by Erin R Flynn
“No, no, don’t leave me,” I begged him, feeding him more energy in small doses, worried I could hurt him by giving him too much. I shook off Theon. “I can’t do it. I can’t have him hate me like I hate Bernard for changing me!”
“I can,” Theon whispered, kissing my hair as Emilio helped him take off Brian’s jacket and shirt.
“No, I can save him,” I argued, kissing Brian and begging him to stay with me as I fed him energy. I didn’t stop this time, the shock I was in fighting the clawing fear as everything seemed too far away, like I was removed from it all instead of right there at the center of it.
I didn’t stop even when I heard someone yell for me to. No, I could save him. I could give him all my energy as long as he lived.
Brian had to live. I sobbed for him not to leave me, distantly feeling blood running over my legs and freaking the gunshot was worse or tearing. I fed him more energy and then everything got even more distant and I realized it wasn’t shock but my body reacting to giving him all the energy.
I blacked out before I realized I was even feeling faint.
Brian, please don’t leave me.
3
I woke with a gasp and in serious pain when I felt the plane land. Carter kissed me and I knew what he wanted, feeding deeply but then everything rushing back to me.
“He’s alive,” Carter promised when he realized I remembered.
I broke down sobbing, ugly, relieved, and just messy sobbing with snot and all of it. It took me several tries to ask him where Brian was and if we got the shooter.
“You need more energy,” he murmured, hugging me tightly. “Please, calm a bit and take it so you can stop spiraling.”
“Babe,” Brian whispered, and that one word made me snap out of my sobbing. I raised my head and met his worried gaze.
And found different eyes looking back at me than the ones I knew as his. My nose was too stuffed up for me to notice but the eyes were like a smack in the face.
Brian wasn’t human anymore.
Brian Havers was now a werewolf.
Instead of light green eyes they now were vivid jade green.
I started crying all over again. He didn’t want this.
“Yes, I did, babe,” he promised. “Sera, you need to feed. You completely depleted yourself helping me.”
Carter kissed me again and I fed some more before Emilio and a few others. I felt more in my head then, nodding I was okay. I took off my belt and slid to the floor, moving my upper body in Brian’s lap and hugging him as that was all I had the energy to do.
“I tried to save you,” I choked out. “It wasn’t okay for you to leave me.”
“Oh, Sera,” he rasped as he moved his hand in my hair. “Babe, I wasn’t going to leave you. I was trying to tell you it was okay to infect me.”
“What?” I gasped, my head snapping up so fast I heard something in my neck pop.
He nodded. “I’d already decided. I was going to tell you on your birthday that I asked Christos to infect me. I did the tests with Dr. Sloan and I have none of the genetic stuff that’s incompatible.” He gave me his soft smile that I’d only ever seen him give me, the boys, his mom and gram, and now Topher. “I want to marry you, Sera, and be with you forever, immortal with you and a wolf.”
I broke down sobbing all over again, not just in relief he wasn’t angry but he’d made that choice so we could be together, but because I hadn’t understood and it had almost cost him his life.
“She’s really spiraling and down on the tank,” Carter worried before he pulled me away from Brian. “Sera, you didn’t almost kill him. It took both you and Theon to save him, okay? He’s fine, we got the guy—let’s get home.”
“I’m never flying ever fucking again,” I choked out. “And neither are you now.”
“I agree,” Brian grumbled, groaning as he tried to stand. He waved me off, Emilio helping him. “I’m still a bit sore but I’m fine, okay? I need some fuel too, I guess.”
I snorted. Wow, was he in for a rude awakening on how much he really would eat now.
Dain was waiting for us at the airport at the private terminal, relief filling his eyes when he saw me and then Brian. He came over to me and lifted me up, wrapping me around him as he kissed me deeply. I fed and fed, knowing he could take it.
“You are never leaving again.”
“It’s my fault. I took off the fucking vest when I got on the plane but went to tell them something I forgot real quick and—” Brian explained.
