The Shifting Storm (Book 4)

by Jeff Hale

  I didn’t. I burrowed into his shoulder instead, feeling tears well up and fall. My best friend was in surgery with a bullet hole that I had no clue who it had been meant for. She could have died. She might still if there was more damage than what seemed to be. I had every right to cry. Poor Alex, it seemed I was always soaking him with my tears.

  “Ssh, it’s okay, she’ll be okay,” Alex murmured into my hair, rubbing his hand up and down my arm.

  “What if she isn’t though? I mean, me, you, we’d be okay, but sometimes I just forget how damned breakable she is. I don’t want to have to get used to humans dying around me.”

  I closed my eyes then wished I hadn’t. Cody’s grey-brown eyes had come into my mind, their light fading before me as his life had, as the vampires who had been trying to kill me last year had drained him in front of me.

  Alex squeezed my arm. “I can’t tell you that you’ll get used to it, Katie, but they will die. We shifters live a lot longer than normal humans. All you can do is hope to watch them grow old before it happens.”

  I felt a lump in my throat. He was right. Barring anything else happening to her, Kris would grow old while I stayed young, and one day my best friend would be a little grey-haired old lady while I dandled her great-grandkids on my knee. Part of me warmed at the thought, while another part of me worried that she might end up being jealous of me. I sighed into Alex’s side.

  I must have dozed off, because I was suddenly woken by Alex giving me a little shake. I opened my eyes and pushed myself up; I had somehow ended up with my head in his lap.

  “What? Is it the doctors?” I asked, blinking.

  “No, look.”

  Alex pointed, drawing my gaze to the information desk, where a young man was leaning over it with his back to us. He was wearing form fitting black jeans and a navy blue, long sleeved hoodie with the hood up.

  You could tell he was worried or upset by the way his pale fingers gripped the edge of the desk. The nurse there glanced up from the monitor and shook her head at him, smiling apologetically, then gestured to the waiting room. As he turned towards the room, shoulders slumped, I caught my breath. It was Matt.

  “How long was I asleep?” I asked Alex.

  “Hour and a half, two hours? Not sure.” He waved a hand, got Matt’s attention, and the vampire-shifter hybrid strode over towards us with a grim expression on his face.

  Matt sat down in the seat on the other side of me and pulled his hood back, shaking his shoulder length medium brown hair back from his light brown eyes.

  “What happened?” Matt asked us in a low voice, leaning in toward me so that our conversation could be more private.

  “Did you get the voicemail I left you?” I felt a little enclosed, with Matt and Alex facing each other across me, but not in a bad way.

  Matt shook his head. “I headed out immediately, tried to get here as soon as I could. Is she going to be okay? They wouldn’t tell me anything, just said that she was still in surgery and to wait.” His eyes slewed toward the doors that led further into the hospital and I could hear fear in his voice.

  “Someone shot her, Matt, at the airport. We don’t know who, or why, or if she was even the intended target,” Alex told him softly.

  Matt’s head dropped down, his hands cradling his forehead to hide his eyes.

  But I was confused. If he hadn’t gotten my voicemail, how in hell had he known Kris was hurt? Or even where to find her once he got to Vegas?

  “Matt? Matt.” I placed a hand on his, felt him shiver, and pulled it away from his face. “Matt. How did you know?”

  After a few seconds he turned his head to look at me, and I could see something like guilt in his eyes. For what I didn’t know, but Alex sucked in his breath in a short hiss.

  “Shit, Matt, she drank from you?” There was incredulity in Alex’s tone, and Matt gave the barest nod as an answer.

  “Huh?” I looked back and forth between them.

  Matt closed his eyes again briefly before looking right at me. “If a human drinks a vampire’s blood, it forms a physical connection. The vampire can feel if the human gets injured, or is sick. It can come in handy because it allows us to track them, too.”

  “Yeah, to find your dinner.” The words came out a little harsh and Alex narrowed his eyes at Matt.

