28. Chapter 28
Riley
I should’ve listened to Conall and taken two Betas. And I should have stayed far away from Feeny.
The pediatrician’s office was in a medical complex on the town’s edge.
The building was low and modern, its exterior painted a cheerful sage green.
The bright, sunny waiting room had large windows and a play area.
A handful of parents sat in the molded chairs, scrolling through phones or watching toddlers play.
Freda found a spot to stand near the door. Her posture was relaxed, but her eyes swept the room, cataloging exits, sightlines, and potential threats.
The receptionist behind the counter was in her forties, had long blue acrylic nails that clacked when she typed, and a lanyard full of cartoon character pins. “Seraphina Segerson. This is her first appointment with us?”
“Yes. Her records should have come from the British Columbia Pack,” I answered, glancing at Owen.
The woman typed on her keyboard. “Have a seat. Dr. Haddad will be with you shortly.”
Owen and I found two chairs and sat. A toddler nearby screeched and hurled a plastic truck across the room. It bounced off the wall and hit Owen’s leg. The baby next to us started wailing, and Owen’s jaw tightened.
“This is hell,” he sighed.
“If anyone deserves to be in hell, it’s you,” Freda muttered as she stood next to me and kept an eye on the door.
I pulled Feeny out of her carrier and cuddled her to me. “Welcome to parenthood.”
A half hour later, a nurse finally appeared in the doorway and called Seraphina’s name. Freda stayed in the waiting room as Owen and I took Feeny back. The exam room was small and cheerful, with a mural of desert animals.
The pediatrician entered a moment later, a woman in her late thirties with warm brown eyes and a calm, steady energy. I gently laid Feeny on the exam table.
“Hello, Seraphina.” She smiled at the baby and glanced at us. “I’m Dr. Haddad. How are you doing today?”
Owen cleared his throat. “We’re fine, and she’s doing great. Eating well and sleeping through the night.”
I blinked at him. “She wakes up every two to three hours.”
“She never cries.” Nervous energy rolled off Owen as he glared at me.
“She cries whenever she’s hungry. Or tired, or has a poopy diaper,” I contradicted, staring back at him.
The doctor cleared her throat and pulled out her stethoscope. “Let’s have a look.”
She gently examined Feeny, who endured it with remarkable patience, her tiny fists opening and closing.
“She looks good. Strong and healthy. Any concerns or questions?” Dr. Haddad looked between us, her mouth twitching. We both shook our heads. “She’s doing beautifully for her age.”
“Okay,” Owen breathed out.
“Mom, are you breastfeeding, or are we on formula?”
Owen and I froze.
“She’s not the mother,” he sputtered.
“I’m her… aunt, I guess?”
Dr. Haddad nodded and finished the exam. “She’ll need a few vaccinations next month.”
She handed Owen a folder. “Any other questions?”
Owen hesitated. “When can I start feeding her meat?”
The pediatrician’s smile froze. “I’m sorry?”
“Meat. Protein. Our grandma used to give us strips of raw venison when we were teething.”
“No raw meat at her age.” Dr. Haddad’s voice was firm. “Cooked, unsalted, puréed meat can be introduced around six months, but raw meat poses a significant choking and bacterial hazard.”
“No raw meat,” I reassured the doctor. “And we’ll start with approved shifter baby food when the time is right.”
“Good.” The doctor smiled. “Set up her next appointment with my receptionist. She looks great. Keep it up.”
Owen picked Feeny up, and I grabbed her diaper bag. “You cannot give a three-week-old baby raw meat,” I muttered as we walked back to the waiting room.
“What? I ate raw meat, and I turned out fine. You’re not a wolf shifter. You wouldn’t understand.”
“It’s debatable whether you turned out fine, and I understand food poison–”
The words died as we rounded the corner.
The waiting room was empty except for Freda, who lay sprawled and unconscious on the floor near the front desk.
Her hands were secured behind her back with three-inch-thick handcuffs, and two massive figures stood over her.
Ogres, I realized with a jolt, and I’d seen them before.
Their slate gray skin gleamed in the fluorescent lighting.
Chairs were overturned, and the coffee table was smashed. The ogre with long black hair sported a bloody nose, and his right eye was swelling.
A lean, sharp-faced cat shifter in a black suit pointed a gun at us. She was another one of Langston’s agents, and her energy was detached and professional.
“Don’t make any sudden movements. Ms. Blackthorne, we have a warrant to bring you in.”
