He felt his consciousness start to fade, and he used his arms to pull his body as far from the mill as possible. He was naked now, and the grass was cool and wet on his skin. He managed to pull himself twenty or thirty feet, and then he passed out.
CHAPTER NINE
Lily
Lily lay awake, her phone at her side. She knew she should sleep, but she couldn’t. She’d said she’d be back at work the day after tomorrow, but at this rate her sleep schedule would be shot all week. And none of that really mattered, because Seth had just kissed her. Surely he’d meant to, because she’d felt a tenderness there that could only exist between two people who had known each other nearly their whole lives. Even at the height of her passion for Flynt, she’d never felt something like that for him. It was an explosive and breathless feeling, but without the groundless fleetingness she was used to in a new relationship. No...with Seth she felt all the exhilaration and thrill, but it was wrapped up in a protective warmth.
With Seth’s arms around her, nothing could happen to her. No harm would come to her.
But what about him? He had rushed to a fire bad enough to ring the emergency phone, and despite the heaviness of exhaustion soaking deep into her bones, she could not fall asleep. But if he could protect her, then surely he could protect himself. She wasn’t as strong as him, and he had been fighting fires for a decade. He’d be okay.
So why can’t you fall asleep then?
She forced her eyelids closed, but sleep never came. She thought about just getting up and putting on a movie, but her mind was racing too fast. She knew she wouldn’t be able to focus.
Already she heard birds chirping outside. The sun was already rising, and sleep would be all the more difficult.
Her phone vibrated across the nightstand, and before it stopped its first pulse, she had it held to her ear.
“Seth!” she shouted into the phone. “Tell me you’re okay!”
“Lily...it’s Pat,” a vaguely familiar voice said.
Oh God oh God oh God, no! Of course it was too good to be true. One kiss and he’s ripped away from me.
“He’s in the hospital,” Pat said, “and stable.” He said “stable” with such utter disbelief. How bad had it been? “He’s fucking tough, Lily. He’ll pull through. I know it.”
He sounded confident about the last part. Disbelief that Seth had survived...but positive he’d make it now that he had?
“Pat...I can’t lose him,” Lily said. It sounded so desperate, but it was the truth, and somehow Pat needed to know it. Pat was there, and by telling him that she couldn’t lose Seth, she’d somehow made him responsible for keeping him alive. It wasn’t fair to put that burden on Pat, but she did it all the same.
“I don’t have a car...” she started.
“Oh,” Pat said. “I’ll come get you—”
“No!” Lily said. “You have to stay with Seth. Don’t leave his side!”
“Okay,” Pat said. “I’ll send someone to get you.”
And then the doorbell rang.
“Hold on, Pat,” she said. “Someone’s here already.”
She checked through the peephole and saw Flynt.
She flung the door open. “What?”
“I have the radio as my alarm,” he said. “It came on...and I heard about the fire. I didn’t know if you knew…”
He looked on edge, and his hair was messed up, but it wasn’t bedhead. He was wearing wrinkled clothes, like he’d woken up and put on the clothes from yesterday.
“Can you drive me to the hospital?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Come on.”
She got in his car, and he drove at a brisk pace, but it wasn’t fast enough for her.
“Can’t you go any faster?” she said.
“If we crash,” he said, “or get pulled over, it will take that much longer. Speeding from here will only get us there a minute or two faster.”
She gritted her teeth. She’d always hated his smug rationality. Couldn’t he just speed up a little? It would put her mind at ease to know they were getting there as fast as possible.
They turned onto Redtree, the main road, and Flynt flipped down the car’s sun visor as the morning sun lit up the windshield. He never had sunglasses when he drove, and that had always annoyed her too when they were together.
“So he’s okay?” Flynt asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Stable, whatever that means. A coma still counts as stable.”
“A full recovery counts as stable too,” he said. “When I heard about Seth on the radio...I feared the worst, but it sounds like his chances are good. Have faith.”
Just words and feelings. Faith and hope were just as useless as fear and dread; neither would change whether Seth would make it or not. All that mattered right now was that she was there with him, by his side. That would make a difference. She didn’t know how or why, but she knew that it would.
Flynt drove them into the hospital parking lot and then pulled up to the curb.
“Looks like it’s valet here,” he said. “Go on in. I’ll pay them and catch up with you.”
“Thanks,” she said, not looking back at Flynt as she rushed inside.
She barged in, and the receptionist tried to stop her, but a fireman that Lily recognized, Darren, came out and ushered her through the hallways toward Seth. The antiseptic scent stung her nostrils, and hacking coughs punctuated the hum and beeps of hospital machinery. Daren whisked her through curtains and corners until finally she saw Seth sprawled out on a bed.
