“Kavan, stay with me.” Valerie’s voice came from the end of a long tunnel. “Stay with me. Don’t leave me now. You have to open your eyes, okay? Open your eyes.”
Weren’t they already open? Kavan struggled to feel his body but all he felt was the pain and blood. His vision was dark but somehow, he could see Valerie’s face clearly. Light surrounded her, like a halo. She smiled brilliantly at him, holding her hand out. They were walking through a golden wheat field and children ran with them. Their children.
“Kavan!” Her voice came from behind him, so far away. “Please. Please, you can’t… you have to fight. You have to hold on. Please.” And before her voice faded away, before even the vision of her walking at his side disappeared, he heard one last thing. “I love you.”
***
Tears ran down her cheeks as Valerie collapsed onto the hospital bed she had been put into. She’d suffered some lacerations and some whiplash in the attack, but she’d gotten off lucky. That was the extent of the damage she had suffered. Not like Kavan. He’d been torn up very badly. One arm almost completely amputated, the other shattered horribly. Not to mention the bullets lodged in his body.
It’s all my fault.
As soon as she arrived, they had taken him to the OR. Nobody knew anything and so nobody could tell her anything. All she knew was that she was laying here, alone, while the doctor who looked over her went to get some pain meds.
She didn’t want pain meds. She wanted to find the OR and see for herself if Kavan was even still alive. Anxiety and fear made it impossible to sit still. Just as she was getting up again, though, the curtain to the little examination room opened. The doctor frowned at her.
“You need to just lay back and rest. We have to make sure you didn’t suffer any other injuries in the crash.”
They didn’t know the story about what had happened, and Valerie was too distraught to try to tell them. She shook her head and tried to get up, but the doctor put a hand on her arm. The gentleness of the action was more retraining than handcuffs would have been. Reluctantly, Valerie laid down.
“I’m going to give you something for the pain and to help you relax.”
“I don’t want to be drugged out.”
“I know. This will just take the edge off.” The doctor handed her a little cup with pills in it. “And we’re going to start an IV for fluids and electrolytes. You’re seriously out of balance. Have you been eating properly lately?”
Valerie sighed, forcing herself to admit that she hadn’t. Since she started pulling away from Kavan, the whole eating thing had gone downhill quickly again.
If she could go back and change things, she would in a heartbeat. Why had she said those things? What had she been hoping to accomplish? Whatever it was, she knew it wasn’t worth it. And now, she was forced to face the fact that she was nothing but a hypocritical bitch who ruined her own life and tried to pin it on the first man who was actually a good boyfriend to her.
Tears renewed and the doctor patted her arm. “He’s a shifter and we have very good surgeons. He’s going to be fine.”
“But what is he going to suffer before he’s fine?” Valerie murmured, turning her face away. She was so ashamed of herself!
The drugs did help her calm down, physically at least. Valerie lay in that bed, undergoing a test every now and then to make sure that she hadn’t been too badly injured. The police came and talked to her and she told them everything she could about Kavan wanting to turn against Lancaster and Lancaster taking him out of the city to kill him.
Camille arrived after a few hours, her face pinched with worry. She hugged Valerie tightly and asked, “How did you find him?”
“I saw them. I recognized Lancaster’s limo and followed them. I lost them for a bit, but I guess I arrived just in time.”
Camille squeezed her hand. “I talked with the doctors. They say the surgery is going well. They’ve been able to reattach his arm, which is good.”
Valerie nodded. Fresh tears spilled over her eyes as the image of him, bleeding and lifeless, came back to her. “I should have realized I loved him long before this happened. I should have told him.”
“Of course, he knows.” Camille put a comforting arm around her. “It’s impossible not to know. You light up like a Christmas tree every time he comes into the room. And he wants you to marry him, so of course, he knows that you love him.”