  I tilted my head to one side, considering. “So how does that work? I mean, Kris got shot…”

  “And I felt it, just like someone had shot me too,” Matt confirmed, rubbing at his abdomen.

  “And the human gets... what out of it? Healing or something like that?” I thought of Kris lying on the operating table. Maybe Matt could help her? But my hopes were dashed with a shake of Matt’s head.

  “No, no healing. But the human will feel supernaturally alert for awhile, stronger, faster, that kind of thing, and until the blood is totally out of their system, if they’re hurt, the vampire will know it. It’s a… protection kind of thing.”

  “Protection?” I raised an eyebrow at Matt.

  “To alert the vampire if someone else is messing with his property,” Alex said coolly, and Matt just sighed.

  “So that’s how you knew? She got shot and you felt it? And then you were able to track her once you got here?”

  “Something like that, yes.” Matt nodded.

  “So, you said it lasts until your blood is out of their system?” I was still trying to come to the mental grips that Matt had admitted that at some point, Kris had drank some of his blood.

  Gross.

  “Yes.”

  “And how long does that take?”

  “About a month.” Matt gave me that guilty look again.

  “So how long have you and Kris been a couple?” Alex asked Matt, pinning him with his gaze. “You told me once that vampires tend to be very stingy with their blood, only ever giving it to the humans they claim as their own.”

  And the puzzle pieces began to start fitting together.

  I had suspected that Kris was possibly seeing someone. She would get the occasional phone call and hurry outside, where she hoped my keen ears wouldn’t be able to overhear. I might have been able to, but she had gone out of her way to have privacy for those calls and I had respected her wishes.

  At least once a month, she would go out, by herself as far as I knew, just to get away for a couple days. Once again, I hadn’t pried, figuring she would tell me if she wanted me to know. I got the idea that she wanted to share it with me, whatever it was, but she just wasn’t sure yet.

  Matt smiled wryly. “Since the day after I showed up in Richland… which was about an hour after you and Darien did.”

  It was still sinking in. “So, you and Kris have been, what? Boyfriend and girlfriend for the last like… year almost?” I blinked at Matt, but it would explain why she hadn’t gone on any dates in all of that time. I had thought she was just trying not to rub my nose in it that Aerick was gone.

  He nodded at me.

  “But aren’t you like, a hundred years older than she is?” He might look like he was twentyish, but I knew he was much, much older than that.

  He rolled his eyes at me. “So just because I was born a century before she was, I’m not supposed to find her attractive? I can’t love her?”

  I frowned. “It’s just… creepy, I guess.” I blinked at him again. “Waitaminute… you love her?”

  “Yes. In my own kind of way anyway. Why? Is that so hard to believe?”

  “I guess not. Still the age thing…”

  Matt laughed softly. “You do realize that your father is a hundred and fifty years older than your mother? And Darien has… at least forty years on you?”

  I had known my father was pretty old, I just hadn’t really thought of it that way. And as for Darien?

  “Well, I guess if you look at it that way. But you know, Darien and I never actually were together. I’ve only had one boyfriend, and he was only six months older than me.” I felt a little pang when I thought of Aerick; I still missed him.<
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  The doors that led into the rest of the hospital pushed open, making me look up, and I could see a doctor standing there, scanning the waiting room. He caught my eye.

  “Are you here for Krista Vaughn?” he asked.

  All three of us stood, the poor doctor probably feeling somewhat threatened as we all rushed over to him.

  “How is she?” Matt managed to get out before I did.

  I resisted the urge to glare at him.

  The doctor looked Matt up and down, then extended a hand. “And you are?”

  “Matt Lancaster. Kris’s boyfriend.” Matt reluctantly shook the doctor’s hand.

  “Dr. Nicholson,” the doctor returned, frowning at Matt. He ushered us through the doors, leaving us to follow right on his heels. “She’s out of surgery now. She’ll be fine, as long as she’s left to heal.” He settled his gaze on Matt and I had the suspicion the doctor had figured out that Matt was a vampire. “The bullet nicked her stomach, but we got that all patched up, otherwise it went straight through and missed any of her other vital organs. She’s very lucky. Do you know if they caught the person that shot her?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. We left with the ambulance, I know the police were still investigating.”

