CHAPTER 27
WOLF
“Hurry!” I yell from the backseat, holding Windy against my chest.
My hand rests on her belly, feeling our child kick. If things weren't so dire, I'd be in awe—it's a feeling unlike any other. But all I can focus on is getting Windy to the hospital.
She’s not looking too good. Every second, her color fades more, and my stomach twists with a cold dread, sharper than fear.
The moment we pulled up to the house, I knew something was wrong.
The door was open, and Windy wasn’t in the doorway—she never leaves the door open at night, especially unattended.
Since we found out who she was, we tried so hard to reach her, and now, with the family’s blessing, no one is standing in our way. I’m grateful for that now.
“Where were her guards?” I grind out, shifting Windy so I can grab my phone and call. The moment her father answers, I’m too busy yelling. “Where the fuck were her guards, Donovan?!”
“Why? What happened?” he asks, shifting something on his side of the line.
“She was pepper-sprayed in the damn doorway of her home! That’s what!”
"Pepper-sprayed?" Donovan’s voice cracks with fear. “Oh, fuck. Get her to the hospital now! She’s allergic to any kind of pepper extract, anything!”
“Fuck!” I yell, startling both the guys. “Get there, Amos! Now!”
Suddenly, Donovan’s voice explodes through the phone, raw with panic, barking orders for everyone to get up and ready.
While he’s unraveling on the line, I cradle Windy and press trembling lips to her brow.
Her eyes are red, nearly swollen shut. The pepper spray scorches my lips, setting them ablaze.
I curse and shout at Amos, my voice cracking, urging him to drive faster.
Windy starts gasping, taking small, shallow breaths that aren’t giving her enough oxygen. She’s slowly asphyxiating, and there’s nothing we can do about it unless we get her to the hospital so they can reverse the effects of the pepper-spray.
“We're taking Windy straight to the hospital. Meet us there.” I go to hang up, but he’s yelling in my ear to stop.
Donovan insists we head to the private wing; they'll be ready for us. My hand trembles as I hang up, but I force myself to focus—she needs help now. Her family told us that any type of pepper triggers anaphylactic shock. Her body shuts down. We could lose her.
“Who the fuck would do something like this?” Finian asks. He looks back at Windy and me, sees I’m struggling to get her hair out of her face, then kneels and moves it. He grimaces at her face. “Amos, fucking move it, man.”
“I’m fucking trying. These roads are hell at night.” The car growls as Amos presses the pedal further.
We shoot forward, and it knocks Finian off balance for a moment.
He catches himself on the seat, and his other hand lands on my knee right beside Windy’s hip.
After a few moments, he kneels there, watching me as I press kisses along her hairline and rub her pregnancy bump.
He looks at her in awe, and his eyes turn glossy.
“She’s so beautiful, isn’t she?” Finian sniffles, a tear breaking free and sliding down his cheek.
I sigh. “There’s no one else as beautiful as she is.”
Her weight curls into me like she’s trying to disappear. My heart pangs as she writhes in my arms. I cup her face and press frantic, trembling kisses to her forehead. Her skin is blistering. Her breaths are too shallow. Every exhale scrapes her throat raw.
“Stay with me … please, stay with me, darling …” The words spill out under my breath, half-prayer, half-plea, my lips brushing her hairline each time I say them.
Amos is driving like the world is on fire, but it still isn’t fast enough for me. I open my mouth to yell at him again—to push, to demand, to beg him to move faster—but the car jerks to a violent stop as he slams on the brakes.
“We’re here!” Amos yells.
Everything explodes into chaos—the rush, the shouts, the blur of hands and feet barely tethering me to reality.
We have no time to think, just act.
Amos and Finian are out of the car before I can blink, yanking open my door. Cold air hits my face. I gather Windy tighter to my chest as carefully as I can, mindful of her belly and the tiny life inside her, and mindful of the way she’s struggling for air.
Then I run. As fast as I can while carrying her. Nothing matters except holding her, her head tucked beneath my chin, fingers limp against my shirt.
The door slides open, and I shout, voice cracking with panic. “Windy Carmichael! It’s an emergency! Help!”
The sound echoes in the private wing. Nurses and a doctor rush toward us, their faces alarmed but alert. A bed appears. Someone wheels it right up to me, and I lower her onto it. My hands are shaking so bad I almost miss the edge.
