“Yea, Carlos is wit’ ‘em,” Carmichael said, mentioning a doctor who was a part of the Las Vegas pack. “We can trust ‘em.” At seeing Jon’s stern expression, the Dallas leader sighed. “Relax, Jon Boy,” he warned. “I’m looking out fer e’eryone here. Calm yer shorts.”
Jon seethed with anger, but took a steadying breath. When the EMTs arrived in the Chapel, he stayed by Eva’s side as they tried to stabilize her. He answered their barrage of questions to the best of his ability. He couldn’t explain why it mattered so much to him, only that he didn’t want her to die. This mirrored so closely what had happened to him and he wanted to make sure that she pulled through.
“We’re going to have to take her to the hospital,” one of the EMTs said as the others gingerly moved her to a gurney. “Are you her husband? Do you want to come with us?”
Jon looked down and realized he was holding her hand. No wonder they thought he was her husband.
Gemma nodded with her head. “Go with them, Jon,” she ordered.
“But—”
“We’re all fine here,” she reasoned. She leaned into him and whispered, “And you need to be there when she wakes up. She might have some information about who did this. Or she might be behind this. I don’t know. But she’s our only lead right now.”
He met Gemma’s eyes and then nodded solemnly. He followed the gurney as they wheeled Eva out of the chapel. She seemed so pale and frail. He climbed into the back of the ambulance after they hoisted her up. The doors shut and the sirens blared as they rushed to the hospital.
If they weren’t too late, Eva would have to answer a lot of questions when she woke up.
CHAPTER 2
Gemma felt on the verge of tears again, but for different reasons. Her heart felt as if it was lodged into her throat as she watched the stretcher go. Strong hands wrapped around her shoulders, beckoning her for a hug.
Adam.
She turned and embraced her mate. Her shoulders kept shuddering with the sobs that threatened to escape.
She wasn’t going to cry. She was Gemma Branford, the Alpha leader of the Austin pack. She wasn’t going to show weakness in front of her pack or in front of any of the Las Vegas wolves watching.
“It’ll be all right,” Adam whispered into her ear. He held her tenderly as if he wished to protect her from all the bad in the world. She really felt like he could. He was hers, body and soul, and they would be married soon. If their enemies didn’t kill them first.
She nodded against his chest. “Sorry,” she whispered. “It’s just... That was... Everything is awful.”
“You’re safe,” he whispered. “That’s all that matters.”
She shook her head. “But what about Annie?” she asked. “Or that girl?”
He pulled back from her and leveled her with his gaze. “We’ll get Annie back,” he told her. “Eva – if that’s even her name – is being taken care of. And everyone else will heal. We’ll figure this out, Gemma.”
“I hope so,” she whispered. “I hope so.”
Mark returned a few minutes later, practically dragging Huck back with him. “He was about to get hit by cars,” Mark said, frowning. “Running down the Strip like a wild man. It’s amazing how far he got.”
“I’ve got to get Annie back!” Huck yelled. “They’ve got her!” His hair was all over the place and he had scrapes all over his body that were healing quickly. He put his face in his hands in despair and crumpled forward. “I’ve got to get her back. I don’t... I don’t know what I’d do without her...”
“He’s been like this the whole way back,” Mark explained sadly. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
Gemma couldn’t blame him. She’d go absolutely insane if anyone took Adam.
She watched as Bradley came up and hugged his guardian. “It’s going to be okay, Huck,” the boy said, although she could tell that he was crying too. Huck wrapped an arm about the child and held him close as they mourned the kidnapping of the woman they both loved. It broke Gemma’s heart to see them this way.
She stormed to the doors, intent on getting to the bottom of everything.
Adam watched her. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“What do you think?” she angrily asked. “I’m going to figure out who did this! They ruined my wedding and they kidnapped my best friend. I’m going to find whoever did this and rip out their throats!”
She stormed down the hallway and up to her room, turning away from them so they couldn’t see her tears.
I’ll get you back, Annie. I promise.
***
She dreamed of her brother.
They were kids on the playground. He was eighteen months younger than her, but he already seemed far more rebellious and ready to defy authority at the age of five.
“I’m going to be special,” he told her.
“We are special,” she said. “Mommy said so.”
“No,” he said. “I’m going to do something. I’m going to make a difference.”
But then she saw the decline. He dropped out of high school, joined a gang, and started dealing in drugs. He became so removed from their family that by the time their mother died, she hadn’t seen him in two years.
He kept running from her. No matter how fast she ran in her dream, her brother was always ahead of her.
She had to save him. But as she reached for his hand, it slipped.
And she fell into darkness.
The sunlight peeked in through her eyelids, waking her up. There was something wrong though. She couldn’t open her eyes. What was wrong with her eyes? Her body ached all over, with some sharp pain in her ribs and her legs. Her neck throbbed in pain.
What happened?
The last thing she remembered was meeting her brother Luis for coffee, trying one last-ditch effort to convince him to stop using drugs.
And now she was in absolute agony.
She groaned, only it came out as a rasp. What had happened to her throat? So many questions. So much pain. She almost didn’t want to see what was wrong.