“No one’s perfect,” Dain cut in. “And if you’d been wearing the vest, they might have aimed for your head. Clearly there was a massive spike of insanity in Russia to ever risk this at their huge tourist destination airport. I mean, I can’t even—none of us would have guessed they’d go this far, and we thought she was the target.”
“Killing him would have hurt me worse,” I whispered, knowing we’d considered that and that was why I had insisted on a team of ten guards for him if he was going to go.
“You’re both fine,” Dain murmured when I started shaking. “Let’s get home so Dr. Sloan can check out Brian just in case, okay? Jonik will get the new wolf settled and—”
“Crap, Grigori. I forgot. I was going to tell the regular FBI to clean out his apartment.”
“I did,” Emilio promised. “We gave them the keys after we got the—we handled it all, Sera.”
I nodded but then saw two guys coming off the plane in cuffs, snarling as Dain held me tightly. Clearly those were the ones involved in shooting Brian. Dain reminded me we needed them alive to figure everything out and I calmed down, glad when I saw Harris was there with a few agents from my office to collect them.
“Galvin says you both have the day off tomorrow for a long weekend,” Dain told me before I could even think of that.
I swallowed loudly; Brian had longer than that. He was out of the regular FBI now.
Fuck.
I climbed in one of the SUVs and reached for Brian’s hand when he got in as well. His fingers laced with mine and he gave me a tired smile, but his eyes were brimming with emotion.
“Thanks for the save, babe.”
“Don’t you dare ever leave me,” I rasped, moving my other hand over my face and trying to keep it together as we pulled away.
“You’re stuck with me now because you tell me all the time how durable you guys are,” he teased me, murmuring we were okay when I gave a watery laugh. He was the one who almost died so why was I the one in such a shit state?
“Because unlike when you saved me, you couldn’t get to him in time,” Dain said gently, feeling what I was. “You were that upset at thinking I would die and the hit was meant for you. This time was different.” He frowned and glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Stop with the guilt, Sera. The situation was fluid and traumatic. Everything is not on you.”
“He could have died because I didn’t understand he was giving me permission and instead thought he was saying goodbye to me,” I whispered, my heart hurting. “Because I default to people leaving me I wasn’t seeing—”
“Sera, I might have thought the same,” Dain argued. “He was dying, not speaking clearly, and you ignored him. Emilio said he thought Brian meant the same thing and Sander thought he was trying to tell you he wasn’t hurt so bad, okay? Carter and Theon said you did the right thing and saved him with Theon.”
“I’m not upset at all,” Brian added. “I’m grateful and clearly you did it right because I’m here. I didn’t want to leave you and I fought like you said. Leave the rest so we can just enjoy that.”
I glanced at him as we drove along the expressway, the traffic pretty light for eight on a Thursday, but people were trying to get home earlier because of the cold. “Did you really decide and talk to Christos?”
“I really did,” he promised. He brought my hand to his lips before I could even figure out what to ask first. “Tomorrow, Sera. Leave it all for tomorrow. I’m spiraling but we’re alive and that’s all that matter
s today.”
“Okay,” I agreed, wiping my hand over my face and trying to keep it together. We’d been so close to disaster and diverted it but that wouldn’t be the way always… Then again, we hadn’t always. I’d been abducted and put through a night of horrors I was still recovering from.
Well, a few, but Igor always came to the front of my mind first. Now Brian was a wolf and even if he’d planned to do it, not like this.
No, we didn’t divert disaster, we just sometimes managed not to lose everything even if we’d lost people like Riley and Ross. Tristan was gone traveling and it didn’t seem like he’d ever be back. Yeah, we’d had losses for sure.
But we could have a lot more. I didn’t know if the fight was worth it.
“Yes, it is,” Dain said gently as he pulled into the parking garage of the apartment, knowing where my mind had gone. “I know you’re reeling but we saved the boys and Topher and even saved Brian today. We’ve saved so many and we can’t win every battle, but the fight we fight is worth it.”
I nodded I heard him and even agreed but right then I just didn’t want to get into it. I really didn’t. I couldn’t.
