“He’s bad news.”
“Most men are,” Gwen muttered, refusing to look at Cordelia, seriously creeped out that this girl might’ve been spying on her at the bar last night.
“I thought doctors were supposed to know better than to let strange men into their beds.”
Breathe, Gwen. She was sure there was at least one cop in the ER she could call in here to scare the shit out of this girl for stalking her. She chose not to answer, continued stitching until she had a row of black thread Plastics would be proud of.
But Cordelia wasn’t giving up. “Do you know what this is for?” she asked, shoving her wrist with the pentagram in Gwen’s face.
Gwen pushed back slowly on the stool and stood. “It’s a symbol of purity—it represents the five elements.”
“It’s protection against monsters.” She touched Gwen’s hand and Gwen pulled away as if she’d been burned, a strange rustling in her ears as Cordelia began to chant, “‘ The pentagram prohibits thee? Why, tell me now, thou Son of Hades, if that prevents, how cam’st thou in to me? Could such a spirit be so cheated?’”
Gwen rubbed her wrist, fought a momentary light-headedness she attributed to a sugar rush. “What’s your game?”
“Just looking out for you.”
“Look out for yourself.” Gwen’s hackles rose—her voice didn’t sound like hers—but Cordelia didn’t look frightened. Instead, she smiled, which sent chills down Gwen’s spine. She finished up the stitches but called Max in to do the aftercare.
God, she was twitchy as anything. The missed morning run, the lack of sex, the dreams… now she was losing it with patients. She left the room without a backward glance and got caught up in the remaining sound and fury of her shift.
One of the Dires had most definitely taken a bite from Cordelia. It was more massive a wound than a Were would’ve produced—and having been bitten on more than one occasion, although thankfully never by a Dire, Max recognized the differences immediately. That the Dire had let Cordelia go had been a stroke of luck for her… or a carefully planned thing on the part of the Dire.
Max wished to hell the Dire had simply ripped Cordelia’s throat out instead, as she’d spent an hour avoiding the witch in curtain three like the plague—the woman made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and getting into a fistfight in the middle of her shift wouldn’t allow her to keep this job. Besides, Cordelia had requested time alone with Gwen, and Max wanted to stay as far away from that as she could.
But when Gwen had called her in, she had little choice but to respond.
“You spooked her,” Max said to Cordelia now as she bandaged up the careful stitches Gwen had given her.
“All part of the plan.”
Max finished the dressing in silence and then stood. “You’re all done here.”
“Actually, I’m not. But I know you’ll call me when necessary.”
Max stared at Cordelia, wondering what lay underneath the facade. Her mind scrambled for a way to get out of this, even as she knew that would be impossible.
Cordelia seemed to know that. Maybe she knew everything, which scared Max more. This could all be a double cross, and Max would have no way of knowing until the end.
Cordelia pressed her for an answer. “I thought you wanted to remain free.”
Max’s stomach twisted… would she do this to Gwen? To be spared from the witches and clutches of the weretrappers who’d killed the wereking and his son…
She nodded and lowered her voice as she handed Cordelia a piece of paper she’d been holding on to for days. “Gwen’s shift lasts until eight. Here’s her car’s make and license. If anything changes, I’ll alert you.”
She waited until Cordelia exited the ER before she locked herself in the bathroom and threw up.
When Max asked her to sign off on Cordelia’s chart a few hours later, Gwen knew Psych hadn’t gotten around to her. Cordelia would’ve been long gone anyway, and Gwen couldn’t say she was too sorry about it.
“She didn’t even wait for a script for her antibiotics,” Max explained, and Gwen pushed the girl and the guilt out of her mind and continued her shift with a single-mindedness that would’ve impressed the hell out of the head of the ER if she hadn’t seized in the middle of a late-afternoon case.
When she woke on a stretcher in a curtained room, she was a little fuzzy. Max was there, told her, “We gave you pheno to bring you out—longer than five and you don’t react well to Valium.”