Right. She didn’t know. Valerie had been so wrapped up in her own difficulties and pain that she had forgotten entirely that Camille didn’t know everything. She hesitated a moment, wondering if she should say it or not. She decided that it was too complicated to try to start explaining now, even though Camille wouldn’t understand the depths of why she was so upset now.
Valerie scrubbed her hand over her eyes. “I just never told him how much I loved him.”
“Like you said, you didn’t even realize it.” Camille sighed as she shook her head. “But that’s not difficult when you’re trying to play a con against the world.”
Valerie looked at her, startled.
“I knew,” Camille said, nodding at her, a smirk tugging at her lips. “You don’t think you can suddenly announce that you’re engaged to an ex-con who has been helping you look for someone who is going after your job without your PA knowing that you’ve never been on a date with said ex-con and that you have no investigations going on?”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I thought if I did, you’d chicken out.” Camille grinned at Valerie’s expression and patted her hand. “I saw the interest in both of your eyes whenever you looked at each other long before you decided to act on it. And I’m not lying, you light up when you see him. I wanted you to have some happiness and it seemed to me like he was your best chance. He is going to make it through this. And the two of you? You’re going to make it through, too.”
Valerie wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She nodded slowly, her heart sinking as she considered everything they were going to have to fight through now. She picked up her phone, which Camille had brought, and stared down at it. The lock screen was a picture of her and Kavan. It was a ridiculous, cliché couple pose but now… now she wanted more than anything to have that moment back.
The curtains yanked open and Governor Bloom stepped in. His eyes were lit up with triumph even though he attempted to have a semi-convincing expression of concern on his face.
Valerie hid her phone beneath the blankets and swiped the camera up. “What are you doing?”
Bloom glanced at Camille, who had tensed. “I want to talk to judge Gilson on my own.”
Camille shivered but planted herself firmly in his way. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I am the governor—”
“And you don’t deserve the position. Valerie has been through something very traumatic and—”
“Unless you want to go to jail with her, I suggest you leave.” Bloom scowled, not even pretending now.
Valerie leaned forward and touched Camille’s arm. “Go on. I’ll be fine.”
Camille looked between them before she nodded. She skirted past the governor and Valerie straightened. She would have preferred to have this conversation when she was dressed in more than a hospital robe but there wasn’t anything to do about that. She started recording on her phone and adjusted its position so it wouldn’t be too muffled.
“Well, Judge Gilson. You really fucked yourself over this time, didn’t you?” Bloom’s eyes were bright, the smirk growing more pronounced on his face. “Associating with Kavan McBride wasn’t enough for you, was it? Now you’ve gone and had all sorts of connections with organized crime. And murder! With a stolen weapon no less.”
The feeling of the gun going off in her hand, the look of the life draining from Lancaster’s eyes, came back to her. She’d spent plenty of time on the gun ranges. She wasn’t the kind of person to own a gun herself, but she enjoyed the power behind hitting her target again and again.
The stolen weapon part was going to be tricky. Technically, she hadn’t had any right to have that gun. Technically, if she said that Philip had let her borrow it before they split up and she found Lancaster’s limo, he would be in a lot of trouble as well. She wasn’t even sure if he had it legally.
She was going to have to wait until she had calmed down and could speak to a lawyer to address that point.
“Murder?” she repeated. It was the best she could counter. “That was self-defense. Lancaster would have killed me and Kavan. Those two shifters were trying to kill us both. Lancaster also led one of the most dangerous mafia groups in the city. You can’t tell me that people are really going to want to see me prosecuted for defending myself and my fiancé against a crime boss.”
Bloom shrugged. “I don’t care. I don’t even have to prosecute you. I’ll find something else, I’m sure. Doesn’t matter, though, because you have given me more than enough to fire your fat ass right now. You thought that you were better than me, didn’t you? Thought you could just shove your shifter’s agenda down my throat. Well, we’ll see about that now. You’re a disgrace, and I am going to enjoy stripping everything from you.”
