41. Chapter 41
Chapter 41
Gage
The wolf was like a side-seat driver. When I was in charge, his consciousness sat beside mine, watching my every move with scrutiny, sometimes leaning over to put a paw on the wheel and cause chaos. It was the reverse when he was in charge, me following his instinct driven actions and hoping for the best.
It was a push and pull energy, both of us giving and taking. There were times where we fought each other for control, both of us scrambling to take the wheel and spinning out madly.
There was never a time when neither of us was steering, which was why I was staring down at a blurry image of my wolf in a confused stupor and wondering who the hell was driving this thing.
The wolf whined at me, shaggy head lifted, and I realized he wasn’t blurry. He looked ragged, worn down and weary. I felt the same, like I was a balloon, and someone had poked a bunch of holes in me.
Speaking of holes, there was a giant one on the front of my wolf’s chest, black and gaping.
I ran a hand down mine and found a matching one. The feel of it was slick and cold, and I felt a little sick as my fingers brushed the empty space.
The wolf whined again, inclining his head to a distant glow. It was the only light in this strange formless place, a hint of gold like a rising sun.
That glow was the only source of warmth too. Shivering, I moved toward it, falling in step with my wolf as he did the same.
Again, that sick feeling washed over me, worse this time. I felt clammy, and every part of me wanted to lie down.
I was tired, so fucking tired, and it would be easy to rest here. I couldn’t remember where I was going or why, and it seemed pointless now.
My wolf snarled, taking my arm in his teeth, and biting down to the bone. The pain was subtle and indistinct.
I blinked as the glow suddenly grew brighter, warm rays of light pooling at my feet. Sensation tingled in my toes, and my arm began to ache. I dislodged the wolf, but only after he dragged me a few feet further into the light, soaking us both in it.
Then it burst to life, shimmering around us like the northern lights. Except it was liquid gold, brilliant and metallic and strong .
Whatever this was, it was impossibly strong. Unbreakably strong.
It was me, but it was also more.
Comfort.
Home.
A promise.
A promise I had to keep.
In this lifetime, and the next, and as far as the Goddess would take me.
I reached up and scooped a handful of gold into my palms. It was light as a feather, and it was the heaviest weight I’d ever carried. Carefully, with a reverence I didn’t understand, I poured the gilded light into the space in my chest.
The wolf whimpered, leaping onto his hind legs, and pressing his paws desperately into me. I did the same for him, watching strands of gold coalesce into the blackness until it was burned away.
Then I fell, tumbling backwards, upwards, in all different directions until I dropped back into myself with a thud.
My eyes cracked open.
More light flooded my vision, this time fluorescent. I squinted against the offensive brightness, blinking at unfamiliar surroundings. I could feel my wolf doing the same, studying the strange pale room I’d never seen before.
There were grey curtains pulled into the corner, grey walls—no windows. I glanced distrustfully at the door in the corner of the room. Only one obvious escape.
Then that golden thing inside me came alive, murmuring excitedly and tugging my attention to the other side of the room. I saw my motionless legs, prone under a thin green blanket. There were clear tubes in my arm and laying across my chest. Cold air burned the inside of my nostrils.
I saw my hand splayed limply across the bed I was lying in.
Cool, slender fingers were laced with mine. They held mine tightly, clinging to me as if that single connection would keep me here.
I knew that because I could feel it, her desperate, painful hope, and the way she cradled it as carefully as she cradled my fingers.
Abigail.
Her normally silky hair was dull, matted to her head in a tangled bun. Her eyes, unfocused, were missing that usual glint that felt like sunshine on a dreary day.
Distantly I could hear her heartbeat, familiar and consistent, and I knew why I had to come back. Why I had to be here.
Woven into the many threads of the bond was a new feeling, subtle but not fragile. It welded the bond together, sealing it and solidifying it until it was the most unstoppable force on this planet.
A force so strong it brought me back from the brink of death.
“You love me.” I wasn’t sure the words were coherent. They left my throat in a soft, painful rasp, like I hadn’t spoken in a very long time.
Abby leapt from her chair, a shrill gasp coming out as tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Gage? Gage!” Her other hand joined the first, holding mine fiercely as she sobbed my name. “Levi! Levi, hurry! He’s awake.” She whispered the last two words, as if afraid to believe them. “You’re awake.”
Then her gaze found mine again, and her tears came harder, and she said, “Of course, I love you.”
