gently pried it open before pressing his palm against mine. It was a gesture of comfort, and it only made me even more choked up than before.
“You’re welcome,” Enoch responded now, and I took a deep breath and glanced up at him. He was smiling kindly at me.
I looked away, cleared my throat, and changed the subject. “So. Are you a werewolf as well?”
The hospital director chuckled. “No, I’m a different kind of Otherborne.” He paused momentarily before he added, “A Luminar, in fact.”
I was both confused and intrigued. Returning my gaze to the hospital director, while squeezing Lucien’s hand, I leaned forward, my inner journalist coming out as I asked a little too eagerly, “What’s an Otherborne? Is it a term for a supernatural race? What about Luminar?”
Enoch opened his mouth to speak, but Lucien responded instead.
“I promise to explain later,” he said gently, drawing my attention to him.
He gave me a serious look and squeezed my hand back.
“We’re really short on time right now.” He paused when I deflated, unable to hide my disappointment, and smiled a little.
“What’s really important right now is that, no, Enoch is not a werewolf. ”
I sighed. “Fine.”
“Now back to the topic,” Lucien said without further ado, his smile replaced by a grave expression. “Who came looking for me here?”
Enoch glanced at me briefly before he returned his gaze to Lucien and leaned back. “It was two days ago,” he said, rummaging through the piles of papers on his desk. “I wrote down their names after they left . . .”
After a minute or so of searching, Enoch plucked out a piece of paper with a satisfied “Aha!” before he handed it over to Lucien. “Do those names ring a bell?”
For the first time since I met him, Lucien’s face took on a stormy expression that made him appear more dangerous than beautiful. In fact, his entire demeanor changed as his eyes lingered on the paper; it was as if he flipped a switch, and gone was Lucien the sexy, grinning Greek god.
In his stead was a man who oozed not just danger but also something akin to brutality. I felt it so viscerally, goose bumps rose on my arms and trailed down my spine. He looked more like a wolf than a human, especially with his arctic-blue eyes shining bright with unbridled rage.
The shift in the air was so drastic, my breath caught, and I leaned back from him, releasing his hand, watching him with wide eyes as if I hadn’t really seen him before.
Because apparently, beyond the beautiful exterior was a terror-instilling creature waiting to come out. And that knowledge shook me to my core, because so far, I hadn’t felt anything but safe when I was with Lucien, and now I wasn’t so sure anymore.
I suddenly remembered his earlier question. “Will you believe me if I tell you I am the Alpha?” he’d asked half jokingly. Self-deprecatingly, even.
When Lucien spoke, his voice was guttural, a growl reverberating in his chest. “I suspected, but I didn’t want to believe it was him.”
Enoch’s eyes were sad. “I’m sorry, Lucien,” he said quietly. “I know you promised never again, and yet . . .”
Lucien shook his head, raising his eyes to look at Enoch with an expression so full of bloodthirsty wrath, not a shred of his former beauty remained, replaced by the callous look of an avenging demon. It was eerie how completely his face contorted and changed in the space of a minute.
“You can say it, Enoch,” Lucien now said in that inherently threatening low voice, so unlike the smooth baritone I was starting to get used to. “You can tell me I was being naive again.”
Enoch flinched. “I will never say such a thing, Lucien, because I don’t believe you were naive. I think . . .” He hesitated. “I think you were desperate to find someone to trust again, and you unwittingly chose wrong.”
Lucien laughed, but it was a dark, scraping sound, like chalk scratching against a board. “Which means that I didn’t learn my lesson, and acted like a fucking fool.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what they were talking about, but I had a hunch I knew which name appeared on that piece of paper. To confirm, I softly asked, “May I see?”
Lucien’s head whipped toward me, and his eyes widened in sudden realization.
Then, like he flipped that same switch again, his terrifying fury and agitation, the contorted, tortured, enraged look on his face, and the entire air about him .
. . all of it disappeared between one blink and the next, and he was back to the Lucien from before this sudden change, the Lucien with the face blessed by the gods and the relaxed vibe.
The sudden whiplash made me feel a little lightheaded to the point I was wondering if maybe I’d imagined everything.
Lucien sucked in a deep breath and gave me a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry about that,” he said, handing me the piece of paper. “Here’s our suspected culprits.”
I looked down at the paper and read.
There were three names in total. Alby Dawson and Dianna Rook were the names of two pack members who worked as historians, which surprised me, but what made everything make sense was the third name.
Mack Page.
The Beta.
And suddenly, our whole conversation about Alphas and leadership types, and Lucien’s little telling actions, made sense.
First, Lucien was the Alpha. Of that, I had no doubt.
Second, Mack Page, being his Beta, betrayed him by trying to kill him some way or another, and might’ve succeeded if I hadn’t found him in time.
And third, and probably most important of all, it was not the first time Lucien had been betrayed by a Beta.
I turned to look at Lucien again, now that light had been shed on the situation. “What are we going to do?” I asked quietly, filling in the silence that had stretched thin in the office.