Owen stood rigid and wide-eyed beside me, Feeny cradled against his chest. His eyes bled to gold, his wolf clawing to break free. But he couldn’t shift here.
The short-haired ogre grinned, his white teeth bright. “Look at this. The Alpha Mate is out on a little family outing.”
I moved forward, putting my body between them and Seraphina. “I’ll come with you if you let them go.”
The ogre with the long hair shook his head. “You’re coming with us no matter what, and taking these two will keep the Alpha and his Pack in line.”
I dropped the diaper bag and held out my hands, palms pointed toward them. Then I sent jolts of electricity out, crackling in front of me.
The cat shifter stiffened. “So the rumors are true. You really can manifest electricity.”
“I can. Director Langston wants me alive and functional, but if you try to take Owen and his child, your lifespan can be counted in seconds, not years.”
The cat shifter’s eyes narrowed, and she studied me, then glanced at Feeny. Something shifted in her eyes, and she lowered her gun.
“Garrett, they’re not included on the warrant. Let them go.” Her voice held quiet authority, but both ogres turned.
“Fuck the warrant,” the injured ogre snarled, raising his gun toward Owen and Feeny.
My vision tunneled, and I narrowed in on the imminent threat, sending a jolt of pure electricity through his gun, up his arm, and right into his chest.
The energy blast hit the ogre like a small explosion.
It wasn’t the controlled, directed blasts I used before, but something lethal and hungry.
The force lifted him off his feet and hurled him backward.
He hit the plate-glass window, and his body smashed through it, sending fragments glistening through the air.
Before the agents could recover from their shock, I turned to Owen. “Run! Go out the back and get her to safety.” Owen stared at me for a split second. “You promised me we’d do whatever it takes to keep her safe. Now, RUN.”
Owen turned, clutching Feeny in his arms, and sprinted back through the pediatrician’s office. The remaining ogre lunged for him, but I threw myself between them, my hands coming up to use whatever energy I had left.
But the ogre’s massive fist caught me in the ribs. The impact drove the air from my lungs and sent me slamming back into the receptionist counter. My implant sent another shot through my system to dampen the pain, but it felt like he’d cracked a rib.
He drew his leg back to kick me, but I raised my hand and sent another blast at him, this time straight to his groin. When the ogre clutched himself and howled in agony, I rolled to all fours, then stood and staggered toward the shattered window.
Glass crunched under me. Beyond the jagged frame, the other ogre’s body lay sprawled on the concrete walkway, his shirt ripped and smoking. He wasn’t moving.
When I jumped through the now mostly empty frame, glass sliced my forearm, but the pain was distant. I hit the ground and rolled, then came up running even as my ribs ached.
The parking lot stretched ahead, and footsteps pounded behind me. Heavy, ground-eating strides. I risked a glance back and saw the long-haired ogre closing the distance with horrifying speed.
I cut left, sprinting between two parked SUVs. My lungs burned. The implant sent another pulse, this one cold and sharp, flooding my system with adrenaline. But my legs weren’t long enough.
Ten yards from the edge of the lot, he tackled me from behind. The impact drove me into the asphalt, my hands and forearms skidding along the rough surface. I thrashed, bucking against him, but he was too heavy.
“Got her,” he snarled.
The cat shifter appeared beside us. She dropped to one knee, and I felt a sharp sting on the side of my neck, then cold flooded my veins.
Her strange eyes were almost regretful. “Don’t fight it.”
The sedative hit my system like a freight train. The implant scrambled, trying to filter it and keep me conscious. For a moment, it worked, holding back the dark tide rising inside me.
But the darkness won. The last thing I saw was the ogre’s furious face above me, and the vast, blue sky beyond.
Then nothing.
I woke to the smell of antiseptic in a hospital bed with medical equipment surrounding me. I tried to move, but restraints held me down. I looked down and saw straps around my wrists and ankles.
My stomach lurched. My hands were encased in what looked like thick rubber mittens, and copper grounding wires trailed from the mittens to a box mounted on the wall.
Between my legs, something cold and plastic sat against my inner thigh. A catheter, I realized with a jolt of shame. They’d catheterized me while I was unconscious. My clothes were also gone, replaced by a standard blue hospital gown.
I was in what looked like a hospital room, maybe twelve feet square, with a camera watching from the corner near the ceiling, its tiny red eye blinking. The chip buzzed inside me, meticulously cataloging information. Did it understand that if I didn’t make it out of here alive, it wouldn’t either?
