Head Hunter

by Layla Nash

  Evershaw straightened from his crouch and ran a hand through his hair, the lines deepening around his eyes. “Find him some clothes. Find me some clothes, for fuck’s sake. Todd, stay here and deal with the bodies and clean-up. Are the trucks ready?”

  The second-in-command muttered something into his radio, already giving orders, and gestured for someone to throw sweats and t-shirts at both of them. “They just got to the hospital. Get moving.”

  Dodge pushed to his hands and knees, every inch of him aching, and tried to stand. The alpha hauled him up and half-carried him toward the waiting SUV. Dodge’s thoughts still searched for Persephone, still needed to re-establish that connection he’d felt.

  It wasn’t until they were speeding toward the city and away from that damn sanctuary that Evershaw spoke again. His voice turned gravelly with what Dodge knew was concern and even a hint of fear, though Dodge couldn’t sort out what he had to fear. “She’s really hurt, man. On the edge of death, from what the medics said. They’re doing their best to save her now, but if it’s close… If it’s close, do you want to turn her?”

  Dodge stilled, staring at the darkness that surrounded them even with the glow of the city in the distance. He’d never thought of turning Persephone to a shifter. Just the idea that Evershaw and the others were considering an emergency blood transfusion in the hopes that their more powerful shifter healing would keep her alive meant they didn’t think she’d live as a human. His throat closed and the wolf howled with a grief that Dodge couldn’t yet comprehend.

  She was the other half of his soul. How could he live without her?

  But she was human. She wanted to remain human, wanted to walk away from anything to do with the supernatural. Would she hate him if he turned her without her permission, even to save her life, and forced her to become what she ran from?

  He gripped the door and shook his head, dazed. “We didn’t talk about it. She won’t – I don’t think she’d want…”

  “She’d want to live, you dick,” Evershaw said, his tone carrying a sharp edge. “As a wolf or a human… doesn’t matter.”

  But in his heart Dodge knew it mattered. It mattered to her, so it mattered to him. Dodge struggled to find words. “She would hate me.”

  “You’d let your mate die?” The alpha growled and gripped the steering wheel until the leather started to tear. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  All he could think of was his parents and that his mother never had the opportunity to save his father. She said she’d have done it, no matter the consequences, because she needed him that much. That he needed her, too, even if they hadn’t called being mates the same thing. Dodge couldn’t breathe as his eyes burned with emotion and nausea surged in his guts.

  He’d already lost his family and everyone he loved. He’d lived alone for so long it numbed him to even the possibility of loving and trusting another person, even within the pack, and then Persephone… Then Persephone knocked down his walls and dragged him back into the light.

  He couldn’t go back to the dark. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t survive it again.

  But could he send Persephone into her own darkness, knowing she would hate what he made her?

  A keening noise escaped and drew a sharp look from Evershaw. The alpha muttered, “Think about it, you crazy bastard, and have an answer by the time we get there. They’ll have to do the transfusion immediately to have the best chance of her pulling through.”

  Dodge nodded, already feeling the numbness settle around his heart. Persephone would hate him for changing her, for taking her normal life away forever.

  “No one would expect you to live without your mate,” Evershaw said. “The very fact that you’re hesitating makes me wonder about your fucking mental capacity, because this should be an easy choice. This is the easiest choice. She’s dying. You can save her. Save her.”

  Dodge choked on the words. “She wants normal.”

  “Then she’ll find a new normal.” Evershaw growled to himself and stepped on the gas more. The radio crackled and they started to pick up the conversation between the guards who’d arrived at the hospital with Persephone and Deirdre.

  Dodge stared out the windshield as the city streets opened up in front of them. The seconds ticked away. Could he risk losing her by making the choice for her and turning her? She might walk away from him forever, but at least she’d be alive to make the choice. Or would he lose his mate just days after he found her?

  Chapter 40

  Dodge

  They’d taken Persephone to the hidden shifter hospital, since her injuries would have been impossible to explain at the human emergency room without getting the cops involved. Dodge had been there a few times after breaking up a few brawls, though he followed his senses rather than his memory as he searched for where they’d taken his mate.

  Dodge hardly noticed the grim shifters – wolves and lions, even one of the bears who’d trained as a medic – and Smith as they lined the hall to where he heard calm doctor voices and machines blaring warning tones.

  He couldn’t breathe. He wanted to run away, to hide from the awful sounds that dragged him back to the night his father died, the night Dodge’s whole world changed and fell apart. Seeing his mother lose her mate… His vision blurred as he remembered the way his mother screamed, the raw grief excruciating, when his father’s heart stopped.

  Evershaw held him back from charging into the room where a team of people in scrubs worked over Persephone. Bags of clear fluids and medications and even blood hung on poles all around her. It looked like just as much had spilled on the floor. Dodge saw almost nothing of Persephone except one arm where it flopped off the side of the gurney, her fingers curled delicately but still stained with blood and dirt.

  A knot constricted his throat and made it more difficult to breathe as he remembered how she’d fought to live. She’d fought the bastards who hurt her, fought back when the tiger tried to hunt her, and she’d been dragging herself to safety when he finally got to her to carry her the rest of the way. Surely that meant something. Surely that meant her will to live would carry her through or at least justify turning her. She wanted to live.

