by E. A. Copen
For the last day, his thoughts had centered around how he might die. He’d always imagined it would be on his feet, with his back to his would-be assassin. The blow would be swift, the death quicker than he deserved. And it would be Jackie who delivered that final blow. It was a child’s duty to see to their parents, and this task he trusted to no one but her. That clear picture had always brought him some peace.
Only now that he faced dying alone in a strange bed in a foreign land, he faced the prospect of his own death terrified. He’d lost control of his body, and his sanity held only by a thread. This must’ve been what it was like for most old men to die. No, not even them. Even they wouldn’t have scared their children away like he had, and run off every lover or friend for fear he’d someday have to kill them.
Dying alone. Who would’ve thought him so afraid of such a thing?
He coughed and sputtered, the weight on his chest fighting him. If only he knew what had made him laugh! There was nothing funny. He felt no fingers tickling him like in the stories of the Mahaha, only that his strength waned with every new burst, and his resolve to keep fighting, keep living, went with it.
And then, as quickly as the fit of laughter had come upon him, it was gone. The weight on his chest dissipated. No cackles or guffaws or even chuckles escaped his lips. Was it over?
Mandy rushed to his side, her soft little hands gripping his. “Bo?”
“It’s over,” he rasped. Sweat trickled over his forehead. “Jackie and Nic have done what I could not.”
Mandy threw her arms around him and squeezed. His shirt dampened as the girl cried genuine tears of joy and relief. “I’m so glad you’re not dead!”
Bo wasn’t really sure what to do with a crying woman. He’d never been much good at that. Usually, if a woman was crying over him, it was because he was on his way out the door. This was totally new.
He fought the urge to climb out of bed, even as dirty and disgusting as he was, and run for the door. You can’t keep running, old man. Gotta care about someone sometime again.
Another old fear surfaced. The last person he had let himself care for had died because of him. Without his pills, he hadn’t endured a peaceful night’s sleep ever since. Love had ruined him. Friendship had made his work even more impossible. There was a reason he’d turned his back on everyone he’d known and cared about before he came to work for Lou. Broken was the only thing he knew how to be.
Screw that, he thought. After she sat with you through everything? Are you just going to lie there, old man, and let some little girl cry over you? Pathetic.
Bo lifted a shaky hand and patted Mandy on the back. “There, there, girl. Everything’s going to be okay.”
She leaned back and wiped tears from her eyes, nodding.
Bo tried for a smile. “Now, how about something to eat?”
After a long shower and a small meal, Bo found the strength to call Lou and make a quick report. He didn’t get two words in before Lou told him they were to meet in Anchorage. He’d already arranged everything with the pilot and the weather would be clearing momentarily. Lou hung up without ceremony, and without giving Bo the chance to say anything else.
Bo stared at the phone in his hand and sighed. That was how he was, Lou Ganner. Always two steps ahead of the rest of them.
Donna knocked on the door. Bo recognized her scent even before turning around. She was dressed in her work uniform, a small suitcase in one hand. The expression on her face was lost somewhere between grieving and worry.
Bo put the phone down immediately. “What is it?”
“It’s Nic. And Jackie too. It’s serious.”
His heart leapt into his throat.
No. The girl wasn’t allowed to die, not until he had the chance to make up for all the wrong he’d done.
Bo flipped his suitcase closed and fastened it in two quick motions, grabbing his hat from the end of the bed and placing it on his head. “Take me to them.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
J ackie woke up in a warm bed with her head elevated and something annoying pinching the middle finger on her left hand. Before opening her eyes, she let her other senses take charge. She could tell it was a hospital based on the chemical clean smell. Another scent sat atop all the bleach and metal in the room, a familiar one like the ash of an old fire in the woods.
She let a smile touch her lips. “Good to know you’re alive, old man.”
Bo grunted, the sound placing him on her left and slightly below her. The bed must’ve been elevated. “Me? You’re the one who almost died of frostbite and hypothermia.”
