Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Eric
I’d been talking to my partner’s client in a dingy CVPD interrogation room when I felt it.
It was like a heart attack, like all the oxygen had been sucked from my lungs.
Panic surged inside me, and I knew it wasn’t my own.
I had nothing to panic about right now. I grabbed the bond to Hailey and grunted as her fear poured down the connection between us.
She was in trouble.
I didn’t say anything to the client as I stood, slamming my fists against the door to the conference room. “Let me out!” I shouted, and a confused police officer opened the door.
“Eric?” Stephan, the client, shouted in alarm behind me.
“Someone is attacking my mate.” That was the only explanation I’d give as I ran out of the police station uptown. I waited impatiently as the locked doors were opened by an overworked officer, probably pulling double duty.
I called Hailey’s phone. She didn’t answer. I jammed dial again.
The shocked looks told me I was probably growling, but it made people move out of my way faster, so I didn’t give a fuck. I landed on the pavement out front of the station and looked around. There were no cabs, and the traffic was backed up. Fucking solstice.
As I ran, I pulled my phone out, jamming the number for Louis. He didn’t answer either, so I tried Otis. He’d know where she was.
“Eric?” Otis’s calm voice echoed down the line.
“Something is wrong with Hailey,” I growled. “I can feel her fear. Where is she?” I was more beast than man at that moment.
“She was at the center. I talked to her less than an hour ago. Syke, Hailey is in trouble. Find her.” I pushed people out of the way as I ran. “Syke shadow walked to the center, Eric. We’ll find her. Can you still feel her?”
I groaned. Her fear was a physical thing, like spiders crawling over my skin. “She’s so scared, but angry too. That’s good, right? If she’s pissed?”
“I’m sure whoever is giving her trouble is about to regret their decisions.
I’m on my way back to the center. I’ll collect you on the way.
Wait, Syke is calling.” He put me on hold, but only for a moment, then he was back just as quickly.
“Someone attacked her on the street. Syke says she’s been cut, and she’s in shock, but she’s okay. ”
Stopping, I bent in half and started sucking in air, but I couldn’t fill my lungs. It wasn’t the run that was stealing my oxygen though.
“Breathe, Eric. Just breathe. She’s okay. I’m almost there.”
Darkness danced in my vision. I couldn’t fucking breathe. My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest.
I didn’t know how long I stood there, folded in half on the street, but I jumped when a large hand spanned my back. Whirling, I stared into Otis’s soft expression. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. He grabbed me and dragged me into his arms. “Breathe, Eric.”
“She could have died. She could have died, and I would have felt it all and been helpless on the other side of town. I couldn’t protect her.”
The pain in my chest was surely my heart splintering into a million pieces.
Otis grabbed my cheeks in his giant hands.
“That will never happen, Eric. You have a clan now, powerful creatures who will love and care for her and you. Syke wouldn’t let that happen.
Louis and Ilyas would never let that happen.
” His jaw was tight. “I would not let that happen. We have your back, and we have hers.”
I gave into the urge and let him hug me tightly against his body. I felt weak and fucking useless, just like my father had always said, but I could feel the rapid slam of Otis’s heart against his ribs, and I knew he was panicked too despite his outward calm.
Pulling back, he moved me toward the car where he’d double parked, pissing off traffic. “Let’s go.”
* * *
I jammed the button of the elevator over and over like it was going to make the giant hunk of metal move faster, and Otis didn’t stop me.
As soon as the gap was big enough for me to fit, I squeezed through the door, and the first thing I could taste on the air was her distress…
and then the scent of her blood—a lot of it.
I didn’t stop or look around, because I could feel the bond between us tugging at my chest. I burst through the doors of the common room, feeling more feral than I’d ever been in my life.
She was on the overstuffed couch, and there was a big white bandage across her throat and up one side of her face. Someone had cut her, had hurt my mate.
I didn’t even remember how I got to the other side of the room or anything that happened before she was in my arms, clutched tightly to my chest as I growled at every other creature in the room.