The boys were waiting at the apartment with a ton of food along with the Hagan, Reagan, and Noah, all looking relieved when they saw us.
Tommy and Leo reached Brian first, both crying as they were the closest with him. He hugged them both and waved for the other boys, promising them we were fine.
“No more leaving Chicago,” Ben declared.
“We agree, but it’s not reality,” Brian assured him. “No more walking into traps. That’s a fair one to say we’re done with.”
“Agreed,” I muttered, several others echoing us as we got in on the group hug.
“No Topher?” Brian asked, and we all winced.
“Bri, you can’t be around Topher for a while,” I told him gently.
Pain filled his eyes and he nodded. “Right, forgot about that. You’re always in such control but—”
“You might be too,” Reagan assured him. “Milo and the others adjusted fast. We’ll know more once you shift.”
“The signal to look out for is when you feel itchy or want to pace,” I explained. “And it might just be you holding him alone like with the boys. We’ll see.”
Brian nodded. “Yeah, whatever’s best for Topher. Just not used to it all or seriously how hungry I am. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this hungry in my life.”
“You’ll get used to that as your new norm,” I drawled.
We ignored the dried blood on both of us and headed to the counter where there were gobs of food waiting. Hagan told Brian to dig in and not worry about carbs or calories anymore but meat would help him finish healing faster.
It took me a minute to think about how he was even on his feet as I hadn’t just gotten right back up after healing, but the flight had been about twelve hours with the stop to fuel I’d slept through. And while my injuries had been severe, they weren’t shot in the chest with a rifle bullet bad and the claws had infected me while hurting me.
I was still relieved when Dr. Sloan showed up and gave Brian a quick once-over.
“Okay, best educated guess from what Theon and Carter have already told me is Sera giving you energy helped your body stabilize to be infected and speed the process along,” he explained before looking at me. “Like we’ve discussed, you can’t cure cancer or heal humans who don’t have regenerative abilities like we do.”
And there it was. That had been the piece I’d been missing in my shock and panic. I’d been thinking I could heal Brian like I would a supe, but human bodies didn’t act that way.
“Crap.”
Dr. Sloan shook his head. “It was still the right instinct because you kept his body hanging on so Theon could get the infection going. Then you sped it all up. My best guess was the bullet didn’t hit his heart full on from where they told me but clipped one of the upper aorta branches. He couldn’t have healed from that or gotten to the hospital in time as bullets tend to shred, not make incisions.”
“What next?” Brian asked as he could see how upset we all were at thinking about it.
“Now you fuel up and your body will rapid heal,” he answered. “You’ll feel some burning in your chest, maybe like heartburn if you’ve gotten that, but that’s your body fixing every inch of you. The rest is you’re down on the tank after losing all that blood. If you have any other questions, we can get into specifics but they know how to help you. Sera knows how to be a new wolf.”
I snorted and several people smiled. Right, I was the one who should give much advice on that as I seemed to still struggle with it every day.
“You won’t have a recovery time,” Dr. Sloan finished, understanding what Brian was trying to get at. “Just listen to your body. If you’re hungry, eat. Thirsty, drink. Tired, sleep. We’re very easy like that as supes.” He gave me a glance as if saying maybe not all of us.
“Hey, if people explain things I get it then,” I grumbled.
“Yes, you are a great patient and people just need to be blunt.” He glanced at Brian. “You’ve got my number if you need me.”
“Thanks, Doc, really,” he sighed, looking relieved to hear it was the official assessment. Yeah, I could understand still feeling like it would take weeks of being on the mend after such an injury.
It wasn’t like there was a switch to flip to grasp what being a supe was like.
“And nothing too strenuous for at least a day,” Dr. Sloan chuckled as he headed to the door.
I wasn’t sure what he meant or why he’d gone there… Until I realized Brian and I were staring at each other like we were next on the menu.
“I just want to shower,” I admitted, the dried blood adding to my upset. Brian nodded and stood, extending his hand to me. “We’ll be back.”
