57. Rian
Rian
W e had found her. West was right, and that fucking asshole had stashed her in his mother’s house. She was curled in a ball, her hands and feet tied up, when the SWAT team let us in.
She was burning up with a fever, and the urge to hunt Greg down and accidentally stab him a few times was so high, we all took a step toward him as a pack.
The SWAT team dragged him out, and the paramedics moved in.
Ember was out of it, whimpering and whining.
We rode to the hospital with her, letting her family know to meet us there.
I tried to focus on what they were saying, but all I could think about was how I’d almost lost her.
Her hair was disheveled, and she was too pale, but she was here in front of me, and I almost wept from the joy of it.
They admitted our omega quickly. Ember stayed in and out of consciousness, and we crowded her hospital bed.
Ember’s family arrived and settled into her room.
The bastard had doped her up with black market drugs and they were doing blood work to see what they could do to counter it.
A portly doctor came back a few hours later, his face a grim line. “We’re not sure of the effects of the drugs.”
“How are you not sure?” I snapped.
Through the bond, Ember seemed far away. Asleep.
The doctor spread his hands. “No drug is considered safe to dissolve bonds. The combination of drugs for that alone would cause complications, but then he tried to induce a heat.”
All the alphas in the room, Raina and Zephyr included, stood up and snarled at that.
The man looked momentarily terrified. “We’re going to inject some counteragents to lessen some of the effects, but we can’t do too much until the rest of the drugs clear out of her system.
” He held out a clipboard. “We need your permission…” He paused, not sure which of us to talk to.
“To administer the counteragents. The side effects could be severe.”
He described all sorts of awful things. She could have a seizure, a stroke. It could impact her ability to go into heat, and it could alter the connection we had with her. The bonds might not feel the same afterward.
Ben looked at Alejandro and then at me and West.
“Shit,” West said. “Fucking asshole. I’m going to kill him.”
“Get in line,” Raina snarled.
The doctor looked at Ben and Alejandro. “As her bonded alphas?—”
“They have a say, too.” Alejandro gestured at me and West.
“What do you think?” Ben looked at West.
West sighed. “We have to risk it, don’t we?”
“I think so,” I added. The thought of not feeling her brightly through the bond was killing me, but I’d rather have her in my life.
“Do it,” Ben said. “Give her a chance.”
The doctor brought a nurse into the room. Ember’s eyes popped open, unseeing, and screamed about no more needles. Ben and Alejandro held her arms, hoping their scents would calm her, even though it killed them to do it.
She passed out almost immediately. Her temperature spiked and we waited long hours to see if she would settle.
She never did. She whimpered and whined.
We sat on the bed with her, taking turns telling her stories.
I pushed every bit of love and concern I had for her into the bond I had with Alejandro and Ben, bitterly wishing omegas could bond each other.
West held her hand. “Come on, Ember. You can do this.”
We slept in weird snatches, and in the early hours of the morning, Ember woke up.
Feral.