Chapter Three
I woke up once when Jared arrived, when he threw himself to the ground and pulled me to him, his voice as full of despair as I’d ever heard it.
“Kait, Kait,” he whispered.
My pack gathered around, and then, when I felt that they were safe, I went deep inside where the pain was more bearable and the emptiness wasn’t so vast.
I had to heal. And to heal, I had to fall over the cliff into dark, deep water and float somewhere else until I was better.
They’d understand if I went away from them for a while.
I closed my eyes, and I went.
When I finally dragged myself out of the comfort of my sleep, not that it was sleep, really, I found that it was nearly dusk and I’d missed a whole day of sunshine. I’d missed an entire day of meals, as well, and my stomach was about ready to eat itself.
I burst into tears once, hard and fast and agonized, because I felt the absence of magic inside me. Then I shoved the heels of my hands against my eyes, and still, it took me a minute to realize I had an IV line in my arm.
I wasn’t home.
Disoriented, I sat up and looked around me, noting the waning evening light at the bottom of window blinds that hadn’t been completely pulled. I was in the Shadowfield clinic.
Shaky as a newborn foal, I pulled the line from my arm and swung my legs over the side of the bed. It was suddenly urgent that I saw people. I felt like I’d been left behind somehow, like everyone was out in the world and I’d been missing…everything.
I wore a hospital gown and it wasn’t even tied in the back, so I held it together while I looked around the small space for something to wear. And as I stood there, the curtain was yanked back and Belinda, Dr. Ben Hayes’ nurse, hurried to my side.
“Oh, dear,” she cried. “Oh, my goodness! Ben,” she called, as I stood there staring at her with an eyebrow cocked, equally happy to see her and amused at her fluster. “Dr. Hayes!”
He rushed into the room, frowning heavily, but his face lit up when he saw me. “Kait,” he said, only a little less exuberant than Belinda. “Get back into that bed, child.”
“I’m not tired,” I said. “I have to get dressed. I’m starving and missing my people.”
Both he and Belinda knew me, and they knew if I said I was done with the bed, I was done with the bed.
“Jared will have my head,” Ben muttered.
I only laughed. “I need food. A wolf likes to eat, you know.”
Belinda burst into tears and rushed from the room.
I stared after her, mystified. “What’s up with her?”
Ben wasn’t one to mince words. “We thought you were dead,” he said bluntly and somewhat angrily. “We never believed in a million years that you’d wake up and ask for dinner.”
I frowned. “Why on earth not? I’ve been in vicious battles before.”
He shook his head. “You’re something else, Kait Silver. Your mother just went outside a few minutes ago to get some air. They’ve been taking turns sitting with you.”
I lost my smile. “Taking turns? How long have I been out?”
“This is the fourth day. Not long considering what happened to you. When Jared carried you in, I told him you wouldn’t last the night. He told me if I let you die, he’d kill me.”
I patted his shoulder. “He didn’t mean it, Ben.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “We shall agree to disagree. But right now, I’m going to inform him that you’re awake.”
“He already knows,” I murmured. I put my hand against my chest. “He’s coming.”
I couldn’t wait for him to come to me, and I didn’t want to meet him looking stupid in an ugly gown with bare feet and uncombed hair. “Where are the clothes I was wearing when I came in?”
“You weren’t wearing clothes,” he said dryly. “Just a jacket someone had draped over you.”
“Yes,” I remembered. “I shifted. She didn’t take my wolf.”
And then everything came roaring back. The fear, the pain, the realization that a stranger had taken nearly everything inside me. I had no magic.
But I wouldn’t cry about it again. I ground my teeth and growled, then leaned over to put my hands on my knees as I fought for control of my emotions.
“Let yourself feel what you need to feel, honey,” Ben said.
Then I heard footsteps running down the hall and in seconds, my mother was there, flinging herself against me, wrapping me up in arms that only ever sheltered me.
“Oh, my baby,” she cried. “One day you’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“You’re a wolf,” Ben said mildly. “You can’t have a heart attack, Susan.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, pulling away from me and wiping her eyes. “I’m totally buggin’.” She looked up at me but her question was for Ben. “What’s the sitch?”
