Chapter 18 Phelan
EIGHTEEN
PHELAN
Everything happened so fast.
“What’s going on?”
“His body isn’t responding, and we’re trying to stem the flow of blood. We’re giving medication to make his body contract and we’re compressing, but he’s losing too much blood.”
What? What? There was blood everywhere, and it was seeping into the edges of my vision.
I blinked and it was still there. My heart was running a sprint that never reached the finish line, and my wolf was so agitated he wanted to shift and tend to our mate himself because Rawling’s life force was drifting away.
No, you’re mistaken. Rawling isn’t leaving me or our daughter.
But even though I wasn’t thinking clearly, I had enough sense to tell him to stay where he was because Rawling needed medical supervision. And I refused to have those negative thoughts put into the universe. My mate was the strongest person I’d ever met.
Mrs. Ardilla tried to get me out of the room, but now my wolf could help me. I brought him into the forefront of my gaze, and she backed off. The baby cried, and I took our little one from Jack. I held her close and told her she’d be in Daddy’s arms soon.
“His pressure’s dropping.”
Rawling needed me because he would sense me and my beast’s presence and then he’d be okay. I repeated that in my head, though I was torn between keeping the baby close and being with my mate. Reluctantly, I handed her to Jack who rocked our daughter and whispered that she was so loved by her dads.
“You have to stay, Rawling.” I choked back the sobs. “You don’t get to leave me.” I kissed his cheek, and he groaned.
There was so much happening, and I was clutching Rawling’s limp hand. There were bags of fluid, warmed blankets, IVs, a pile of towels, and an oxygen mask.
“He needs blood.” The professor was opening and closing drawers, searching through all the equipment my parents had purchased.
“Fine. Take mine.” I rolled up my sleeve and shoved my arm at the professor.
“What’s your blood type?”
I had no idea. Shifters rarely if ever needed transfusions.
“The school has that on file.” Mrs. Ardilla stepped away from Rawling, yanked off her gloves, and made a call before putting on another pair of gloves.
The phone dinged seconds later, and she bent over the device without touching it.
“Oh no. The only one?” She sent me a worried match. “Because Rawling has quite a rare blood group, there’s only one person in the school who’s a match.”
“Is it me? Let it be me.” I flung my arm out. “I have to do something.” Yanking at my hair was a welcome distraction from what was happening in front of me.
She shook her head, and I braced myself for her to say Holden or Professor Shaw. It didn’t matter, just drag them here and I’d pump the freaking blood out of them myself.
“Atticus.”
I let a moment pass where I imagined his reaction and dismissed it. “Get him.”
“Take your hands off me.” My folks shoved Atticus through the door minutes later, and he was made to put on a mask and a hospital gown.
“Why am I here?”
Mrs. Ardilla had placed a screen in front of Rawling, and Jack was in the bedroom giving the baby a bottle of formula. Rawling would be upset when he woke up because he’d want to feed her first. But she was hungry, and he would give her the second, third, and all the rest of her feeds.
I dragged Atticus into the kitchenette.
“Rawling will die if he doesn’t get a transfusion, and you’re the only match in the school, so fucking do it.”
“That’s preposterous.” His nostrils flared. “My blood is superior to any latent’s.” He tried to peer around the screen, but I blocked him. “The records are wrong. I’m not the same bloody group as that filthy—”
Using all of my shifter strength, I shoved him against the kitchen counter. Fur rippled over my arms, and I snarled. “If you value your life, you won’t finish that sentence.”
He growled and sneered. “He’s worse than a latent, and I’m going to expose him.”
“There’s too much blood, and he’s getting cold.”
I tried to block out Mrs. Ardilla’s frantic voice and concentrated on Atticus.
My hands trembled, not from the air-conditioning or from Atticus’s wolf but from what he was inferring.
Unscrambling my thoughts and piecing them together, I thought back to when he’d mumbled about my mate at archery.
I’d dismissed it as BS. But what if it wasn’t my mate’s humanity he was hinting at but he’d caught word of Rawling being a hunter?
I knew hunters weren’t a thing, but history gave us countless examples of one person or a group being able to whip up a crowd carrying a grudge about a perceived threat.
Shifters at Sombertooth were at best wary of humans, and if Atticus convinced them my mate was a hunter, Rawling and our baby girl would be at risk.
Us too.
This wasn’t a time to think of my own skin or my wolf’s fur.
“Massage again, harder.” That was the professor.
Hating that I was arguing with my former best friend instead of being with Rawling, I allowed my fangs to extend and saliva to drip onto his face. He spat at me as Jack emerged from the bedroom saying the baby was asleep, but I needed someone to be with our daughter and I begged her to go back.
“You are a disgusting piece of shit, Atticus.” Jack flung those words at him, and he visibly shrank under her tirade. “If you don’t do this, I will personally make your life a misery.”
He shrugged, but she had wounded him, I could see it in his eyes.
I retrieved our daughter instead of Jack, and holding her against my chest and feeling the reassuring thud of her heart, I returned to the main room.
“Atticus, we have to do a direct transfusion, and we need your blood now.” Professor Barclay emerged from behind the screen, his gown and mask splattered in red.
“For once in your life, do the right thing, Atticus.” I let him see our daughter’s face. “If not for Rawling or me, but for our newborn who deserves to know and love the omega father that brought her into this world.”
He sniffed and screwed up his nose. “Human, I bet.”
I couldn’t look at Jack, and I refused to allow my face to give me away.
“Just like her father.”
He did know about my mate’s humanity, but fuck it, I didn’t give a shit about that or that we’d be kicked out of Sombertooth.