Lucien grimaced. “Well, we need to hunt them down.” He looked at Enoch. “Rémi said he’s certain they must still be in San Diego, snooping around the hospital to see whether I’ll show up or not, considering my body is missing from the crime scene.”
Enoch nodded. “Perhaps. It is the only hospital on the West Coast that accepts Otherborne, after all. But we have talked enough.” He rose from his seat suddenly and demanded, “I can smell blood. Werewolf blood. Why didn’t you tell me you’re wounded?”
With a grimace, Lucien stripped. I swallowed my drool before I got up to stand next to Enoch, staring at Lucien’s back.
When Enoch saw the sigil, he cursed. “I don’t recognize this Spellscript,” he said, touching the sigil—or rather, Spellscript, apparently—with the tips of his gloved fingers, causing Lucien to tense. “There are very few Spellscripts I cannot recognize, Lucien. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes.” Lucien’s voice was strained. “It means it’s really, really bad.”
“Yeah.” Enoch let his hand fall from Lucien’s back. “It really is. But while I can’t identify the Spellscript, I can still treat the rest of your wound. Did you treat it before?” he asked me.
I nodded. “I didn’t really know what to do,” I told him frankly. “I just bandaged it over and over again while Lucien was in his wolf form until it stopped bleeding.”
This information made Enoch’s eyes narrow. “First things first, how long has he been bleeding?”
“Four days,” I replied at once. “Every time I thought the wound had finally stabilized, it started bleeding again.”
The hospital director’s hands curled into fists, and his lips thinned as he snapped his head toward Lucien, who turned around to look at us.
“Why did you remain in your wolf form instead of shifting?” he demanded.
“You know better than anyone that werewolves heal faster and better in your human form!”
Lucien’s lips curled down, his eyes filling with that same rage from before. “I was unable to shift until earlier today.”
Guilt crawled inside me, and I found myself blurting, “I’m sorry. I tried to do my best. I even called a vet since I didn’t know for sure what Lucien was and thought initially he was a stray dog, and maybe I made things worse . . .”
“It’s not your fault,” Lucien said resolutely, his eyes finding mine. “You did your best. If anything, I’m the one who needs to apologize for all the inconvenience I caused you. Both with the vet, and in general.”
I shook my head, still feeling guilty nonetheless. “You were hurt and vulnerable. None of it is your fault.”
Enoch turned to look at me now, drawing my gaze to his.
“It really is not your fault at all, Miss Colter,” he said, face still angry, as he motioned toward the wound.
“This Spellscript must’ve done this, since normally, werewolves can shift between human and wolf form at will, no matter their condition, and they also heal much faster than most Otherborne.
If it weren’t for this Spellscript, Lucien here would’ve healed in less than a day. ”
Lucien nodded. “If it weren’t for the Spellscript, I wouldn’t have been mortally wounded like that in the first place.”
Enoch let out a deep breath. “I’m going to have to patch up some of the tissue that didn’t heal well,” he announced, and out of the piles of papers he pulled a briefcase. It was a far better first aid kit than the one I had in my place, since it had antiseptics, needles, and whatnot.
Lucien didn’t say a word, didn’t even flinch or move one muscle of his face, while Enoch patched him up. He’d done it without anesthesia, but Lucien acted as if his flesh weren’t being sewn together.
When the doctor was done, he gave Lucien a clean white shirt and disposed of the blood-soaked tee Lucien stole from Chase. Once he was completely dressed, Lucien looked at the doctor and said, “It’s time I face the culprits.”
Enoch didn’t seem happy to hear that. “You should rest for at least a couple of hours, Lucien—”
“There is no time,” Lucien cut him off, folding his arms. “Not with the agents determined to catch Drew and me. They’ll probably receive a police waiver to enter the hospital sooner rather than later.”
This didn’t seem to sit well with the doctor either. “I’ll take care of the agents,” he said resolutely. “They know better than anyone that the hospital is a neutral zone. You can rest—”
“Enoch.” Lucien put his hand on the doctor’s shoulder, interjecting, much to Enoch’s evident frustration. “Rest comes after retribution.”
The hospital director seemed extremely tired all of a sudden, as his shoulders slumped with obvious defeat.
“I’ll talk to the Imperative, ask for their help to keep the agents at bay.
” He paused and caught Lucien’s gaze with a grim one of his own.
“Keep me updated, Lucien. I need to know you’re safe. ”
“Will do,” Lucien promised.
I gave Enoch a nod of my own, curbing my curiosity as to what the Imperative was, and said, “It was nice meeting you.”
Enoch’s smile returned as he responded, “The same goes for you. Take care of him, yeah?”
Lucien sighed. “You’re aware I’m six foot four of pure muscle, right?” he drawled, shooting a mock-annoyed look at Enoch.
The hospital director arched a brow. “And we all saw how that worked out for you,” he said quietly, motioning at Lucien’s back.
I was half afraid the mood would sour again at the joke, but Lucien surprised me again when he chuckled. “Touché, old man, touché,” he said, his French accent slipping heavily on touché, and causing me slight confusion, since Enoch was far from an old man.
In any case, there was no more time for ruminations, and soon after, we left the hospital, and the real hunt finally began.