Gwen had told Max about her allergies and her illness because their schedules seemed to mesh, and the nurse had certainly looked after her. “So I can drive, then, right?”
“Yup. Your shift’s over, lady.” Max gave her a tight smile and handed her a letter. “The attending doc asked me to give you this. Said it’s not only about today.”
Gwen took it and nodded. She didn’t have to read the letter to know what it said, but she would anyway.
“Are you going to fight it?” Max handed her a ginger ale and Gwen gulped it, realized her stomach was rumbling again.
“I have a month to live. I’m done fighting,” she told her and didn’t get any argument, just a piece of paper with a phone number on it.
“Call me anytime,” Max said, put her hand on Gwen’s shoulder and gave a light squeeze. “You’re a kick-ass doctor—I don’t care if you don’t have the piece of paper to prove it yet.”
Yet. She wanted to laugh but she couldn’t because she appreciated the sentiment.
“There’s no need to rush out of here—stay until the IV fluids are done,” Max told her, and she nodded. The second the nurse left the room, Gwen pulled the needle out, tossed it and opened the letter.
She’d assumed she’d work here until she couldn’t. But the notice telling her she was deemed medically unfit to continue her residency made her want to scream and cry at the unfairness of it all.
And so she did both. Crumpled the paper but knew she couldn’t rail at it as unjust, because the hospital’s decision made sense.
She was medically unstable, which put the hospital at further risk for malpractice claims. Maybe she was even emotionally unfit depending on the day, but what was she going to do for the rest of her short life? Time would slowly tick away, and God, she needed to get out of here. Travel. Stay busy.
She was starving. Angry. Restless.
Max had put her bag and jacket in the room with her, and now Gwen rifled through and found her prescription bottles.
She emptied them, one after the other, into the toilet and flushed. No more attempting to slow an unyielding process, no matter how terrifying the outcome was that loomed over her.
She felt gloriously, oddly free.
You have no ties to anyone or anything.
Her aunt always told her to look for signs to guide her along the way, and while Gwen had pretended she didn’t believe in that, she did. But she followed a path because she wanted to help sick people.
Now she was one of those people.
She had no real friends in the residents here. Max would be concerned, and maybe Gwen would call her in a few days so she wouldn’t worry.
But first, she walked away, out of the hospital and away from her illness.
Maybe she’d go back to the bar.
Or maybe she’d go home, strip down, put on the leather jacket and dream about Rifter and wolves and running again until the leaves covered her bed.
Chapter 7
The dream seized Rifter almost immediately, and he was in no condition to fight it or the sleep that dug him in deeply to this almost supernatural realm. He prayed that he’d end up in one of his brothers’ minds—he could even handle Vice’s twisted thoughts—but no. He was walking through a scene he recognized, but he was seeing it through someone else’s eyes.
He recognized the old country immediately, the place where he’d grown from boy to wolf. He heard the music, noted that the full-moon celebration was in full swing.
At first, the familiar pull of the par
ty made him smile as he walked through his village. The smell of the earth comforted him—fresh, fertile, showing signs of life, of mating. The music had a pounding beat, was as hot as the air. Most of the males were bare chested, the women in short dresses. Married or not, this night was all about mating. Procreation, flirtation.
He was aroused as female bodies brushed his, cool palms on his warm skin. He let the fingers skim his back. He wanted to stay, to dance…
The screams started almost instantly. Hands fell away from his body, confusion reigned and he pushed through the crowd, which seemed to be running at him and away from an invisible enemy. The chaos made his head spin—although he was used to the heat of battle, this was one neither he nor any Dire could ever win.
But still, he wouldn’t give up. He roared but didn’t shift. Saw other men and women and children he recognized, grew up with, dropping to the ground, bleeding.
He swung his sword and his shield around wildly, seeing no one responsible for the destructive massacre surrounding him.
He was used to being in control—a warrior in charge of any situation. But the brutal force cast its dark shadow over him… and then he was running for his life. He looked back, tripped clumsily. Looked down, and the horror rose inside of him as he saw the bodies littering the ground. He willed himself to shift and couldn’t, which was always the most terrifying part of all.