Jackie opened her eyes and her gaze met the white ceiling of an unfamiliar room. Somewhere outside the door, a tone sounded followed by a page for staff. The smile faded as the final moments out on the ice came back to her. The look in Tara’s eyes… Had it been regret or relief she felt when she decided to jump to her death? Drowning certainly wouldn’t be the way Jackie would’ve chosen to go, but it was in line with the legend Osha had told them.
At the edge of her consciousness, she felt a small tug at her wolf. Nic. He was alive, too. She opened that connection and her right arm was suddenly flooded with stinging pain shooting from the elbow to her fingertips. She snapped the connection closed in response and the pain stopped.
“You were luckier than Nic,” Bo said when Jackie looked at him questioningly.
She ripped the oxygen monitor off her finger and cast it aside before grabbing the blankets.
“Whoa there.” Bo jumped up from the rocking chair he’d been sitting in and put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not ready to be up and around just yet.”
Jackie growled at him and spoke through clenched teeth. “You’re standing between me and my mate. I suggest you let me go before I make room to pass.”
Bo raised his hands in surrender and took a step back, but it wasn’t fear or concern that touched the corners of his eyes. It was happiness…and a hint of sadness.
She didn’t have time to sort out how Bo was feeling. She needed to see Nic.
Her fingers wrapped around the stand holding the bag of saline flowing through a narrow tube into her arm and she slid her legs over the side of the bed. No part of her looked missing or damaged, at least partly in thanks to being a werewolf instead of a normal human. That would have let her heal from any minor frostbite with enough time. When she put her feet on the floor, her toes ached, and she noted they were swollen, but all ten were still there.
Bo turned to grab a pair of ugly neon yellow hospital socks from a stand next to him, holding them out to her. She grabbed them and begrudgingly slid them on, but only because the floor was too cold, and she didn’t want to step in some unidentifiable bodily fluid. Socks on, IV stand in hand, she shuffled to the door.
It opened as soon as she reached it and a petite nurse stopped halfway through pulling on her gloves and stared at her, surprised. “Miss Wheeler! I didn’t expect to see you up and moving around just yet.”
She shifted her grip on the IV stand and worked to calm the panicked wolf inside. “I need to find Nic.”
“Dominic Amaruq,” Bo explained.
The nurse’s face lightened with understanding and she pushed open the door. “He’s next door. I’ll take you to him.”
She led Jackie into a bright hallway with buzzing lights overhead. Nurses bustled around a station on the other side of the hall, but didn’t pay her any attention beyond a curious glance or two. Her escort moved to the door just down the hall but paused outside the door. “He was sleeping just a minute ago.”
“I’ll be quiet,” Jackie promised, though she couldn’t promise not to wake him.
The nurse nodded and slowly pushed open the door on a darkened room. A sliding curtain stood between the door and the bed, blocking Nic from view.
“I’ll be right outside if you need me,” the nurse offered.
Jackie nodded and ventured inside. She slid around the curtain and found Nic lying asleep, just as the nurse h
ad said. His head was rolled to one side, chin tucked against his shoulder. Her eyes fell on his right arm, which lay on a stack of pillows. There was nothing left of it below the elbow. That explained the pain she felt when she opened the link.
That’s right. Tara had taken it, attached it to herself. Probably as revenge for when Nic cut off her arm, or maybe just because she was twisted by the madness she let take her. She’d hoped against all odds that Amarok’s mantle would help heal him, but perhaps the wolf spirit had expended itself just keeping him alive. Had he rid himself of the mantle? There was no way to be sure, not yet.
She stepped closer and put a hand on the pillow near what was left of the arm. The hospital staff had wrapped it in compression bandages. No drainage tubes ran out of the bandages, which meant it was already closed and healed.
“Bet you’re regretting your choice of mate about now,” his tired voice croaked out.
Jackie raised her eyes from the injury to meet his sleepy gaze. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Does it hurt?”
His throat worked to swallow before he answered, “Not right now. They’ve got me on some good painkillers. Itches like hell, though.”