“What happened?” one demands.
“She was pepper-sprayed,” I choke out. “She’s allergic to peppers or any kind of extract. She can’t breathe!”
The nurse I’m speaking to gasps, fear flashing in her eyes, and she starts yelling out instructions. They move in a desperate blur of scrubs, gloves, and clipped commands. I stand rooted, chest heaving, my mind reeling with frantic prayers that she doesn’t slip away from us.
I’m still clutching Windy’s hand when one of the nurses sprints toward us, and the auto-injector is already uncapped.
She doesn’t hesitate, just drives the EpiPen straight through Windy’s clothes into her thigh.
Windy jerks, a strangled sound scraping out of her.
They’re moving again, pushing the bed down the private wing like they’re trying to outrun time itself.
The doctor shouts orders over the nurses—“Get respiratory ready,” “Ventilator on standby”—his voice is sharp, urgent, slicing through the panic buzzing around in my skull.
Amos, Finian, and I follow them into her suite, but I’m useless trying to help.
Completely, utterly useless. We all are.
We know nothing about anything medical. If someone were to come to us about building a business, we’re the guys to talk to.
Helping someone in Windy’s position, we can’t do anything.
They’re working on her. Hands are everywhere. They’re checking vitals. One nurse lifts her shirt enough to place monitors on Windy for herself and the baby. They tilt her head, trying to open her airway, but her breaths are still ragged, still too shallow and wrong.
“The epinephrine isn’t enough!” a nurse yells. “We need another!”
Before I can process what she said, another nurse rushes in with a second injector.
She stabs it into Windy’s thigh again, harder this time, as if force alone will bring her back to us, to me.
They hook her up to an IV. Fluids rush through the line, the bag swaying with every frantic movement around her bed.
Minutes stretch. Twist. Drag.
I don’t think I take a breath until, finally, she drags in a shaky inhale.
A real one. Her chest rises, and the sound of it knocks the strength right out of my legs.
I sag against the wall and slide down until I’m sitting on the cold, hard tile.
Relief swamps me so hard it feels like a giant stab of pain in my stomach.
My vision blurs, confusing me for a moment, until I feel them.
Tears spill over before I can blink them back.
They drip off my chin, hitting my shirt, hands, and the tile below me.
I hang my head as my shoulders start shaking. I can’t stop, no matter how much I want to. Fuck, I don’t even try at this point. I don’t think my chest has ever hurt this much before. It feels like a vice is gripping my heart, squeezing until it’s nothing more than a useless organ.
A hand settles on my shoulder—gentle, warm, steady.
I look up through the blur of tears and see Windy’s mother standing there. Her eyes shimmer with empathy, her expression so achingly gentle it devastates me—a softness I never let myself want, unraveling me to the core, breaking something buried and old inside me.
A sob tears out of me. Then another. Suddenly, I’m shaking so hard I can barely breathe.
Windy’s mother drops to her knees in front of me, pulling me into her arms without hesitating.
It’s like she’s known me my whole life, like I’m her child to comfort.
She wraps her arms around me, pulling me into her body.
She murmurs something soothing, but I can’t make out the words from the dull roar inside my ears.
I’m too far gone at this point, unable to stop myself from breaking.
Years of holding myself together, years of swallowing it all down, years of pretending I don’t need anyone.
It all comes crashing down on me at once.
It’s been so long since I cried like this.
I haven’t since my mother and fathers left me with my father when I was younger.
I can remember the tears trickling down my cheeks as I watched them drive away from the museum I called home in my childhood.
Since then, I've learned that needing comfort doesn’t mean I'll get it from anyone.
Right now … a mother is holding me.
A mother insisting on calming something inside me I didn’t even know was screaming for help.
Windy’s monitors fill the room with steady beeping.
The baby monitor joins in. I sit in awe of the tiny, racing heartbeat of our child nestled in Windy’s womb.
The sharp, rhythmic sounds are both too loud and too quiet.
Each tone punches through the antiseptic-thick air, and that hospital smell burns the back of my throat.
Fluorescent lights hum faintly, casting everything in a cold, sterile glow.
Windy’s mother still has one hand on my shoulder when she speaks, her voice low but unwavering. “She’s going to be okay. Because of you all, she’s going to be just fine.”