The door in the corner sprang open, and I tried to rise to face the threat but pain like I’d never known radiated through my chest and left me gasping for breath.
“Stay down,” my brother commanded as he hurried into the room. “Do not get out of that bed, you little fuck.” Levi was smiling when he said it, but it was a weak smile. Rings carved deep ravines under his eyes, and I could tell by the way they shone with his wolf that he was on edge.
“What the hell is going—”
My throaty curse was interrupted by a cry as the door banged open again. I wanted to say it was a familiar cry, but my mother was an alpha. I’d only seen her shed a tear once in my life, and it was when we put my father in the ground. “Gage! Oh, my baby. My boy.”
“Mom?”
Mom took my free hand, taking turns squeezing with Abby on the other side. The pain in my chest lingered, throbbing through my abdomen and all the way to my legs.
It must have shown on my face because both women quieted down, taking seats on either side of the bed, and staring glossy-eyed at me.
Levi stood at the foot of my bed, studying my face but not meeting my eyes. “I’m going to see if I can hunt down the doc and get you some more pain meds.” He paused at the door, holding it open and clearing his throat. “I might need a hand convincing him to up the dose.”
Mom looked from me to Levi. “But he just woke up!”
“And he’s going to stay awake now,” Levi assured softly. “It’s over, Mom.”
Mom released a quiet sob, freeing her hand from mine and wiping her nose. “Okay. Okay.” She rose, moving stiffly as she followed Levi to the door. “We’ll give you two a minute. Ten at the most!” She pointed at Abby. “You make sure he stays in that bed.”
Abby nodded, smiling softly as my mom and Levi disappeared more quickly than they’d come.
Abby knew my mom.
What the hell was happening?
I tried to sit up, to ask why I was here, and what happened to me, but instead I found myself repeating, “You love me.”
Abby carefully lowered herself to the edge of the bed, staring down at where our hands joined. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to mine, peering at me from under wet lashes. Then a fresh sob broke from her throat, her face crumpling, and I ignored the pain as I lifted myself upright, reaching for her. It took all my strength just to raise my arms, and she had to meet me halfway, gingerly laying her forehead against mine and curling her arms around my neck.
“They said you might not wake up,” she cried. “It’s been four days.”
“What happened? I don’t remember anything.” Only fear, and determination. I remember thinking of Abby constantly. But how could I not? Even exhausted, sniffling, and flushed from crying, she was beautiful.
She was this beacon of warmth and comfort and goodness that settled some horrible wrongness that had been poisoning me from the inside out for five years. The constant buzz of fury and dread was gone, replaced by the harmonious, soft hum of our bond.
“I didn’t give up on you.” She ignored my question. “I knew you were going to wake up. I could feel you in the bond and I just kept pulling and pulling and—”
“Abby,” I breathed. “Abigail.”
“Don’t ever do that again. Promise me.”
“Do what?”
“Try to die for me.”
A memory blinked in and out of focus.
“Dallas!” I stiffened, struggling to heave myself out of bed. I yanked at the tubes in my nose, tossing them off the edge of the bed. “Where the fuck is Dallas?”
“Gage, stop. Stop!” Abby’s voice was harsher than I’d ever heard, and for good reason. Pain seared through me, blurring my vision, and I collapsed back onto the hard mattress.
A glance down at my chest showed nothing but stretches of white bandage.
“You can’t get up, not until the stitches come out,” Abby explained gently. “The bullets were silver. You’re not healing like you should.”
“Bullets, plural? I took multiple silver bullets?” I didn’t remember that part. I didn’t remember anything except stepping into an empty building and finding my once-dead best friend looming over my mate with a gun in his hand. The rest was lost in a combination of instinct and insanity.
“Six.” Her lip quivered. “They said you couldn’t survive that much silver. No one knows how you did.”
I studied her, brown eyes shimmering, and I knew. I knew with absolute certainty how I survived.
“You saved my life.”
“ You saved mine ,” she argued. “You could have died.”
“I didn’t.” I reached for her weakly. Even lifting my arms made my chest ache. “Come here, Abby.”
She shook her head, gesturing at my bandages. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Please.” I was not opposed to begging. Clearly, she still didn’t understand that touch was a physical need for shifters as much as food and water. “I’ll heal faster if you’re close to me.”