The news wasn’t as much of a relief as she thought it would be.
“If you want to change your mind, you know it’s not impossible to undo,” Nic said.
“Don’t be an idiot.” She punctuated the harsh words by placing her palm on the side of his face. “You faced down a nightmarish tickle monster. I’d say she let you off pretty easy considering. Besides, do you think you’re the first werewolf to lose a limb? We’ll get through it. Think of the war stories you can tell now. Bet no one else in your pack has such an impressive scar.”
Nic offered a weak smile and placed his hand over hers. “I don’t think I have a pack anymore.” He turned his head and flexed his arm. “I’m not fit to lead, not like this.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit and you know it!”
He lifted her hand from his face and shook his head. “It’s not just the arm. I’ll need physical therapy. It’ll take months, maybe years just for me to learn to Change like this, let alone get around on three legs as a wolf.”
“But you already Changed! When you wore the mantle of Amarok. Don’t you remember?”
Nic blinked sleepily and shook his head. “Barely remember anything from that night. One minute, I’m sitting in Osha’s hut talking to you, and the next thing I know I wake up here.”
She started to speak again, but he cut her off.
“Even if I did resume leadership when I was recovered, they can’t wait. They need guidance now to get them through this. They watched family die. The pack was ripped apart, Jackie. I can’t be what they need me to be. This is what’s best for the pack, another leader.”
As much as she wanted to disagree, she knew he was right. The damage done to the North Slope Borough pack was irreparable without a strong alpha in place, and Nic needed to focus on his recovery. He wasn’t the kind of leader who could rule from the rear. If he couldn’t run with his pack, he couldn’t help them.
Worse, there was no one left with enough dominance instinct to lead. Vince and Aspen had already begun to doubt Nic’s ability to lead before he lost his arm. The two of them would likely challenge him if he tried. That left Donna, who Jackie had only met briefly but seemed too busy with her day job to run a pack. Mandy, the omega, wasn’t even an option.
“What happens to a pack without an alpha?” Nic asked.
“The pack dissolves. Anyone who wants to stay in the area without a pack becomes a lone wolf. Most everyone goes somewhere else.”
He turned his head aside. “We’re in Anchorage, you know. I saw Mandy earlier today. Bryce, Vince, Aspen, and Donna all flew down here after us. They’ve been asking to see me, but I didn’t know what to say to them. I don’t know what to do, Jackie. I just feel so lost.”
She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “You’re not lost. There’s a place for you, for everyone until you’ve all recovered.”
Behind her, the curtain moved aside, and Bo peered in, hands shoved into his pockets. The curtain moved even further aside and a broad-shouldered man with a short gray beard stepped in next to Bo. He wore a sweater vest over a crisp white button-up. He peered at them with sharp blue eyes behind a pair of bifocals. “Dominic Amaruq,” he said, removing his glasses and folding them. “My name is Llewellyn Ganner. You may know me as Lou.” He tucked the glasses into the pocket of the sweater vest. His crow’s feet deepened as he offered Nic a smile. “I’m going to take good care of you and your pack, don’t you worry.”
Nic sat up and tried to stumble through a proper greeting.
Lou dismissed the effort with a wave of his hand. “I’m really old, Nic. I don’t have time for bullshitting, so here’s how this is going to work. Once the hospital releases you, you’ll be coming to Whitehorse with me, along with what remains of your pack. We’ll rehabilitate you there. Once you’re a hundred percent, you’re free to go, but until then I’m keeping you under close watch.”
Nic’s eyes moved from Lou to Jackie and then to Bo. “Am I in trouble?”
“Not yet.” Lou nodded and turned to duck out of the room.
“I don’t understand,” Nic said. “I’m his prisoner, but I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Look, kid,” Bo said, gesturing with one hand, “Lou’s not much for talking, so let me explain it to you. You’ve been through a lot. Until we know how this is all going to affect you, Lou thinks it’s best for you to stay where he can keep an eye on you. If you go crazy, or start showing even the slightest hint that you might, he’ll pick up the phone and call me to come and put you down.”