  “Well, hopefully they’ll find him.” Doctor Nicholson was still walking, leading us through a warren of halls, before finally stopping in front of a closed door to a patient room. He looked all three of us over again, one hand resting on the door. “So is there anyone else who needs to be called? Her parents, maybe?”

  I gave the doctor a sad smile. Kris’s parents had fled Richland not long after the Barrier had fallen, being the kind of people who thought they’d be safer somewhere out of the city. They’d asked Kris to come with them, but when she had chosen to stay behind, they hadn’t pressured, and her mother had given her a safety deposit box key, telling her that everything she would need would be in there.

  We’d checked out the contents of that box when I’d come back to Richland to pack things up to permanently move to Vegas. In it had been five thousand dollars, some jewelry, some obituaries, and Kris’s birth certificate.

  It had been a shock to Kris to learn that the couple she had thought of as her parents for her whole life actually hadn’t been; that her real parents had been the brother of the woman she had thought of as her mother, and some other woman whose name neither of us had recognized. The obituaries had stated that Kris’s birth mother had died in childbirth with her, and that her father, the man she barely remembered as Uncle Ben, had died when she was four.

  “No,” I told the doctor, “there’s just us.”

  He nodded, then pushed the door open to the room. “You can go in, she’s still asleep though. If she wakes, hit the button for the nurse.”

  “Thank you.”

  We filed into the room and I heard the door shut behind us, the doctor staying outside. Matt was at Kris’s side with supernatural swiftness, and I felt my heart drop to my stomach when I saw her.

  She looked so pale, lying against the cool white hospital sheets, purple smudges under her eyes. There was an IV hooked up to her, and one of those clothespin like things on her finger to check her oxygen levels, as well as EKG wires coming from her. The steady blip of her heart beat on the monitor was a comforting sound.

  Matt was already standing next to the bed, carefully wrapping a hand around hers, the other softly stroking the side of her face. He leaned down and placed a kiss against her lips and she stirred briefly, the monitor registering a faster heart rate for all of three beeps before settling back to normal. She didn’t wake up though.

  He leaned his forehead against hers for several moments, before straightening up and turning back to us, although he didn’t release her hand. For the briefest moment I saw something dark and very, very terrible in his eyes, and then it was gone.

  “They said they would call you if they caught the person who did this?” he asked, his voice even, devoid of emotion.

  “Yes,” Alex said, and Matt just nodded.

  We sat in the room for the next couple hours with Kris, Matt pulling the only chair up next to the bed, leaving the small loveseat for Alex and me. We both took the loveseat and I switched the television on. After a half hour of trying to pretend around Matt that we hadn’t grown somewhat closer, we finally gave up and I snuggled into Alex, needing the comfort of his closeness. Matt threw a look our way, but didn’t seem overly surprised, and I supposed he could have just read our cuddling as pack snuggling.

  The shooting had been on the news several times, although Kris’s name had been withheld, still with suspect at large. We had been in the room with Kris for almost four hours when my cell phone rang.

  It was the police. They had gone through airport security footage and identified the shooter. They had also arrested him about a half hour previous. I was told that it would be all over the news if it wasn’t already, but that the video evidence was enough to hold him, and more than likely convict him when trial time came. I was just hanging the phone up when sure enough there was an update on the television.

  “—on the shooting earlier of eighteen year old UNLV student Krista Vaughn at McCarran Airport, who is reported in fair condition,” the female news anchor was saying. “Security footage allowed the local authorities to identify the shooter, Oliver Derson, who is now in custody. Derson, 33, is an outspoken member of the Movement for Purity, a semi-militant group that believes that all AEs are a threat to humankind. At this time, there is no confirmation as to whether the attack on Vaughn, who is human, is related to the Movement for Purity. In other news, the Fae Court liaison to the White House—”

  I turned the sound down, glancing surreptitiously at Matt, whose face was grim again. There was a weak sound of protest from the bed.