“I’m hungry,” I said, as Ben tried to sort through her words.
“I’m hungry, my alpha is coming, and…” I closed my eyes in a long, slow blink, realizing I had to tell everyone that I’d lost nearly everything that I used to protect the city.
I felt the shame of it. “She took my power, Mom. All I have left is my wolf and my blade.” Then I immediately panicked. “Where’s my—”
“Nightstand drawer,” my mother said. “Your blade is safe.” Then her lips trembled as she tried to remain calm. “Whoa. Time out. You’re saying some skank slid in and jacked your magic?”
My mother’s use of slang worsened when she was upset. Not that it wasn’t already bad enough.
“I’m fine,” I told her, but I could still feel the emptiness.
It wasn’t as bad as it might have been, but it was there.
And the wounds from Anika’s blade still throbbed beneath the bandages someone—probably Belinda—had placed over them.
“Would you go to the Inn or to Jared’s house and get me some dinner? I’m so hungry.”
She needed to take a minute to get her mind on something else, and focusing on feeding me would do that. Also, I really was starving.
“Of course,” she cried. “Sit down, Kaity. I’ll bring you so much food.”
I squeezed her arm as Ben waited patiently. Belinda slipped back into the room, shot me a sheepish look, and then began murmuring to the doctor.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I said. “Ask Evan to run me over some clothes. Boots, too. Everything is in Jared’s closet.”
Jared had given his housekeeper, Nell, an assistant recently. She hadn’t been happy in the beginning but seemed to be falling quite naturally into the role of cheerfully bossing him around. Evan took it with a longsuffering look and many sighs.
When my mother left the room, Ben and Belinda approached me. “Lie down,” Ben said. “I want to check the slash wounds you came in with. They’re…” He shook his head. “Strange.”
“Her blade was amazing,” I said, remembering. And I still wanted it.
I was reclining back on the pillows, Ben and Belinda peering at my wounds, when I felt Jared striding into the clinic.
“Leave the bandages off,” I told them, when Belinda started to press a new dressing over the still raw injuries. “I have to take a shower, and the wounds will heal.”
They didn’t hurt, really. They looked worse than they felt. As a matter of fact, they seemed to be settling into the emptiness, filling it up with something that was almost…nice.
It was weird.
“When you came in,” Ben told me, “there was so much blood it was like something was pushing out your blood to make room for the magic. The wounds changed from red to black. But now…”
I looked down at the tender cuts. They were slightly raised and completely silver. And as I stared, I thought I saw the flash of green beneath them, like the glowing symbols I’d seen on her blade.
“They’re decorative,” Belinda said. “Like your tattoos. And they’re fading, Kait.”
I ran my fingertips over the one on my chest, frowning as my fingers buzzed and tingled from the contact. What the hell had she put inside me?
Jared walked into the room, his stare finding mine immediately, and as it always did, my heart stuttered, then leapt, beating faster as he neared me.
I held up my arms, and Ben and Belinda headed for the door. “We’ll talk after,” Ben told Jared.
Jared gave him a nod, then leaned over and picked me up off the bed and into his warm arms. “Damn you, Kait,” he said tenderly.
I laughed, but the sound was full of tears, and relief, and joy. Not even everything I’d lost could be stronger than the way my alpha made me—and my wolf—feel.
Evan hurried in, holding a bag. “Clothes,” he said.
“Thanks, Evan,” I said, but my lips were against Jared’s throat, and I barely noticed when he placed the bag on the bed and made a hasty exit.
Jared let me slide down his body to stand on the floor, then began yanking clothes from the bag.
“I need a shower,” I said.
“Nell has drawn you a bath,” he told me. “And food will be waiting.”
And it didn’t matter that apparently, I’d nearly died. It didn’t matter that proof of her attack was slashed across my ribs and chest in pulsing magical cuts.
It also didn’t matter how hard he tried to remain clinical and focused as he helped me dress. His fierce stare heated as I leaned into him and ran my tongue over the side of his neck, as our fingers tangled and our hearts thudded.
“I won’t lose you, Kait,” he murmured.
“No,” I said. “You won’t.”
And neither of us would say out loud that for a little while, we’d both believed I was already gone.