He was so big that the bed could barely contain him, and the entire left side of his body was purple and black. And while most of his right side looked better, there was a huge bandage wrapping his entire right ankle. His face was clean and smelled of alcohol, but she saw soot and ash caked on his hairline and scalp. He’d probably been covered in soot, but they’d wiped him clean.
“Jesus,” Lily said.
Pat had been sitting in a chair beside him, but he’d stood up when Lily entered.
“Lily,” Pat said, “I stayed by his side just like you asked. He hasn’t woken up yet, but I saw his eyelids flutter a few times. The doctor said that’s a good sign.”
“Where the hell are the doctors?” she asked. “How can they leave him alone when he’s like this?”
“We’ve got a button here,” Pat said. “We can ring it if—”
“Lily?” a voice rasped.
They looked over at Seth, and slowly his eyelids struggled open. They made it halfway open, and his beautiful blue eyes shone on her, full of recognition. And full of something else that made her heart race.
“Seth!’”
“I heard your voice…” he mumbled.
“Take it easy,” she said. “I’m right here.” She grabbed hold of his hand and squeezed.
He’d barely been able to open his eyelids, but he squeezed back with fierce strength.
“I’m here too,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
She heard Pat whispering to Darren in the background. “As soon as he heard her voice…”
“I had to wake up,” Seth said, “just to let you know I’m okay. Now that you know, I need to sleep, sleep off the injury...but don’t worry...about…me…”
And his eyelids drifted shut again.
“Cocky bastard,” Pat said. “Sleep off a fucking bear trap cutting him to the bone. You’re going to have to nurse him back to health, Lily. He’s not sleeping this off.”
A bear trap? And everyone was talking about her and Seth as if they were already together. Were they? Was it so obvious to everyone else?
“A bear trap?” she said. It was slightly more confounding than the idea of them being together. Just slightly.
“We don’t really know what happened,” Darren said, “but we found him just below a window that was on fire. Looked like he jumped out before it got bad, but somehow he managed to get himself stuck in a bear trap.”
“And lose all h
is clothes,” Pat said.
Flynt poked his head in, and his mouth contorted into a grimace when he saw Seth. He looked down at her hand, still tight in Seth’s, and then his face smoothed over. Was he happy for them? He’d have to be if they were going to stay friends.
“Why would there be bear traps in a lumber mill?” Lily asked after nodding to Flynt.
“Oh,” Flynt said, “that’s easy. It’s illegal, but some of the guys from the mill or the lumberjacks will set them out in the woods. Since they can keep a close watch on them while working, they’re less likely to get caught.”
“Doesn’t explain why there was a trap set inside the mill,” Pat said.
“Maybe Seth wandered into the woods for some reason and stepped into one?” Darren said.
“How bad is his leg?” Lily asked. She didn’t care why or how the damn trap got him, only that he was okay.
“Uh,” Pat said, “I don’t want to sugarcoat things, but it cut him really deep. He’s lucky his leg didn’t break, but the x-ray showed some chipping on his bones.”
“And who let him run in alone?” Lily said, anger filling her voice. “Aren’t you guys supposed to work in teams?”
Darren and Pat looked down at the ground.
“I tried to stop him,” Pat said, “but you know Seth…”
Lily took deep breaths and counted back from ten. Would she have been able to stop him when he was being stubborn? It was doubtful.
“Sorry,” she said. “Pat, Darren, thanks for being here. And Flynt, thanks for the ride.”
She spoke with a tone of finality, and all three of them took her signal and began backing out of the room.
“Let us know if you need anything,” Pat said.
She had everything she needed right there in front of her: Seth’s big, strong hand wrapped around hers, and knowledge that he was going to survive, even if his leg was badly hurt.
CHAPTER TEN
Seth
He woke up again with Lily’s hand still in his. Damn that felt good.
She didn’t leave our side all this time, his bear said. Think of how she’ll protect our cubs.
Cubs, ha! There were quite a few more steps in between holding hands and having cubs.
Fun steps, his bear said.
And one step that wasn’t so fun, Seth realized. It was something he should have done a long time ago, and since he hadn’t done it years ago, he’d have to do it now, before things progressed any further with Lily.
“Where’s the doctor?” he asked Lily.
“Do you want me to call him?”
“No!” Seth said, his voice too sharp. He calmed down and said, more calmly now, “No...just asking if you know where he is.”
“He checked in on you less than ten minutes ago, but I don’t usually see him between check-ups,” Lily said.