She squinted skeptically but didn’t argue. The thin hospital bed I was propped on was definitely not made for two people, and Abby had to shimmy awkwardly to avoid elbowing my wounds. Eventually she found her way into my side, tucking her head on the round of my shoulder and sighing into my ear.
“I know I fucked this up in the beginning,” I murmured, “but I hope you understand how serious I am about never letting anything hurt you, even me.”
“You didn’t have to take six bullets to prove that to me.”
“I’ll take six more, if I have to.”
“No, you fucking won’t!” She jerked upright, glaring down at me with all the brutality of an alpha.
“Damn, why is it so hot when you curse?”
“This isn’t funny, Gage.” Abby’s ferocity vanished as she laid her head back down beside mine.
I shifted to press a kiss to her forehead. “Can you tell me what happened, or should I ask Levi?”
Abby stared up at the ceiling, gaze distant. “Let Levi tell you. I don’t—I can’t—”
“It’s okay.” I lifted my arm to rest it on her hip. “It’s okay.”
Abby was asleep by the time Levi returned with a man in green scrubs. He looked to be in his early sixties, with dark brown skin and a warm smile. When he approached my bedside with a syringe, provoking a sharp and painful growl from my chest, his eyes turned steely.
Human, but not afraid of shifters. This wasn’t a regular doctor, and we were definitely not in a hospital.
Smart on Levi’s part, because a hospital would have been so busy reporting gunshot wounds and shifter injuries to the authorities that they would have let me die.
It took some coaxing but after introducing himself, Doctor Singh managed to inject more shifter-grade pain meds into my IV. He took a moment to explain my injuries and ask a series of questions. Levi stood stoically beside him with eyes locked on mine. It wasn’t a challenge, necessarily, but an order.
Don’t bite the hand that stitched you . Got it.
Easier said than done. My wolf wanted to do exactly that when Doctor Singh lifted one of my bandages to examine the wound. It was instinct to protect myself when I was injured, even from someone that could help me.
Another reason human hospitals were leery about seeing shifter patients. It was dangerous and annoying to have to tranquilize a shifter just to look at a paper cut.
Not that many shifters were going to human hospitals, even with lethal injuries.
That was why Doctor Singh was in practice, apparently. He was short on details as my head became a hazy cloud of pain medication, but he did explain his operation was off the books.
In other words, he would keep my secret if I kept his.
Fine by me. I had no clue how Levi found this place while I was bleeding my guts out, and I wasn’t going to ask questions right now. Mom arrived as Doctor Singh was leaving, arms full of fast-food bags.
Normally, I preferred food that wasn’t prepared with eight dozen noxious preservatives. Superior sense of smell meant superior sense of taste and I could almost feel the cancer on my tongue.
But shifters couldn’t get cancer, and I suddenly realized I was hungry as fuck.
Abby didn’t stir when I pressed the button to make the bed sit upright. She was so still that I checked her breathing, making sure Doctor Singh hadn’t secretly slipped her a sedative.
Mom settled in a plastic chair on the opposite side of the bed, handing me an unwrapped burger and explaining, “She barely slept the entire time you were out. She was afraid—” Mom swallowed, clearing her throat before continuing. “Abby was afraid if she let go of the bond that you would die.”
“Maybe she was right,” I said.
Mom’s brow hardened, an expression so much like mine, and a single tear slipped past her defenses before she swiped it away. I’d always known my mom was strong. She was alpha over one of the largest packs in North America.
That was an innate sort of strength, though. What I saw on her face now—deep, deep grief and the impenetrable shield she’d built around it—was so much more than that, and suddenly I didn’t understand.
I didn’t understand how she was alive, sitting here in front of me. I felt the warm, life-giving pulse of my bond with Abby, and I was positive that if it broke in my lifetime, before I was gone, I would die too. How could I not?
And here was my mom, having lost two bonds in one lifetime…I couldn’t fathom it.
“Mom—”
“You live for your children,” she choked out the words. “No matter what happens, you live so your children can live.”
She covered her eyes, inhaling to compose herself. When she looked back up at me, it was with familiar determination. “And if either one of you tries to die again, so help me Goddess, I will follow you into the next life just to tear you a new one.”
Levi chuckled from his position at the door. He’d been standing there since the doctor left, a silent sentinel over his wounded brother. It was the pack way. They would watch over me, and my mate, until I was strong again.