She had suspected that this was what it was about. The fact that he saw shifters as lesser and that what she was doing was an ‘agenda’. “How is keeping people who don’t deserve to be in jail out of jail an agenda? How is trying cases with as much fairness as possible an agenda?”
“How’s it an agenda,” he sneered back, pitching his voice higher. “Stupid bitch. I know what you’re after; you want those animals to be better than us. You want them to walk all over humans. It’s not going to happen. Ever. My grandfather used to hunt them for sport, I’m not going to let them rule this country!”
Anger surged through her body, but she fought it down. She had to get him to say something more incriminating than that…
“And Kavan’s case? Why did you get it tossed out? Just to hurt my career?”
Bloom smiled widely. “Of course. An animal like that, he’s going to get himself killed sooner or later. And if I could take you down in the meantime… well, why not? Women shouldn’t be allowed in the courts to begin with and you with your bleeding heart and your shifter agenda—What is that?”
Valerie jumped.
Bloom was on her in an instant, grappling at her hand. She let out a short scream as he wrenched the phone from her. His face turned purple with rage as he saw it was recording; he dropped the phone and crushed it beneath his foot, stomping down again and again.
“You think you can outsmart me, you bitch? You think you can do that, huh? I am going to destroy your life. I’m going to take everything you care about, and when I’m done with you, I’m going to fuck you until you can’t walk. I’m going to break your jaw as I shove my cock down your throat.”
Valerie shrank back, terror rushing through her. She’d had rape threats before but never anything so violent. As her breath caught in her throat, though, the curtains opened. Security came in and grabbed Bloom by the arms, dragging him back.
And Valerie saw Camille. Her phone was out, her face pale, as she did something on it.
“What are you doing?” Bloom demanded.
“Sending the video I just made to every major news outlet in the country.” Camille glared at him, though she trembled from head to foot. “Good luck getting reelected, you scumbag!”
Bloom let out a howl like a wounded animal. Valerie still sat there, her heart hammering, as he was dragged away. And relief washed over her. Whether or not she kept her job, one thing was for certain—he was going to have a hard time explaining this one away to all but his most blinded followers.
The doctor who had been looking after her came rushing in. She checked her quickly.
“I’m fine.” Valerie rubbed the hand he’d grabbed. “I’m fine.”
The doctor looked unconvinced but sighed. “Kavan is out of surgery. It looks like he’s going to keep both arms. We’ll give it an hour and then you can go sit with him, okay?”
Valerie’s heart was so full of gratitude that she couldn’t speak. All she could do was cry; he was going to be okay!
Chapter Thirteen
The pressure of a hand in hers, fingers pressing against her palm, is what woke Valerie. She lifted her head, wincing as her neck ached. She had been leaning over the side of Kavan’s bed, head resting on her arms while one hand rested over Kavan’s. His arms were swathed in bandages. Blinking, she glanced at his face.
His eyes were still closed, the bruises on his face having faded to a dull green-yellow, but his fingers were moving, clutching at her hand. Her heart leapt and she leaned forward, her eyes brightening as she stroked his hair from his face with her free hand.
“Kavan?” she breathed. Her lungs felt like they were just a little too small for her chest, worry eating at her from the inside out. “Kavan, are you awake?”
He turned his head, pressing his cheek to her palm. “If I’m not, this is a very painful dream.”
Valerie choked on a laugh and sob at the same time. She continued to stroke his hair from his face and leaned closer. “You did nearly have your arm torn off and the other one got shattered pretty bad. The doctors were able to put you back together, but there could be lasting damage. We won’t know for a few weeks yet…”
His eyes opened sleepily, and he smiled at her. “But you’re safe, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m safe.”
He frowned and one of his hands jerked up. He winced and let it fall back down, groaning.
“Don’t move,” Valerie scolded sternly. “Didn’t you hear what I just said about your arms?”
“Always so pushy.”