“And I’m sure you’ll take absolutely no pleasure in that.”
Bo grinned. “’Course not. What kind of person would I be if I enjoyed killing my daughter’s mate?” He turned and followed Lou out.
“That’s going to take some getting used to,” Nic said, placing his hand over Jackie’s again.
She smiled and slid her hand away before walking around to the other side of the bed. With the push of a lever, she lowered the bed rail and slid into the bed next to him, resting his head against his chest and listening to his heart drum. He shifted an arm over her hip where it felt like it had belonged all along. “I think I can get used to this.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
B o crossed his arms and stared at the diagram of the circulatory system on the wall of the meeting room Lou had borrowed in the hospital. Even focusing hard, he couldn’t tune out the feeling of Lou’s expectant eyes on the back of his head. He was waiting for a post-mission report, one Bo didn’t want to give.
This assignment was supposed to be easy. Find out what was going on up north, stop it, report back. It was his first real training assignment with Jackie, too. Should’ve been a simple job with simple people. Instead, they had a whole slew of bodies to deal with, a sudden influx of new members into Lou’s pack… Then there was the fact that Jackie and Nic had wound up a mated pair, despite his best efforts.
And then there was Justice.
When they found him in the snow, frostbite had already nipped at his nose and fingers, and he had one hell of a concussion, but he wasn’t dead, not by a long shot. He’d let Nic believe they left Justice back in Barrow to live with the consequences of his actions, but that just wasn’t possible. Not now that they knew he was a witch-wolf with a tendency toward black magick. He was too dangerous to let live.
Which was why he was lying in the medical theater below, strapped to a gurney, a panicked look on his face as he glanced around.
“Well,” Lou said at length, pouring himself a drink, “that happened. How do you feel about it?”
Bo shrugged. “Nic isn’t the one I would have chosen for her, but he’ll do.”
“About the case, Bo. Do you feel it was adequately resolved?”
Bo turned around with a sigh and pulled out the nearest chair to sit. “Coast Guard reco
vered Tara’s body. Pulled it up after the storm. I made sure they knew about her history of depression and marriage problems. They’re ruling it a suicide.”
“Good.” Lou lowered his attention to the stack of paperwork in front of him. He signed something, licked a finger and turned the page over before scribbling something else on the next page. “David, Anabelle, and Peter?”
They’d been more complicated to deal with. With so many deaths so close together, BSI would probably look into it. Jackie normally handled covering all the digital stuff, so he’d had to contract out for this work. The kid he’d hired was a natural and knew BSI databases in and out. He’d be a real asset if he decided to stick around. “New kid removed Anabelle and Peter from the database. As far as BSI is concerned, they never existed. As for David, well, losing a mate is hard and this is the biggest month of the year for suicides in Barrow. We’ll let the officials believe in the tale of star-crossed lovers. It’s less messy.”
Lou raised his eyes again, peering over his bifocals. “You’re sure all the paperwork is in order?”
Bo shrugged. “I forged the signatures myself on the coroner’s reports. The new kid you’ve got is a real whiz with the computer stuff. Might put Jackie out of a job.”
“Good. She’ll need a replacement.”
Bo leapt out of his chair and placed his hands on the table. “You’re not serious? If anything, this case should have proven she wasn’t ready to go full time with me. She almost died.”
“And yet she didn’t.” Lou turned back to his paperwork.
Fiery rage pumped through Bo’s veins. Jackie wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready. Things were moving too fast and he had to find a way to slow it all down. A month ago, if Lou had asked Bo if it was time for him to die, he might have agreed. He’d watched everyone he loved die, and neither of his children wanted anything to do with him. Every day felt like going through the motions, empty. Pointless.
But his time in Barrow with Jackie had changed something, though he couldn’t put his finger on what. He’d felt a spark of something that he thought long dead, curled up on that bed with the omega reading Hondo to him, caribou in his belly. For the first time in decades, Bo felt alive. He wasn’t ready to let that go, not yet.