  He gulped for air and tested the words aloud, ignoring that the alpha remained at his right. “She fought to live. She wanted to survive.”

  “Fucking right she did,” Evershaw said. He didn’t move to push Dodge into the room, but he tensed. No doubt the alpha was prepared to incapacitate him if Persephone died and Dodge lost his fragile hold on control. Dodge didn’t know what the wolf would do if their mate died, if she went so far beyond him…

  He didn’t let the worst case outcome drag him down. Dodge gripped the door jamb as he stared at the medical professionals tossing supplies to each other and calling for another cart and more blood.

  Persephone wanted to live. Even if she hated him forever for taking ‘normal’ away from her… at least she’d be alive to hate him. He could survive if he knew she lived. It wouldn’t break him the same way her death would. She could find happiness with someone else, if it came down to it. That was what mattered.

  He had to clear his throat a few times before he could get the words out, still feeling like it was a betrayal of her trust. “I can give her blood without it turning her right away. Two bags won’t turn her but it might save her life.”

  “It’s a start,” the alpha said, and shoved Dodge into the room. “Blood donor. He’s universal and her mate. Hook him up.”

  “She’s human,” one of the nurses said. “It might not be enough unless it’s a full change.”

  “Start with two bags,” Evershaw said. “Then drain him if you need to. The rest of the pack will donate. I’m next if you can’t get enough from him.”

  Then Dodge was shoved onto another gurney and straps tightened around his arm, needles shoved into veins, going directly into hers. He squeezed his eyes shut. Let everyone think him squeamish about blood. It didn’t fucking matter. He knew he couldn’t see Persephone�
��s slack expression without it haunting him forever.

  He breathed through the feeling of his blood draining away, listening to the nurses talk about whole units, ratios, and blood oxygenation and other shit that he’d heard far too many times in field hospitals and emergency evacuations on helicopters.

  He focused on Persephone and all the ways he would make up for what he’d done, as soon as she regained her strength.

  Chapter 41

  Percy

  I didn’t recognize the room when I woke up. I hoped it was Dodge’s room in Deirdre’s house, somewhere cozy and warm where I could hide out and get over the awful migraine that clamped around my head. But the walls were white and there wasn’t any furniture. The awful fluorescent lights had been dimmed a little but not enough.

  And then there was all the noise. Beeping and cheeping and a steady tick-tick-tick that threatened to drive me out of my mind.

  Everything hurt but kind of distantly, like it wouldn’t flare up as long as I didn’t move. Or as long as they didn’t forget to give me more pain killers. I vaguely remembered being in the tiger enclosure and a massive wolf flying over the fence, but everything after that blurred into a gray fog that didn’t offer any hints on where the fuck I was.

  It took way too much effort to move my head so I could see more than just what was right in front of me – my legs hidden by white sheets and a blanket – but I managed to tilt my chin to see where some of the beeping came from.

  Wires and tubes connected to me and linked to other things behind me that I couldn’t see. I stopped caring about all that the moment I saw the broad shoulders occupying the chair immediately to my left. The dark hair and the scar on his shoulder where his t-shirt gapped and the tattoos made it clear who it was, even though it was impossible.

  Dodge had died, been shot by the fake cop at the door to my apartment. He was gone. My mind just tormented me with everything I would never have.

  My lips parted, though they were dry and cracked and tried to stick together. Maybe I could ask him whether he’d been the wolf in the tiger enclosure and why he was haunting me. If shifters and witches were real, then surely ghosts could also be real?

  My thoughts drifted as I tried to hold onto the right words, but I knew I wanted to touch him.

  His arm rested on the mattress next to my head, his face pressed into the crook of his elbow. If I could just touch him…

  My left hand twitched. It took forever for my brain to tell my arm to move. For a looooong moment, I wondered if I’d been paralyzed and no longer controlled my limbs. I blinked a few times and eventually my hand moved and drifted closer to where his hand rested on the mattress.

  He felt warm and solid. He felt real. My eyes narrowed as I tried to think through the pudding in my brain. I didn’t want to think too hard about it. I felt better with him there. I felt safe and secure, and knew everything would be okay because Dodge was with me. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen. I started to smile, or at least tried to convince my muscles to obey me, but darkness reached up and swallowed me again.

  He was gone the next time I dragged my eyes open. I felt his absence like a hole in my chest, a desperate ache that got worse with every second that passed. A whimper of sheer need, sheer grief, worked its way through my chest until it escaped.

  Someone immediately moved, sliding into view, and I braced myself as Deirdre suddenly loomed over me. “Moon above us, you’re back. You’re here. How do you feel?”

  I squinted and struggled to parse the sudden volley of words. It took monumental effort to whisper, “Awful.”

  I meant ‘awful’ because Dodge wasn’t there, that he was gone, rather than the physical pain. I wanted to explain, to ask her what happened, but Deirdre’s expression turned worried and she hit a button to call a nurse.

