Chapter 22 Dakota
Dakota
Iheard Jax’s voice raise in concern, right before an ominous thud, and more importantly, his voice went . . . off. Weak? Wrong.
Before he even finished a sentence, I was out of my chair and running.
I wasn’t alone, half the people on the top floor headed for his office already, and the rest at least looking on in concern, even if they hadn’t crossed the threshold of knowing they had to take action yet.
Me?
Jax was my life.
If there was the slightest chance he was in danger, of course I would take action. Maybe before I even thought about what action it would be.
Jillian was the first person there, though, and she threw the door open so hard that it hit the bumper on the back wall and the power of it reverberated through the office.
Jax was on the floor behind his desk, and strangely, Kent was lying on the floor in front of the desk. There was blood in the air, and I had to force air into my lungs to stave off the instant panic.
Jillian picked Jax right up and carried him over to the couch in his office, and I only vaguely heard her yelling something, because all I could see was Jax.
My whole life.
Pale as a ghost, with his mouth open and eyes shut, a line of blood at his temple, where he’d clearly hit his head on the way down.
There was someone behind me, sliding past, and I could barely pry my eyes away from Jax to see—Seth. And Maia, and Lydia. The office was going to be crowded in a moment, and there I was, standing in the middle of the doorway.
Lydia, though, saint that she was, took me firmly by the shoulders and pressed my whole body forward, almost shoving me over to the couch, where Jax was laid out, Jillian kneeling next to him.
I stumbled as we got there, and Jillian, without even looking, reached out and steadied me as I dropped to my knees beside her.
“He’s still breathing,” she muttered, as she pressed her fingers into the hollow of his throat, looking for a pulse. Couldn’t she hear his heart?
Fuck me, couldn’t she . . . wait, I was also a damned werewolf. So I listened, closing my eyes and—there. He did have a heartbeat. It was slow, but steady so far.
That was good.
Right? Slow was okay. Slow was there.
“Jax is gonna freak out about the carpet,” Seth muttered somewhere behind me. It’d only been a couple months since they’d redone the executive suite after Jiro lit the place on fire.
I absolutely did not let out a hysterical laugh.
People were just looking at me funny because . . . reasons. That was all.
Jillian grabbed my hand and pressed it to Jax’s throat. “Feel. His heartbeat is still strong, and he’s breathing fine. Breathe with him, Dakota. In.” As though I needed an example, she breathed long and slow in, and then out. “And out. Just like that. With Jax. Okay?”
I nodded, and . . . it was weird, how hard it was to do that.
I was . . . everything was too fast. I needed to breathe, and I .
. . oh, right. I was breathing too fast. Hyperventilation.
I tried to slow down, and it mostly resulted in my breath going shaky, but Jillian kept her hand on mine, speaking low and soothing.
“In and out. In and out. Just like that. We have to get someone to take care of Jax. Do you think you can call Prudence?”
“Fuck, we ought to put the poor woman on retainer, we keep calling her so much lately,” Seth muttered somewhere behind me.
“Seth?” Maia’s voice asked. “Come look at this.”
There was movement, but I was focused. In. Out. In. Out. Out. No, in. Dammit.
“What the hell is that?” Seth asked, and he sounded like he was looking at whatever food had been gaining sentience at the back of the fridge for the last year, and Maia had just discovered it.
“I don’t know, but it’s not coffee,” Maia answered. “Well, it is coffee, but I don’t know what the rest is. Rocks? Some kind of salt? But they’d have noticed that, don’t you think?”
“He’s coming around,” Lydia said, and my head jerked up, staring at Jax, waiting for his eyes to open.
But the groan came from behind me, not in front.
“What the hell happened?”
Kent. That was Kent. Rough and pained, but definitely Kent, who had also been unconscious.
Seth, sounding more like he meant business than ever before, which was saying something, since I’d rarely heard the man laugh, cleared his throat. “I think you need to be the one telling us that, Kent. What happened?”
“I . . . I don’t . . . We were talking about the potion thing.
Stock and possible expansions. I used the coffee machine, and we ate some of the chocolates from the fae, and then .
. . I don’t know. I just got dizzy, and everything started acting weird.
And Jax . . . I don’t know.” Kent’s voice went whiny at the end, and roughened even more. A moment later, he was coughing.
Then I could smell his blood.
I glanced behind me, reassuring myself he hadn’t just dropped dead, but he seemed to be okay. He was just holding a bloody tissue, scowling. “Was it the fae chocolate?”
“The coffee,” Seth corrected.
Kent frowned at that. “But that was just the coffee that’s been sitting in Jax’s office for the last . . . however long. And the cream and sugar he’s always got too. Why would—” He cut off in another cough, but no one seemed to have an answer for him.
Maia and Seth were exchanging a fearful look. Lydia was leaning against Jax’s desk, looking at him, trembling. Beneath my hand, his pulse and breath continued. Too slow, but at least there.
Alive.
Still alive.
As long as Jax was still alive . . .
“Everyone calm the fuck down,” Jillian snapped.
Of course Jillian was the one to take charge.
“Seth, take that down to the lab and have them find out what the fuck it is. They should be able to do that. Maia, send out an email, tell everyone in the building to check their coffee for anything that shouldn’t be in it, but without raising a panic.
Lydia, take Kent down to the nurse, see if there’s anything she can do.
” There was a pause as people started to move, to follow Jillian’s commands.
Thank goodness for Jillian. Then her voice turned soft.
“Dakota, honey? I know it’s hard. But if you can’t do it, then I’ll call Prudence. What do you think?”
Wordlessly, I reached into my pocket and grabbed my phone, shoving it in her direction.
Beneath my fingers, Jax’s pulse skipped a beat, and I held my breath.
When it continued, so did I.