I didn’t appreciate my brother enough. I didn’t appreciate any of them enough, really. They lived through what I lived through too, and none of them lost their shit. None of them punished me when I did.
I wasn’t just going to be a better mate after this. I would be a better pack mate, too.
“She’s a good one, Gage.” Mom cut the tension with a fry in her mouth, motioning toward Abby.
I pressed my fingertips into the soft bun of my half-eaten burger. “I don’t deserve her.”
“You took bullets for her!” She pointed her fry at me. “You deserve each other.”
Mom stood, brushing her hands off and waving Levi to take her place. “You’re going to heal, then you’re going to come home for Christmas, and then you’re going to make lots of little grandbabies for me to love on. That’s an order.”
“I’m not getting any younger.” She glanced meaningfully at Levi as she headed for the door, paper bag in hand. “I’m going to go bring the boys some food. They’re just about ready to start eating each other.”
The boys. Kai, Ezra, and Mason were here too.
“They’ve been here since you came out of surgery,” Levi said, settling on the edge of the chair Mom vacated. “Singh had to close his office for a ‘family emergency’ because the stench of dominant, unwashed shifter was making his regular clients panic.”
“Regular clients? Is he a shifter doctor?” I’d never heard of a human doctor keeping a shifter focused practice.
“Veterinarian. The work he does with shifters is extracurricular.”
“Huh, that’s useful.” I finished off my burger. “Speaking of unwashed—you reek.”
“You’re no fresh rose either.” Levi wrinkled his nose. “I wasn’t about to let Manchini or any other psycho in here to smother you with a pillow because I went home to shower.”
Manchini. I’d completely forgotten about him, and the rest of it. The more my limbs grew heavy with whatever drug was pumping through my veins, the more I was forgetting about everything except a nap with my mate snuggled against me.
I yawned, and Levi dipped his chin in understanding. “Now isn’t really the time to talk through the details. In short, Dallas took off. Manchini’s men were apprehended—”
“Apprehended? By who?”
“There were…unexplained events. Someone else was in the warehouse.”
“Someone form The Organization?”
Levi rubbed his jaw. “There is no Organization. I’ll explain that later. Whoever it was, they know us. Or, Ezra, at least.”
I blinked at my brother, waiting for more explanation.
“When we carried you out of there, we found Manchini’s men unconscious and bound. All of them.” He rested his elbows on his knees. “Someone had written the word ‘bear’ with a smiley face next to their bodies. In blood.”
I was still blinking, trying to comprehend. “I think I need to sleep on that.”
“Good plan.” Levi rose slowly, raising his arms in a stretch. “You should know, Abby saved our asses with the feds. They’re off our backs, at least on paper.”
“How did she manage that?”
“We sent them to the warehouse to pick up Manchini’s men. Abby had a detailed profile on each of them, which she passed on to our lawyers, who passed it on to the proper authorities.”
“You know they’re still watching us.”
“Oh, definitely,” he nodded. “And they’re not the only ones.”
“Any word on Dallas?”
“No Dallas, no Cargill, no Manchini.”
“Shit.”
“I’ll let you rest.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “There is one more thing you should know. I haven’t told Abby yet.”
I clenched my fists. I couldn’t take any more bad news.
“Abby’s ex-husband was mated to a hyena shifter, who was the daughter of a well-known shifter extremist. They used him to get into our office.”
“Son of bitch. I knew that fucker was up to something.”
“Well, don’t get too worked up. He’s dead.”
I sat up a little straighter, my mind momentarily clearing as my wolf raised his head in victory. “How?”
“Extremists don’t tolerate human-shifter mating, even when they’re fated mates. They got what they wanted out of him, then they killed him. Kai used his contacts to track down their pack. They were in the Tri-Cities, lying low.”
I wanted it to be a win, but Levi and I both knew it wasn’t. Not really.
Any shifter in government custody was a loss for our kind. It was only a matter of time before they used what they found to turn on all of us.
My wolf wanted out. He wanted to pace. To patrol the perimeter of this room until Abby woke. There seemed to be threats in every shadow, monsters at my back.
But my brother stood over me, my alpha, and if he was here, I knew we were both safe. He would watch over us until I was strong enough to hunt every one of those bastards down, starting with Dallas.
I must have zoned out. Levi was already at the door, making his way out into the hallway.
“Levi?” I called.
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good brother.”
“I love you too, asshole.”