  “Just stay awake for me, babe. There’s something we have to talk about. You lost a lot of blood, and…”

  Her mouth kept moving but I couldn’t hear anything except a loud rushing sound. I tried to adjust how I lay as an odd tension pulled on one side of my chest. The heart monitor ticked up and up and up until an alarm went off. A flood of people entered the room and then Deirdre was shoved back to the perimeter as they pushed my bed flat and started thumping on my chest and doing all sorts of things.

  I exhaled and tried to tell her I loved Dodge, but nothing came out over the beeping. And then it was a struggle just to breathe.

  Chapter 42

  Dodge

  Dodge had forgotten how fragile humans truly were. He donated as much blood as he could afford to lose to Persephone, and would have given her the rest if the doctors and Evershaw had allowed it. His plan to only give her two bags of blood went out the window when it became clear how quickly it ran through her.

  The doctors thought that his blood helped slow the overall loss and started healing the many small wounds that had turned her into a sieve. The thought turned his stomach, but he knew that was why so much blood had hit the floor around the gurney.

  They wheeled him out of the way, since Dodge couldn’t even stand up on his own after donating, and hooked Evershaw up. The rest of the pack gathered in a silent line outside the door, ready to help, and made Dodge even more grateful that he’d found them after so long alone.

  When he finally stopped passing out every time he sat up, they let him wait in a chair next to her bed. The doctors thought they’d finally stabilized her. There were some internal issues still to be dealt with, but she needed rest and a chance for the shifter blood to work – if it was going to. Persephone still looked pale and slightly blue around the lips, and she didn’t move much even to breathe. She’d at least stopped bleeding.

  Dodge meant to stay awake, to stay with her, until she woke up – so she’d know she wasn’t alone. He didn’t want her to wake up afraid. He didn’t want her to think that the bad guys still had her and had just taken her somewhere else.

  The hours passed and he prayed for the first time in as long as he could remember. Even in the worst firefights and on the most dangerous missions, he hadn’t prayed. He hadn’t needed to – his training and his team carried him through. But saving Persephone was so far out of his control that he didn’t know what else to do.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed before Evershaw reappeared in the doorway. Dodge tensed, his wolf already on guard since Persephone remained weak and vulnerable, but the alpha remained far enough away that Dodge didn’t feel the need to attack.

  Evershaw’s expression was difficult to read. “You need to go back to the house, man. Shower, eat, sleep.”

  Dodge shook his head and returned all of his attention to Persephone’s pale face. He touched her hand, careful of the IVs and various wires that attached to her. “No.”

  “It’s been four days. You smell like shit, dude. I’m surprised she hasn’t woken up just to get away from you,” the alpha went on. His tone gained an edge. “And you haven’t eaten anything. You’ll be too weak to help her if she needs more blood. I’ll stay and guard her door for you from the hall, and Deirdre will be next to her here.”

  Dodge knew the alpha was probably right; he needed food and rest. Even though he fully intended to do that at the hospital, the fact that he didn’t know what day it was or how much time had passed made it clear he wasn’t succeeding. Evershaw must have seen the hesitation, because he stepped aside to allow Deirdre in and gestured for Dodge to get up. From there, everything that happened was a blur.

  He woke up in his bed back at the house with a pile of hamburger wrappers on the floor and no idea what day it was. His first thought was Persephone. After a shower and a fresh set of clothes, one of the youngsters drove him back to the hospital. The halls moved around him until he finally stood in front of her room once more. Evershaw remained in a chair outside the door, though he got up to open the door to let Dodge in. The alpha moved inside the door but no closer to Persephone.

  Dodge couldn’t look away from her face. Did she look healthier? Were
her cheeks pinker? Had some of the machines been removed? He couldn’t breathe as he eased closer and touched her hand.

  Deirdre got up and patted his shoulder. “She woke up for just a bit and asked for you. She went back out before I could ask her about being turned. I’m sorry, Dodge. I tried to ask her. I think she’s out of the woods but the doctors want to continue monitoring her for a while.”

  He tensed. “She woke up?”

  And he hadn’t been there. He’d walked away to sleep and shower, and while he indulged himself, his mate woke up and he wasn’t by her side when she needed him. Dodge sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m not leaving again.”

  “Dodge, surely...”

  “I’m not leaving her again.”

  The alpha and the witch lingered in the room, trying to reason with him, but Dodge ignored them. He didn’t have time or extra brain power for them. All of him belonged to Persephone. He held her hand and willed her to get better, to get stronger. He still had no idea if she’d changed from human to shifter, if enough of his blood had saved her and then turned her into a monster. His throat closed around the grief of knowing his time next to her was limited. The moment she found out what he’d done, Persephone would hate him. She’d leave. He would have to see her from a distance, keep an eye on things to make sure she was safe, but he would never be able to touch her again.

  Dodge had to memorize every moment of the remaining time with her. He would hold the memories close when she left him and all those cold, lonely nights stretched out into eternity. He concentrated on breathing, on keeping his heart beating despite the misery that awaited him. As long as Persephone was okay, he would survive. He had to survive.

  Chapter 43