Finally, she used what little willpower she had left to force her eyes to open. Or eye, rather. The other one was swollen shut and refused to budge.
She was in a hospital bed, monitors and machines beeping in succession to alert the nurses and doctors. She felt dirty, like she’d been dragged behind a truck for a few miles. And she knew that her mass of curly hair was matted now.
“You’re awake?”
It was a man’s voice, devoid of emotion or concern. A pleasant one yes, but when you wake up in a hospital room, you would wish to be surrounded by people who cared about you. She thought that doctors had better bedside manners than that.
She grimaced and turned her head to the voice, meaning to ask the doctor what was wrong with her. A young man, lean and tall, was sitting in a chair next to her bed with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. His steel-blue eyes watched her intensely.
“Wh-who are you?” she groaned. She was surprised her voice still worked as much as her throat was burning.
He blinked and then sat back with a sigh. “I’m Jon,” he said, not offering up his last name. “And you’re in the hospital.”
“I can...see that,” she replied. “What happened to me?” Her memory was so fuzzy. Did she get into a car wreck on the way to meet her brother?
Her hopes for an explanation fell at his next statement.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” he said.
A pang of pain shot up through her body and she gritted her teeth. Oh, this felt terrible. She couldn’t tilt her head down to take stock of what was wrong with her body. She also didn’t want to.
“Here,” Jon said. He pressed a remote into her hands. “Morphine,” he explained. “Just push the button. It will help with the pain.”
She pushed it, hoping that it helped immediately. She sucked in breath through her teeth. “So are you like a...a cop or something?”
He blinked at her again and then sat
back with a chuckle. She got the feeling that he didn’t laugh too much in his life. He seemed like one of those serious types, the ones who never smiled.
“No,” he said. “I’m something like a bodyguard.”
“A...bodyguard?” She hated how raspy her voice sounded.
He nodded. “Look, Eva – your name is Eva, right?”
She tried nodding, but only managed about a millimeter before the pain forced her to stop. “Eva Navarro,” she said.
“My clients were getting married last night,” he explained. “At the Paris Hotel. Is this ringing any bells to you?”
She blinked, trying to think. “No.”
He rubbed his hands on his knees, his feet bouncing with quiet intensity. “They were getting married,” he elaborated. “But then we were attacked.”
“Attacked by who? What kind of attack?” Why was none of this making any sense?
“I don’t know who did it,” he admitted. “The only lead we have is you.”
“Me, why?” Her head was spinning. Maybe the morphine was finally working?
“You were left for dead there. Wearing a wedding dress.”
She almost barked a laugh at that. “A wedding dress?” she rasped. “On me?”
He nodded.
“And is that when I got...injured?” she asked. “Wearing a wedding dress?” Had she gotten stone-cold drunk and agreed to marry someone?
He shook his head. “You were dressed like this when we found you,” he said haltingly. “Which is why I asked you if you knew what happened.”
“No,” she whispered. Tears began to fall unbidden from her eyes. She felt so lost, and the pain was so bad. She tried once again to look down at her body, but it was hard. “What’s wrong with me?”
A flash of conflict passed across his face at the question. That was all the explanation that Eva needed. Another wave of tears hit her as she took in a shuddering breath.
“That bad...huh?” she said. She gave a bitter laugh, but immediately regretted it. “Will I recover from this? Is that what the doctors said?”
He nodded. “You’ll heal,” he said, showing a moment of gentleness. It didn’t suit him very well. “But...there’s something you should know,” he added.
“What?”
He hesitated before answering. He shook himself, as if he had made a decision. “You were assaulted by werewolves,” he explained. “Which means...” He fought for the words. “Which means that you’ll become one too.”
She looked at him, at first wondering what the hell he was talking about. And then she wondered why he would be so cruel and say something so outlandish, especially when she was injured. Werewolves weren’t real. They were fictitious, something that was in horror movies.
“Why would...you joke about something...like that?” she asked.
He averted his eyes. “I’m not joking, Eva. You will be become a werewolf.”
“Fuck you,” she said. She turned her head away from him, suddenly wanting him to leave. “I want to see a doctor,” she said. “Get out of my room.”
“Eva…”
“LEAVE, YOU SICK FUCK!” she yelled.
Jon got up from his seat and walked to the entrance to her tiny room. He turned and looked back at her, his intense gaze holding hers. “You might think I’m crazy,” he said, a deeper, darker tone to his voice. “But I’m not. And I’m here to help you. To figure out who did this to you. And my pack and I...we’ll help you deal with this.”
She was about to tell him to leave again, but he held out a hand. Before her very eyes, hair sprouted from his pale flesh as his fingers extended, the fingertips turning into claws, and in only the space of a few heartbeats.
She couldn’t hold in her gasp.
“I’ll be outside if you need anything,” he said as his arm transformed back into a human arm.
With that, he left the room.
***
Well, that was awkward.