This isn’t real; this isn’t goddamned real…
He clawed the earth in his struggle. Invisible nails mauled him, ripped his chest, blood seeping warm and sticky on his skin.
There was no escape. He heard a voice come from his mouth—thin and reedy—begging for his life to an unseen enemy.
Not your voice… but whose?
He waited for it to end, for him to lie still on the cold earth. To feel the emptiness inside.
Waited for the dream to end. But something was different this time. He was… rising. He smelled burning incense, heard chanting, so loud he covered his ears. Bodies of other Dires rose around him, ghosts of their former selves and still wearing their most recent battle wounds, marched forward, dragging him with them. It was mass confusion.
It was hell, one he couldn’t escape from. He still struggled to break free, and then, finally, the ghosts glided past him and he remained behind, still suspended from reality. One of the ghosts turned to him, took his shoulders and shook. Save us, Rifter, it said before floating away.
Rifter tried desperately to get out of this nightmare, found his feet on firm earth, and he ran in the opposite direction, looking for a way out. Instead, he found himself in Gwen’s mind—a swirling mass of confusion and pain as well, but more manageable for him. She was in trouble—and she was pissed too. Another seizure—or maybe it was something more, because he could swear she was awake.
Either way, she needed his help. Whether she’d want it was another story.
His eyes shot open, and the harsh wheeze sprang from his throat and echoed through the room. He put a hand to his heart even though the steady throb rang in his ears.
The Native Americans thought that if you died in your dreams, you died in real life. For him, no such luck, although every single time before this when he’d had this particular dream, he did die on the ground in his old village. Since the ending of the dream segued into trouble for Gwen, he knew he had to help her.
He was also planning on never sleeping again.
“Where’s Rift?” Stray called through the door when Vice paced for the nine thousandth time in front of the room where Harm was being held.
“Still not answering his goddamned phone.” Vice’s body was tight with frustration. The sun had risen and Rifter hadn’t bothered to check in. The rest of them, plus Cyd and Cain, were holed up here safely. The house was spelled, unbreakably so, a gift from Seb to Rift before things got all kinds of fucked up.
Vice rested his forehead against the doorjamb and wondered if Harm had stirred at Stray opened the door and assured him, “Harm’s still out cold.”
Vice blinked, and shit, he hadn’t spoken out loud, had he? He didn’t think so, and Stray looked confused too, but Vice didn’t have time to delve into it because it was late afternoon and all they had to show for it was a text from Rifter from hours earlier saying that he was busy.
Yeah, busy with a human.
“How long do you think Harm’ll stay down for?” Stray asked. “How do we know if he’s faking it?”
“We’ll know. But silver poisoning’s a bitch.” Harm had stopped mumbling minutes after they’d found him behind the bar and then sank into unconsciousness when Stray took him over his shoulder to carry him back here. Jinx had wanted to drag him by his dick but had listened to Stray and backed off. Eventually.
“Jinx tried to sneak in the window and cut his legs off,” Stray said matter-of-factly.
That was exactly why Stray was watching over Harm. Although Stray was just as angry, he was by far the more tempered of the men and their wolves. And Rifter would most definitely want first crack at Harm.
By rights, Rifter was their leader, no matter how hard the man tried to pretend otherwise. It had been Harm’s job, but he had refused to come back, even after learning of the demise of the majority of the Dires. Harm had been too busy fucking around. He’d been making music in lots of different genres and disguises. Take ten years off between gigs and then reinvent himself and reemerge. His latest incarnation was in a group intent on bringing eighties hair metal back into the mainstream. As of two years ago, when the band broke up, Harm had been on a giant stage in front of millions of fans, singing and fighting and screwing.
And doing interviews.
With that kind of media scrutiny, it was a wonder no one had discovered Harm taking a howl at the moon. And for years, Harm had reigned at the top of the charts, causing chaos wherever he went, trashing hotel rooms and the like.