She was mine. Mine to protect from anyone. From everyone.
The large minotaur was in front of me, and the sound I made was all beast. “Hey, it’s okay, Eric. She’s okay. Aren’t you?”
She was there, the only thing I could see. Her brilliant blue eyes locked on mine. Her pink lips. Those bandages.
“Hey, baby, stop that and kiss me,” she whispered, and my growl cut off. I kissed her like I couldn’t breathe without her, because I couldn’t.
Each brush of her lips over mine was the only thing that kept me centered enough to pull me back from the edge. I held her tightly to my chest, the echo of her fear still rattling through me.
I looked at her bandages and lost my shit all over again. Finally, with the soft stroke of her fingers through my hair, the press of my nose to her throat so I could scent her skin, and the pulse of her blood in her veins, I came back to myself.
“You’re safe,” I whispered, both for my benefit and hers.
“I’m safe,” she repeated. She looked over my shoulder, and I could hear the phones going off in the background. “You guys need to get back out there.”
“No,” Syke answered immediately, and even Otis hesitated.
My mate, my beautiful, strong mate who was somehow comforting me despite being the one who was attacked, set her jaw stubbornly.
“I’m fine. Eric is here now, and I doubt you’d be able to pry him from me with a crowbar” —she had that right— “and the creatures of Central Valley need you back on the streets.”
“I don’t care,” Syke grumbled, and I tore my eyes from her to see there was real anger on his face. Behind his swirling silver eyes, though, was terror. The demon actually, truly cared about her.
Hailey rolled her eyes. “I care, Syke. Please. For me. And don’t tell Louis until shit dies down tonight.”
Syke just crossed his arms over his chest, while Otis looked stoically between us.
“You’ll stay inside the center. You won’t leave until one of us has returned to take you home,” Otis rumbled.
“I trust Eric to take care of you, but just in case there are more humans waiting in the shadows, I’d feel better if you both had a little backup.
We can’t forget Nextra. I don’t like the coincidental timing. ”
My eyes whipped toward Hailey. “Freddie is dead.”
She shook her head, her eyes sad. “No, his brother. Buck. I’ll explain in a moment.”
What the fuck did Buck Nextra want? He was a cop. He wouldn’t jeopardize that to fuck with me, would he?
“We’ll wait for both of you. We’ll sleep in the spare room. I promise not to leave, Otis.” She let out a shuddering breath. “Let me do my job. I’d like the distraction.”
Syke grunted, but then he dragged her out of my arms and into his own, ignoring my soft growl. He kissed her hard. It was a consuming kiss, and he looked angry, though I still wasn’t sure if it was at her attacker, Hailey, or himself.
He gently placed her back on her feet and left the room.
Otis put his big hand on her shoulder, and I watched him take a deep breath, like he was trying to control his own reaction.
“Don’t leave, and if it feels like too much, forward the phone and relax.
None of this matters more than your health. Do you understand me, little one?”
She nodded, her opposite hand coming up to cover his.
“I’m stronger than some sweaty human with visions of grandeur in a dirty back alley, Otis. I promise.”
He nodded but continued to linger, and I could see him fighting against his instincts. He didn’t want to leave any more than Syke did, duty be damned, but eventually, he turned and left.
Finally, we were alone, and she looked at me softly.
Then she burst into tears.
I dragged her down to my lap and let her freak out. In between shuddering breaths, she told me everything. Was the confrontation with Buck and the human in the alleyway connected or separate events?
There was only one way to find out, but it would have to wait, because there was no physical way I could drag myself away from her yet. My mate needed me, and that was a calling beyond any other.
She let out a shaky breath and stood. “Come on, let’s go man the phones.”
Going to her desk, I sat in her chair and pulled her into my lap. She put the headset on and answered the first in a flashing line of calls.
“Creature Crisis Hotline. If this is an emergency, please hang up and call…”