My breathing sped up, even with the sedative still in my system. My ribcage throbbed where the ogre had hit me, and my forearms felt scraped and raw, but the pain was manageable.
Flickers of panic started in my stomach as I tried to flex my fingers inside the mittens. They’d immobilized my hands completely, knowing what I could do.
I reached for the bond and pushed out, searching for Conall’s warmth. Only a faint hum came back. It could’ve been the drugs, or maybe the distance.
A terrible sense of déjà vu hit me, and my mind flew back to Roswell. Oh god, I couldn’t go through that again. Where were Owen and Feeny? Was Freda still alive?
The door opened with a pneumatic hiss, and two men walked in. I recognized Director Langston immediately. He wore a navy suit and a red and blue silk tie, and assessed me from behind wire-rimmed glasses.
I’d never met the second man, but I knew him from news footage and from the energy I’d picked up at the Mary Mountain facility. General Michael Wilson stood in uniform, staring down at me. He was in his fifties, with the lean, honed physique of a man half his age.
He held himself rigid as he appraised me. “Ms. Blackthorne, I’m General Michael Wilson.”
“I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but…” I looked down at my restrained and mittened hands.
“Apparently, you’re resistant to sedatives.”
“Good to know,” I muttered, and turned to Langston. “Why am I here? We had an agreement, and you violated it.” The rubber bit into my wrists as I slowly tested my restraints. Wilson pulled a rolling stool from the corner and sat, crossing an ankle over his knee, the casual posture calculated.
“You’re here on my orders,” Wilson answered for him. “Why did you go back to Mary Mountain? What were you looking for?”
I held his gaze, but fear coursed through me. Did he suspect I was looking for clues to implicate him?
“I’m an ISB investigator assigned to a missing persons case. I went back to look for leads. You haven’t told me why I’m here.”
Wilson leaned back. “You’re telling me you hired another helicopter and went back to Mary Mountain just to look for an insignificant missing park ranger?”
My eye twitched. My father was one of those insignificant park rangers. “Yes.”
“You’re suddenly popping up everywhere. You were in the middle of the ApGen case last year, then Roswell. And now, here you are again. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Wilson stood and started pacing.
“It depends on your point of view.”
“In what way?”
“Some would say I’ve been in the right place at the right time.”
He put his hands behind his back. “The Shifter Registration Law Subcommittee needs leverage against your mate. He’s been an agitator and a fly in the ointment with his fierce opposition and financial resources.”
Langston spoke for the first time, his jowls wobbling. “You also seriously injured one of my agents, Ms. Blackthorne. If he dies–”
Wilson cut him off. “Why did Alpha Segerson mate you, and why is Commander Marlowe so enamored with you? Something about you intrigues him. What is it?”
My implant kept my face neutral. “I have no idea.”
“Your father was an outlier Resonant. What’s your mother’s designation?”
The room felt suddenly smaller, and Parker’s words echoed in my head. “I wonder if you have some of your mother’s Inamorata traits.”
“Marlowe is fixated on me because I got away. That’s all.”
“Your mother is an Inamorata.” He said it like it was a dirty word. “Are you a Polymorph, Ms. Blackthorne?”
My heart hammered against my ribs. I was a Polymorph, but not for the reason he was thinking. The implant sent another cold hum across my system, trying to regulate my emotions, but fear leaked through, hot and sharp.
“I’ve never exhibited Inamorata traits. We can’t help how we were born, but you can help being a racist.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not a racist or a bigot, Ms. Blackthorne.
But I am a realist, and Normals like me would be hunted and exterminated if we didn’t ruthlessly protect our interests against you people.
Segerson needs to back off and let the legislation pass, and I want Marlowe neutralized.
” He tilted his head. “You went back to Mary Mountain for more than just a missing park ranger, didn’t you? ”
If he found out I could Spool, I was dead. “If I was really a threat, do you think I’d be strapped to this bed right now? And Marlowe could’ve taken me a dozen times by now if he wanted to.”
“Fair points.” His smartwatch vibrated, and he looked down at it. “I have a few matters to attend to. Then we’ll continue this conversation.” At the door, he looked back at me. “Rest. You’re going to need it.”
The door hissed shut behind them, and I lay back and stared at the blinking camera.
Slowly, I flexed my fingers inside the rubber mittens, then sent a tiny electrical current down my arm.
A faint buzz sounded as energy hit the grounding wires, but nothing else happened.
Okay, that was fine. I would figure this out, and Conall and Parker would come for me.
But god, I hated being strapped down to a bed again.