But now Harm was here, and in no condition to do anything.
The Elders would have a field day with this one, but Vice knew he would never follow the wolf currently lying in chains on the floor of the basement, couldn’t go anywhere near that fucker without ripping his eyes out. Instead, he slammed up to the third floor, where Rogue rested, seemingly comfortably, on the king-sized bed facing the window in full view of the moon.
Rogue hadn’t moved, lay there like he was goddamned dead, and if his color hadn’t been normal, someone would’ve put him in the ground already.
Vice’s chest squeezed, the emotion coming on too strong, nothing he had control over. Excess roamed every part of his body, his mind, and he dropped to his knees next to the bed, the physical pain nowhere as bad as what Rogue or Rifter had endured, he was sure of it. But it was damned close, and for him, it had been a fact of life since long before he’d shifted for the first time.
Finally the pain eased, slightly at first before slinging full force back to pleasure. There was no gray area for him. Never would be.
Rogue understood that about him most of all.
Vice rubbed Rogue’s hand—still warm. The man hadn’t aged at all, looked exactly the same as he had when they’d left the house together for a night of leading people astray. But Rogue hadn’t come back, and Vice remembered searching the streets for him, a growing terror in his throat. And it took an awful lot to scare the man literally made from sin.
Vice stroked a hand through Rogue’s hair. They hadn’t cut it, and the fact that it was still growing was a comfort to Vice. He stood, pulled Rogue’s body toward him and stared down at the wolf on his back.
The eyes looked dull. Rogue’s wolf was out of it too, both man and his Brother Wolf trapped inside a body that refused to work.
All the Dires wore their wolves on their backs. To humans, it looked like an intricate, lifelike tattoo, but it was actually a glyph that began to slowly appear on their skin sometime in the weeks leading up to their first shift.
The tribal wolf tattoos they had were real tats they’d all gotten together, a simple gift of solidarity to
ward Rifter, their king, and also to honor his dreamwalking curse.
When one of us is cursed, we all are.
And honestly, that held true. They just didn’t happen to have a Native American shaman do so from birth.
“Damn it, Rogue, come on,” he muttered, rubbing the tribal wolf tattoo that sat over his own heart.
Harm’s return was probably not the best thing to share with Rogue, but hell, maybe the brother needed to get angry with him.
“Harm’s here. Maybe he wants back into the fold. If you want your say, you’ve got to wake your sorry ass up.”
Vice growled the words, but Rogue didn’t so much as twitch.
Motherfucker.
Maybe bringing Harm up here in the flesh would help. Maybe Rogue or his wolf would catch a scent. Vice would do anything to bring Rogue back to life.
“Wanna smoke?” Vice lit up a rolled one, made with his special blend, and put it close to Rogue’s nose, because one day he was going to wake this motherfucker up.
Rifter wouldn’t even walk through Rogue’s dreams before their capture—said they were too fucked up. Now when he tried, Rifter couldn’t get into Rogue’s dreams. He couldn’t be sure if Rogue was a plant from the sorcerers or weretrappers, and Rifter did not want to get trapped in his dreams.
So Jinx tried to figure out a way to wake his twin up while he continued his work dealing with ghosts and demons and other shit most humans believed happened only in horror movies and prime-time shows, although Vice had to admit that Supernatural was pretty damned good. He wondered if maybe he could get a consulting job with the network for it. You know, when his time freed up, since Jinx had snared him into helping him full-time on supernatural-activity watch to battle the dead and demonic.
It was certainly cutting into his fun time. The supernatural activity in the town had increased markedly over the past months, no doubt the work of Seb’s witches. Although Jinx had yet to confirm the source for sure, Linus was worried about the possibility that the weretrappers were using Weres to capture their own kind. Rogue had been suspicious that it wasn’t simply greed causing the Weres to turn on their own. He and Jinx had gotten reports that the spirit world in New York was suddenly quite active, and they knew that with the weretrappers working with the witches, anything was possible.
Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan Page 5