Poison, Dude #2
Nigel howled low in his chest, the sound of it absolutely haunting. It surprised my head back over to him, and I cursed the pain again. But I was mesmerized by a naked man howling on purpose and it not being the slightest bit weird on him.
A minute later, Mia stood over me, in her birthday suit, still projecting her devil-may-care attitude. “What’s up?” And as if just noticing me, she looked down and her eyebrow rose in interest. “Why’s she on the floor?”
“Can you sniff out what this poison is and what it needs for an antidote?” Nigel cut in, tone clipped.
The gorgeous woman went onto all fours in a crouch, on full display, and Sloan didn’t even blink. The dude didn’t even blink. I, on the other hand, went a brighter shade of red despite the tremendous pain working its way through my body in rolling waves.
“Oh, that’s a rare one. They call it Sleeping Death. I’m just surprised someone even knows how to make this beauty anymore,” she remarked in obvious excitement.
Not weird at all. Guess Mia lived up to her attire.
Grams had told me about Sleeping Death though, mainly because it was what one of her previous partners died from.
Most poisons were slow to work on Hunters, but this one was designed specifically with them in mind.
It attacked vital organs first and shut them down.
It was quicker than most Hunters could regenerate. And without an antidote on hand, fatal.
Lucky me.
But because it was one of very few poisons we could die from within the usual twenty-four-hour period, the Organization had an immense supply of the antidote. Still, we’d have to get our hands on it in time, which proved the biggest obstacle.
“Don’t have any of this antidote already made,” Mia commented, brow knitted together. “Like I said, been a long time since I’ve seen it.”
“Can you make the antidote?” Nigel demanded, his glowing amber eyes jerking over to me as I sucked at the air and fought away the anguish in my chest and head.
Poison, dude. It’s the worst.
In thirty to forty minutes, I’d go into a seizure and no longer have control over my body.
In an hour, if this pain was any indication, I’d be comatose.
In two hours, maybe less, I’d be dead. But as with anything, the timeline fluctuated based on potency, how much was administered, and how quickly it reached the blood.
Funny, poison wasn’t how I envisioned I’d die. I thought for sure it’d be by an old-ass vamp draining my blood, or my bones crushed to powder in a fight—or maybe with a blade stabbed into my heart or other vital organ I couldn’t heal from.
But not poison.
How anticlimactic.
Mia nodded, confident in herself. “It’ll take anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes, but luckily I have almost everything we need, and what I don’t have I can find in the forest.”
Seriously, what is this chick? A dark sorceress?
Honestly, with my vision so watery already and my body on fire, I’d likely go into a seizure in the next few minutes.
It was the weird sensation in my head that made me think so.
Also, my injury probably didn’t help, and it was likely the poison entered my blood stream sooner because of how it was administered.
In less than an hour, I’d be comatose. Still, for some reason, even on the edge of death, I was oddly calm.
“Go,” the naked Shifter next to me commanded of his female counterpart.
Sloan lifted me into his arms, and I inhaled a pain-filled breath. “I have the antidote, but getting it will require I contact someone. It may take less time to get them here than for Mia to concoct it, so I’ll make the call.”
Head pounding, I closed my eyes and slumped inside Sloan’s hold, while the other Hunter talked on his phone to whoever he planned to get the antidote from. The terrifying burn was in every part of my body, and I could only moan low in my throat.
Surprisingly, I wasn’t scared. The only thing I wished for was if I died, I wanted to make sure Phillip was okay. Call me crazy, but I was seriously worried about the other Hunter despite Nigel’s reassurance.
“Phillip…” I whispered.
Sloan made a sound in his throat. “He’s here.”
“I’ll take her,” a familiar and husk-deep voice called out.
Nigel growled low in his chest. “You didn’t protect her at all, you bastard. And how could you just fucking run off like that when she was injured?”
“I don’t need to explain myself to you, dog. If I let Eros get away—”
“But he did get away.”
Phillip grunted, obviously unhappy. “Only because your pack interrupted me.”
So, the Assassin’s Creed wannabe gave someone like Phillip and an entire pack of wolves the slip? Great.
“Right. My pack also saved your ungrateful ass.”
“I didn’t need saving,” Phillip retorted angrily. “It doesn’t matter. Give me V, Sloan.”
“She’s been poisoned,” Sloan said, handing me over like I were made of glass.
Phillip cursed under his breath and tenderly adjusted his hold on me, bringing my side impossibly close to his chest. His heart was a pound against my ear.
“What kind?”
“Sleeping Death,” Sloan responded quickly.
“Fucking shit,” Phillip groaned, brushing the hair away from my eyes. “I have the reverse serum. It’ll be faster if we get that to her than the antidote.”
Reverse serum?
I’d never heard about it. Then again, Phillip did mention he’d make sure he was a step ahead of our enemies with the serum. So, it made perfect sense he’d create a counter-acting agent to reactivate our abilities. Smart people would, and Phillip was annoyingly smart.
Thankfully, Nigel wouldn’t know what he was talking about. Which was made perfectly clear when the Shifter cut in a second later, “What serum are you even talking about?”
Phillip ignored him. “Go. I’d be faster, but I refuse to leave her with Eros still out there. I can’t run with her like this. You know where to look for it.”
It was interesting that Phil seemed to trust Sloan and Kris enough to tell them about the serum and where it was.
That was new.
I hadn’t expected Phillip to keep anyone close, but it was a good idea to trust someone with the information who could help when push came to shove.
Maybe they were also part of the revolution we intended to create.
Maybe Phillip had already gotten other Hunters on our side before activating my blood.
It didn’t seem farfetched that he’d have already been working in the background to get others on board, and it explained why he trusted them to work with us.
But if I thought about it carefully, Sloan and Kris seemed faster and stronger than most of the Hunters I’d been told about.
It made me wonder about them. It made me curious about how much Phillip was keeping from me.
But I didn’t really have time to worry about secrets when I was literally dying of poison.
Sloan sighed and I opened my eyes, finding Phillip’s intense gaze on me. If I was honest though, I was just so happy to see the other Hunter alive.
“Phillip, I’m so damn glad—” I rasped, but the thundering pound in my head doubled and I couldn’t finish. Then everything faded away and I sunk into a deep unconsciousness.