Jon closed the door behind him, staring out into the hospital hallway. He should have eased her into the truth a bit more. And there was the fact that she might have been with the enemy, although based on how close she had been to death, he instinctively knew that she wasn’t. No one would bring one of their own to the brink like that. The only reason she was still alive was because her lycanthropy was starting to take over, making her heal faster. Otherwise, she would have died on the floor of the chapel.
“She’s awake?”
Jon looked up. Dr. Carlos Martinez approached him. Jon had met the good doctor on more than a few occasions when he traveled out to Las Vegas, but only in social situations, never for his care. Carlos was a Gamma werewolf himself and part of the Las Vegas pack. Employed by Desert Springs Hospital, he kept watch over all of the werewolf patients that came his way, making sure that word didn’t get out about someone miraculously healing from mortal injuries or sprouting claws. He was an asset to werewolves everywhere, and after the last night, he was one of the few wolves here that Jon trusted.
“Yeah,” Jon replied.
“Did she know what happened?”
Jon shook his head. He was trying to figure out how it could have gone a bit better with Eva. He shouldn’t have brought her transformation up. Now the poor thing was probably wondering if that morphine dose had messed with her mind. He had never been a very conscientious person, had never been considerate of easing people into the truth.
Stupid, Jon. Stupid, stupid…
“I told her that she had been attacked by werewolves,” he admitted quietly.
Carlos raised an eyebrow. “And...how did she take it?” he asked slowly. Jon sensed that the doctor knew what the answer was going to be before he even said anything.
“Not well.”
“Well, what did you expect?” Carlos asked, his voice rising in anger. “The poor woman was brutally beaten! We just put her back together, barely, and she’ll be dealing the mental trauma. Then you dropped something like that on her?”
“Sorry,” Jon muttered.
“Don’t say it to me,” Carlos said. “Fuck.” He let out an angry breath.
Without further ado, he opened the door and went inside. Jon flinched at Eva’s instant questions for the doctor, wondering what the hell had happened and what was going to happen to her. Despite the state that her neck was in, she was firing questions at a mile a minute.
The door shut behind Carlos and Jon was by himself again.
You’re an idiot, Jon, he thought.
He jumped as his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID before answering.
“Gemma,” he said.
“Hi Jon.” She sounded tired, like she hadn’t slept much that night. Jon couldn’t blame her. Her wedding had been ruined and her best friend had been kidnapped. He didn’t sleep at all that night either, but he rarely slept well anyway. “Is she up yet?”
“You have impeccable timing,” he said. “She woke up about ten minutes ago.”
“Does she know anything about what happened last night?” The desperation leaked into her voice. “Does she know who did this? Is she a part of it?”
“No,” he told her. “No she doesn’t. She’s just as confused as any human would be.”
Gemma cursed. “I was hoping...” her voice trailed off.
“We’ll find Annie,” Jon assured her, although he kept his doubts about what state Annie would be in when they managed to find her—alive, dead, or worse. Werewolves weren’t known to be kind to enemies. “How’s Huck taking it?”
“He’s a mess,” Gemma sighed. “Rightfully so. And Bradley...poor kid.” She fell quiet for so long, Jon thought the call had disconnected. Finally she spoke again. “What do you think I should do?”
Gemma was asking him for advice, and he wasn’t sure if he was the right person to ask. But they had known each other since they were teenagers, and he was determined not to let her down.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Find out who did this.”
It felt like such an
obvious statement, but it was the most pressing thing at the moment. Was he so sure that it was one of the opposing packs? If it was, that wouldn’t explain why they would take Annie instead of Gemma. Unless there was an ulterior motive? But that still didn’t explain why they would leave a human in a wedding dress as a warning. He flicked through so many different scenarios, yet none of them fit all the pieces.
“I petitioned to have the floor first thing when the Council of Wolves meets today,” she said. “I’ll see if anyone has any ideas about what happened. Or if they know who could have done this.” Her voice held a dangerous warning.
Jon nodded appreciatively. He wasn’t sure what Gemma would get out of it, but it was at least a start.
“Stay with Eva,” Gemma said.
“But...” Jon let his voice trail off. He wasn’t going to say that he had already ruined his chance by telling the poor woman the news that she was now a werewolf. He knew that Gemma would be disappointed in him. She had more tact dealing with situations like this.
“Please, Jon,” Gemma said. “You’re one of the few I can trust right now.”
Jon swallowed nervously. “All right,” he said. “All right.”
***
Gemma ended the call and hung her head. She hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before. She had had to pull a few strings to keep the truth from the local police and stall the details of the event at the chapel from hitting the mainstream media. On top of that, the security footage had been mysteriously erased, so they couldn’t see who had attacked them. The entire thing had been expertly coordinated.
Adam had cradled her to his chest as she sobbed in the shower, the weight of everything crashing down along with the water.
“It’s going to be all right,” he had soothed. “We’ll figure this out, Gemma.”
She hoped so.
Now, she sat on the edge of their hotel bed, dressed in a terry cloth robe. Her thicker middle was pushing at the terry cloth, a reminder of her condition.
Be calm for the baby, she firmly told herself. She set the phone down on the bed and combed her fingers through her wet hair, collecting her thoughts.
Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1) Page 87