“We ordered more food so we’ll handle it,” Noah said, giving me a quick kiss trying to get me to feed some more, so I did. “Glad you’re home.”
“Me too,” I sighed. Fuck, no more leaving. I slid my hand in Brian’s and we headed for the master bathroom. He turned on the water while I hurried to get off his bloodstained clothes.
“We’re okay,” he whispered as he hugged me to him. He felt the same though as we undressed in a flash, tossing it all over to the garbage.
I pulled him into the shower with me and the moment the water touched him I needed to get all the blood off. I soaped him all up and checked every inch of him to make sure it was gone, focusing on where he was shot like I thought a scar might magically appear instead of the smooth skin that showed nothing.
“I need you,” he muttered as he pushed my hair out of my face. It was long like it had been before I was abducted, my wounds and body healed from that ordeal as well.
“Always,” I whispered against his lips as he leaned down to kiss me. He spun me around and his fingers were desperate but then he couldn’t wait, pushing in my body but giving me a moment to adjust in his frenzy.
Well, our frenzy as I was right there with him.
“Love you,” he growled as his hands moved to my breasts. “Love you, Sera.”
“Love you too,” I moaned as he pumped his hips faster. He slammed in me deeper, like he needed every centimeter he could get inside of me. I loved it, moving my hips back to meet his.
And I felt his wolf. Sex between us had always been amazing but it was another level now that he smelled of wolf and comfort, home and mine even. It got me so hot that when we finished I wasn’t done with him.
I let him clean us up and then knelt, licking him as I smirked up at him.
“Shit, something very serious is going on in me,” he admitted, blinking at me. “Is this that whole you’re my Alpha thing?”
“Welcome to the fun,” I purred. “You felt it during the sex, right?”
“Yeah, you were home and it… Fuck, yes.”
“Say I’m your Alpha,” I teased him, not sucking on him until he did.
And then he sounded mor
e wolf than man.
“Shit, everything is more sensitive and just more,” he moaned when we were done and finished showering. He pulled me against him and ran his nose along my shoulder and neck. “Fuck, even that. It’s just more. I was so scared and now I’m just excited.” He groaned. “I can smell you’re excited. That’s what I smell, yeah? It’s like turning on a light that I know you’re turned on.”
“Yes, that’s what you’re smelling,” I admitted, not able to fib even if it was embarrassing.
Which was how we ended up having sex again on the counter.
“Nothing strenuous,” I reminded him when he was eyeing me over as if thinking we should have another round. “And there’s more food we need to eat.”
“Fine, but I’m staying over and getting more of you,” he grumbled, flinching when I growled in warning. “Okay, that turned me on and I feel a knot in my stomach I can’t explain.”
“That’s because you annoyed your Alpha,” Hagan said from the doorway of the bedroom. “You have an Alpha right away and one you acknowledge and respect. You’ll feel that when she’s upset with you.”
“I didn’t know that,” I admitted.
“Because you’re Alpha and not under someone,” he chuckled.
Brian gave me a confused look. “Sorry, I feel…”
“Yeah, I remember that feeling,” I sighed. “I’m sorry too. We’ll have to figure this out. It won’t be all fun and some of it is really hard to get used to.”
He nodded. “Plus now you’re my boss.”
I snorted as I tossed him a towel before wrapping one around myself. “I’ve been your boss since you asked me to be with you for real.”
“Amen to that,” Hagan agreed as I came out of the bathroom.
I studied him as I went over to him. “Are we okay?”
He nodded, giving me a soft kiss. “Yeah, just all over.”
“I’m getting something else off of you,” I worried. “What?”
“My wolf feels off,” he answered elusively but glanced at the bathroom.
Ahhh, there was another wolf in my bed and one closer to me than the twins were. Only Hagan and I were back to having sex. Every time I almost went there with Reagan, one of us pulled away. I reached up and cupped Hagan’s cheek. “This doesn’t change anything but him joining us on full moons. I still love you and Reagan as much as I did before.”