  “Ow, don’t squeeze so hard, babe,” Kris said, her voice low and lacking strength, although she followed her comment up with a soft laugh. “You’re here.”

  I was up and off the loveseat in an instant, Alex behind me. Kris was awake, her eyes trying to focus on Matt as she smiled up at him. She blinked a few times, then seemed to come fully awake. “Oh, you’re all here.” Kris extended the smile to me and Alex. “I thought I heard my name on the TV?”

  “Yeah, there was just a news report. They caught the guy that shot you,” I told her, resisting the urge to lean down and hug her tightly.

  “That’s good.” She coughed lightly and Matt immediately filled the little plastic cup that had been sitting on a tray not too far away with water and brought it to her, dropping a bendy straw in the cup. She took a couple small drinks.

  “Thanks.” She gave Matt a brilliant smile, then turned a guilty one towards me. “Uhm, so I guess you guys have got things figured out then?”

  “That you and Matt have been seeing each other for a long time now? Yeah. Why didn’t you tell me?” I gave her a perturbed look.

  She gave me a sheepish look, then her gaze slid to Matt.

  “I asked her not to,” Matt said, bringing her hand up to his face so he could lean his cheek against it. “I didn’t know how you would react to her being with a vampire, and I knew Darien had Marked her and I didn’t want him pissed at me either.”

  My phone rang at that point. It was Celeste. She had seen the news and wanted to know if Kris was okay. I assured her that everything was fine, that Kris would be all right, and gave her the hospital room number in case she wanted to come by. When I got off the phone with her I gave Nina a call and filled her in, if only to stave off another panicked call to me, as well as calling my mother to let her know things were okay.

  It turned out that both she and my father had known about Matt and Kris’s relationship, that Matt had told them when he took off that Kris had been hurt, so they had been waiting for our call with information. I was just getting off the phone with my mom when the nurse came into the room like she had been doing every forty five minutes.

  “Oh! She’s awake!” The nurse beamed a
smile at Kris, and I remembered that we were supposed to hit the call button when Kris woke up. Oops. The nurse did a check of her vitals, then left to get the doctor.

  “You guys are going to miss your flight if you don’t hurry,” Kris said, glancing up at the clock. It was almost six thirty.

  “We’ll get a different one,” Alex replied, smiling.

  Kris shook her head. “I love you guys, I do, and I love that you would give up what you’re doing to stay here with me, but Darien needs you, too. You need to go, go find him.”

  “What’s going on?” Matt asked, perplexed. Alex explained what had happened in regards to Darien and I saw more worry cross Matt’s face. “Kris is right, you two need to get over there and see if you can find him. I’ll be here to take care of her, I’ll keep her safe.”

  I was torn; I wanted to stay here with Kris, wanted to assure myself that she was going to continue to be okay, but I also wanted to find Darien and assure myself that he was okay. I glanced at Kris, letting her know in my eyes that I would stay, wanted to stay, if she needed me.

  Doctor Nicholson came into the room then, and Kris gave me a big smile. “Go, Kat,” Kris told me. “Find Darien. I’ll be fine.”

  I nodded, brushed at my eyes to keep the tears at bay, then leaned down to hug her carefully, earning me a reproving look from the doctor.

  I gave Matt a hug, whispered, “Take care of her, call me if anything changes, I mean it,” then turned to Doctor Nicholson. “You make sure she doesn’t leave here until you’re sure she’s fit to, okay, Doc? And thank you for fixing her.” I gave the startled man a hug as well, then gave Kris one more look before I headed out the door. If I didn’t leave now, I wouldn’t go.

  “She’ll be okay, Katie,” Alex said, his hand finding mine, fingers twining reassuringly around my own.

  “I know she will, Alex.” I squeezed his hand and bit back tears. “It’s just… loving people sucks sometimes.”