“How often does he check in on me?”
She looked down at her watch and said, “I don’t know, probably every hour?”
“So he won’t be back around for fifty minutes or so?” Seth said.
Lily seemed annoyed at the string of questions, and she said in an exasperated voice, “Yes, about that long, or I can call him if you want to talk to him.”
“One more question,” Seth said, “and then I’m done asking questions. How long have I been sleeping?”
“Just over twenty-four hours,” she said.
Seth looked down, and there was a thick cast on his leg, but he could move his toes with no issue. That meant everything was connected as it should be: no severed nerves or permanent damage. That also meant he’d be almost fully healed. He’d never had any lasting injury after twenty-four hours. Then he remembered the recording. The bear trap.
Dirk wanted him dead. That meant Lily wasn’t safe. Normally he’d stay in the hospital for several more days just to not draw suspicion. Heal too fast and people would start asking questions. He was the only werebear in town, now that his dad had been run out, but the wolves—the wolves that were supposedly on his side—wouldn’t be happy if he was flaunting his recovery speed at the hospital. They were probably already pissed off at him for even going to the hospital in the first place.
But Lily was in danger, so fuck the wolves. He’d do what he must to protect her.
“Okay,” he said, and he pulled himself up so he was sitting up, and then he tossed his legs off the bed and let them hang just over the ground.
“Seth!” Lily said, trying to push him back down, but it was no use. She couldn’t make him budge.
“You have to trust me, okay?”
“Your leg. You can’t put any weight on it. The doctor said—”
“Lily! You have to trust me. As soon as we’re back home I’ll show you something, and it will explain everything. I’m not hurt anymore. I’ll show you.”
He reached up to the dials and turned the sound off on the monitor. Then he pulled out the IV and monitoring devices. The monitor began to flash as his pulse no longer registered, but it made no sound. His bed was surrounded by a privacy curtain, but the nurses would see him as soon as he walked out. He needed Lily on board.
He reached down to his cast and tore with his full strength. The cast split in two like a paper grocery bag, and he threw it into the corner beside the wastebasket. Before Lily could object further, he forced himself onto two feet. There was a dull and lingering pain in his leg, and he could see dried blood marks all over his shin, but he knew he could walk without limping. Shifter healing had saved him again.
“What the hell…” Lily said under her breath.
“We’re going to walk out of here,” he said. “Just hold onto my arm like you’re helping me to the bathroom, and then we’ll duck out. Got it?”
“Okay,” she said. “I trust you, for now, but I’m expecting one hell of an explanation later.”
“You’ll get it, and more,” he said. “Now let’s go.”
He walked with her hand on his elbow, and the dull ache in his leg flared up a bit with each step. It was just enough pain that he was almost tempted to limp, but he chose not to. Instead he took small steps and shuffled his feet, as if he were drugged. He wanted to look like another patient who had some other ailment, someone who could actually walk to the bathroom with some assistance. He’d seen the bedpan next to his bed, and he knew they didn’t think he could walk.
Even though Lily was ostensibly supporting him, he led the way. He pushed through the curtain and immediately turned the corner. He knew this hospital well, as he’d visited people he’d rescued on countless occasions. He had to walk through one more wing of curtained beds and bustling nurses, and then there was a bathroom. Just beyond the bathroom was a swinging door that let out into the main lobby.
They passed some nurses who looked at him with some suspicion, but when he smiled, and when they saw Lily helping him, they lost interest. It wasn’t really that anyone could stop him from leaving, but he needed to get out before the doctors could run more tests and see the extent to which he’d healed. Let them scratch their heads as long as they had no evidence of his shifter healing.
They reached the bathroom and a nurse looked up at him. Seth said loudly, “Ah, I’ve gotta pee so bad. Finally.”
He opened the bathroom door and held it open. Then he made as if he were about to go inside. The nurse finally looked away, and he moved so fast past the bathroom and through the swinging door to the lobby that he had to nearly drag Lily behind him.
They flew into the lobby, and the understaffed lobby to the emergency room was so full of other people in hospital gowns and in various states of sickness and injury that no one paid any attention to him. He pushed on through, and soon enough they were out at the curb.
“Now what?” Lily said. “Neither of us has a car.”
“Does Lana know what happened to me?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I talked to her a few hours after you go hurt, told her what the doctors said...that it might be months--or years--before you could walk agai
n.”
“Everyone’s going to have questions,” Seth said, “but if she comes to pick us up, can you trust her to not ask any?”
“Yeah,” Lily said. “Just so long as you remember that you’re going to answer mine.”
Seth nodded, and Lily took out her phone.
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