“You bet your ass I’m pushy.”
Kavan shook his head slowly. “You’re hurt, though. He hurt you.”
There was a small bruise on her cheek and that was where his eyes locked. Valerie kissed his forehead and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine, I promise. In better shape than you are.”
“But Lancaster—”
“Is dead.” Valerie swallowed thickly. She wouldn’t tell him that she was the one who had killed Lancaster, not yet at least. “And there was a big break in the case against Matthew. He’s pled guilty and helped to bring down his partners. We’ve got over a hundred kids that we were able to save.”
Kavan’s frown deepened. “How long have I been out?”
“Almost two days. The doctors started to worry about neurological damage.”
“Nah, I wasn’t hit in my head.” Kavan leaned back, apparently tired from the conversation already. “It’s the damage. You say my arm was ripped off?”
“Almost.”
Kavan glanced at the casts on both arms. “Well, that explains it. My body was directing so much energy to heal that it didn’t have enough to keep me awake. If I’m awake now, it means the worst of it’s been healed.”
“Can you move your fingers?”
Valerie watched anxiously as Kavan’s face screwed up. He wiggled his fingers on both hands, and Valerie held in a cry of relief. She hadn’t known what she would do if he lost use of one of his arms, all because he was trying to protect her. But she didn’t have to worry about that and, more importantly, neither did he. She kissed him lightly, blinking back the tears sliding down her face.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, Kavan McBride.”
“Love you, too.” Kavan gazed at her for a long moment, the smile on his face looking more sad than happy. “I almost never got a chance to say it. I love you. I should never have walked away from you that day.”
“I should never have told you to leave.”
“Guess we’re both a couple of asses, eh?” Kavan cracked a grin.
Valerie laughed. “Yeah. Guess we are. But that’s not exactly news, is it? I mean, come on. Look at us. We’re stubborn, pig-headed and pretended to be engaged for how many weeks? Then we open up and are honest with each other and it nearly tears us apart.”
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“Yeah, that was pretty stupid.” His eyes were starting to sink again, and Valerie stroked her fingers through his hair, happy enough that he had woken at all that she didn’t mind if he went back to sleep. Truthfully, he needed it. As much as she would have liked to continue talking with him, she preferred for him to get better quickly. “You should try to sleep again. Your body still has a long way to go before it’s healed.”
“Hmm.” Kavan nodded slightly, his body relaxing again. “Whatever drugs they’ve got me on are pretty good, too.”
“Yeah, well, they have to be good in order to be effective for a shifter, your metabolism is so fast.”
Kavan didn’t respond. He sank back down, and Valerie leaned back in her chair. Her back was aching from the way she had slept slumped over, and she stood to stretch, moving quietly so as to not disturb him. Her movements did disturb him, though, and his eyes snapped back open.
“Wait,” he said, sternly. “Not time for that yet.”
“Not time for what?”
“Sleeping.” He struggled to sit up, and it wasn’t until Valerie sat on the edge of the bed and put both hands on his shoulders that he stopped. He let out an annoyed huff as he tried to lift one of his arms. That made him gasp in pain and finally, he let himself relax once more. “There is something very important I need to ask you.”
Valerie nodded at him to continue.
“I was just hoping… In a couple of months, maybe we can get engaged for real. After we do some real dating and stuff, I mean.”
Her heart warmed as she nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great.”
His smile beamed like the sun. “Great! I’ll get a new ring, then. One that I didn’t find on the side of the road.”
“I don’t know, I kind of like our street ring. It suits us, somehow. Unexpected but beautiful.”
Kavan arched one brow and snorted. “Okay. Okay, that’s fine. We can use the old one, then. And now it’s time to sleep. Maybe when I wake up next time, I will be able to pick you up and swing you around and around.”
“You’re not doing that for a while,” Valerie said firmly. “Not until you’re fully recovered.”
The Shifter's Fake Fiancé Page 15