He had to save Rawling. Maybe I could hold Atticus down and they could take his blood.
As much as I wanted that, it wasn’t ethical.
For a moment, I wished we lived in older, darker times when an alpha didn’t concern themselves with ethics, but that passed, and no matter how much I despised Atticus’s attitude, I couldn’t do it.
But as a shifter, there was something I could do, something with purpose. I had agency, though there was a chance it wouldn't turn out well for me.
I kissed my daughter’s forehead.
“No matter what happens, your daddy and papa will always love you, and we hold you in our hearts.”
This was the most difficult thing I’d ever done, but I couldn’t leave without giving her the gift of a name. Rawling and I had chosen a boy and girl’s names during the summer.
“I name you Eira because you have great strength and you’re pure of heart like fresh snow. And your wolf will be just like you.”
Despite my heart shattering and the pieces lodging in my chest and affecting my breathing, I gave her to Jack with trembling hands. I sobbed as if I’d given my own life away.
“Rawling wouldn’t want you to do this, Phelan, but I understand that you have to.” Jack’s eyes glistened.
Atticus scoffed and folded his arms. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I ignored him and told Jack that she, along with my folks, were Eira’s guardians.
“I’d give up my life for her,” she whispered.
Just as I was prepared to do.
“His pulse is thready.”
Shit, I wished the professor and the others would shut up. It’d only been a few minutes since Atticus arrived, but it was as though time had slowed and there was only blood, my mate lying still and people shouting.
“Get outside.” I shoved Atticus toward the door. “You’ve spent your life smearing and besmirching everyone you deemed unworthy. Well, now you’re going to test that resolve.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Eira in Jack’s arms and strode out into the throng.
My parents recoiled at the blood on me before reaching out to hug me, but there was no time for that.
I tossed off my clothes and the crowd parted.
Students and staff lined each side of the old narrow corridor as I allowed my wolf to take his fur.
I sensed when Atticus did the same because his scent wafted over me. My beast turned. There wasn’t a sound in the hallway as students clamped their hands on their friends’ shoulders or gripped one another while their mouths fell open.
No one attempted to stop us. No professor threatened to expel us from school or told us to take our disagreement outside. Our scent alone told them blood would be spilled.
My wolf stared at Atticus’s beast, and hackles rose over his back and shoulders. Atticus’s wolf was a mean son of a so-and-so, but mine was stronger. My beast crouched and shifted his weight forward, preparing to lunge at our opponent.
I sent up a quick prayer to the goddess to give me the courage and determination to bloody him enough so that he’d give in and agree to my demand. But I worried that in the heat of a fight, one of our beasts might deal a fatal blow.
And just as my wolf was about to strike, the door to the infirmary opened.
Jack appeared without the baby. I stopped breathing, because her coming out suggested one thing, and I couldn’t bear it.
If Rawling was dead, I’d rip Atticus’s jugular out and watch with glee as he bled out as my mate had done.
Jack
I couldn’t control the fury within me, I had to do something. But what? I was latent, as Rawling pretended to be. I ground my nails into my palms and closed my eyes. How could I force Atticus to help Rawling when I was as helpless as a human?
Phelan’s wolf was down the hall blocking the doorway. Opposite him, Atticus’s beast was baring his teeth, as on the other side of the door, the professor barked, “If he arrests, we won’t get him back,” and someone pushed a cart over the floor.
The watching students pressed into the doorframes while the faculty used their arms as a barrier.
“He’s bleeding through everything we’ve got.”
That one line had my heart thudding so hard my ribs shook, not that it was possible.
Heat rolled through me, and for a minute, I wondered if I was sharing some of Rawling’s pain.
There was such pressure behind my eyes, and I staggered toward Atticus’s beast who had his back to me.
The corridor was becoming too narrow, and I blinked, trying to make my way to Atticus and make him stop.
“We’re losing him.” The professor’s voice was so far away.
I smelled fear and feral energy and Rawling’s blood. People were rearing away from me as if trying to make themselves small. I held one hand up, but my vision blurred and I blinked. My arm was different and covered in something other than my skin. Dear gods, what was happening to me?
I tried to yell Atticus’s name, but what came out was a roar. It swept over the onlookers like a wave, and they braced themselves against the walls.
It’s all right. You did your part. Now it’s my turn.
What? Who said that? Dear gods, I’m not… but I was. I’d found my beast. I’d cry later, but now my bear had a purpose.
Atticus’s wolf snapped his head toward my bear. My bear! She didn’t circle around him but went straight toward him like a battering ram. The wolf dodged, but my bear’s claws caught him as he lunged away. She raked them over his flank, and his beast’s blood spattered on the floor.
Along the corridor, Phelan’s huge wolf didn’t intervene but kept his gaze on us as his chest heaved.
Atticus’s wolf skidded and slid on the slippery floor as he aimed for my bear’s throat.
But my beast was having none of that. She swiped him again and pinned him against the wall while a second blow sent the wolf sprawling.
My bear placed a paw over his ribs and dipped her muzzle close to the wolf’s ear and growled.
The onlookers froze, perhaps worried my bear would end the wolf. But this fucker had a job and that was to save Rawling’s life.
I took my skin for the first time, and someone draped a blanket over me. Phelan, in human form, raced toward me as Atticus lay on the floor, covered in blood with a deep cut on his cheek. Every time he looked in the mirror, he’d remember what my bear did to him. Good.
Mrs. Ardilla flung open the door. “Either you give blood, Atticus, or watch him die.”