“Who’s Moira?” Coop asked after they administered a sedative that finally succeeded in calming him.
“My mom. She died when I was young. Wolf attack.” Ro removed the melted ice packs from beneath her father’s arm pits and replaced them with fresh ones. No amount of medicine seemed to bring down his fever, but more concerning were the occasional low pitched moans he emitted. Moans that sounded almost like growls. “How’s Dean coming along with his work? He’s got to give him something. Dad’s not going to last much longer like this.”
Coop got up and headed for the door. “I think he’s close. I’ll go talk to him.”
Ro smiled after him as he left, grateful for all he’d done. After the past few days, she’d grown a begrudging respect for the man. He was a loyal friend, a good medic, and he served as a decent buffer between her and Dean whenever she was ready to rip his throat out in frustration.
But despite everything, her father still wasn’t getting any better. Ro wiped a cloth across his forehead then stepped back to look at him, her heart breaking a little more each time she saw him like this.
She didn’t know what she would do without him. When he’d first disappeared, she’d tried to fill the void by going through the motions, working at the hospital and doubling her time investigating the attack.
Her dalliance with Kane had been an unwelcome distraction, made even more annoying by the fact that he kept bugging her even when she’d specifically told him to stop. Pity he hadn’t thought to send her a bouquet of rifles instead of flowers, maybe in a basket of silver bullets. At least that would have been useful.
She’d been forced to go back to her apartment twice in as many days to retrieve the flowers he kept leaving at her doorstep, so they didn’t give a blaring indication that she either wasn’t there or had died. She also had to answer at least a few of his numerous texts so he didn’t do something stupid like put out an APB on her whereabouts. She’d told him basic information – that she was following a lead on her father – but kept it vague enough so he couldn’t track her if he was so inclined.
That would have been a disaster on so many levels, not the least of which was the position it would put her in – stand with Kane as a fellow hunter or go against Guild canon to side with a wolf.
True, Dean was helping her father, but she wasn’t naïve enough to pretend there wasn’t more to it than that. Problem was, over the course of the last several days, the lines in the sand she’d grown up believing in were becoming increasingly blurred.
After the night spent playing Mario Kart, her dreams about him seemed to only intensify. They would always start the same, with her being chased in the alley, and now they always seemed to end the same also, being pinned and ravished by him in his human form.
She tried to ignore the surge of hormones every time she saw him, tried to ignore her quickening heartbeat and physical response. The last thing she needed was to be attracted to a werewolf and all the complications that brought.
Ro tried to convince herself it was because he was just a good-looking guy. After all, he was a known player, and if she had been any other woman, she would have deemed him a gazillion on the hotness meter.
That’s all this was, she told herself as she continued to care for her father. This was chemistry, nothing else, made more intense by the coming of the full moon and her merely mistaking her hunter instincts for something even more primal. Yeah, that had to be the case.
After a while, she almost believed it.
♦ ♦ ♦
Later that evening, she found herself venting her frustrations with a little knife practice out on the grounds. A large tree stump stood about ten yards away from the back porch, so she used that for target practice. Rather than soothe her, the practice instead served to fuel her aggression, the laser focus of the hunter within her overtaking her senses.
Dean had come through on his end of the deal and given her the addresses of Los Colmillos’ most frequent haunts as well as where they liked to hunt. She was most interested in taking Strike down, but realized it might not be possible alone. That was fine. At this point, any wolf would do, and if that wolf happened to belong to his pack, so much the better.
Having hit the “heart” of her target at least a dozen times in a row, she removed the knife from the stump one last time and sauntered back into the house.
As soon as she entered from the back porch, she heard the groans from upstairs. The sedative they’d administered earlier in the day had obviously worn off and her father was hallucinating again.
Damnit!
She met Coop in the hallway off the kitchen. “I’m on it, Ro. I’ve got more ketamine.”
“Fine,” she snapped, her blood still up, “you take care of him while I go talk to our resident genius.”
Something on Ro’s face must have clued him in on her thoughts, because he said cautiously, “He’s trying his best. It’s not easy for him, not with the full moon approaching.”
“I don’t care what’s easy for him. My dad is upstairs dying. I can’t just sit around watching him suffer while Wolf Boy dicks around with his chemistry set in the basement. I need to do something.”
She pushed past him and practically leapt down the stairwell where she found Dean at the lab counter. He was more disheveled than usual, the stubble on his face almost grown out into a full-on beard, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. She didn’t allow his appearance to deter her, however. She needed action, she needed answers, and dammit, she was going to get them.
“Tell me you’ve got something to help my dad,” she greeted bluntly.
He glanced up sharply from the computer screen he was staring at. Something flashed in his eyes. “Say again?” His voice was deceptively soft, but there was an edge to it.
Rather than back off, as her better judgment told her she should, she continued to push, welcoming any fight he wanted to give her. “You heard me. You’re sitting down here with your thumb up your ass while he’s up there dying.”
“You think I don’t know that? That I’m not trying my best?”
“He’s hanging on by a thread, getting worse by the minute. Whatever we’re going to do, we have to do it now, before the full moon gets here. There’s no telling what effect that’s going to have on him.”
Dean passed a weary hand over his eyes. “I’ve run a half-dozen experiments and I can’t find any significant variances between his blood and yours.” She opened her mouth to respond, and he held up a hand. “But that’s what bothers me. If hunters are supposed to be immune, I can’t understand why he isn’t getting better by now.”
“English, please. What does that mean in terms of helping him?”
“It means I’m no closer now than I was when you first got here.”
“So what you’re telling me is that we’ve wasted all this time when you could have just given him my blood and hoped for the best.”
“What I’ve done is at least determine that with the similar characteristics of your blood, giving him a plasma transfusion probably won’t hurt him, but I have no idea whether it’ll actually help.”
“I don’t care. The rate he’s going, he might die whatever we do. We have to at least try.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” he snapped, standing abruptly. “I am working day and night with minimal resources trying to help him.”
“You’re only trying to help yourself,” she spat, tears of anger in her eyes.
He stepped up to her, his movements swift and purposeful. Though he towered over her, Ro refused to cower. Instead, her hand went instinctively to her belt and the knife strapped to her side.
He noticed the movement, his eyes shifting downward, and a smile which could almost be called feral crossed his lips. For a fleeting moment, she thought she might have caught a glimpse of the wolf within the man. “You going to try something, little girl?”
“Believe me, I’d do more than try.”
&n
bsp; “Think so?” The corner of his mouth lifted even further. “Then what are you waiting for?”
That was all the provocation she needed. She used her lower center of gravity to plough into his middle, catching him by surprise and shoving him backwards so his lower back caught the edge of the counter. The satisfying grunt she heard elicited a tiny thrill within her.
He whirled and lashed out at her, but it was sloppy. She saw it coming from a mile away, ducked beneath it, and swept his legs out from under him with a spinning kick. Dean landed flat on his back, momentarily stunned. Wasting no time, she straddled his downed form and put the blade of her knife to his neck.
“You forget, I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you.”
He grabbed the wrist holding the knife, his grasp tightening painfully as she applied slight pressure to the skin of his throat. “And you forget that I’m the only person who can help your dad. Like it or not, we’re in this together, so either do what you’re going to do, or back the fuck off and let me do my job.”
She refused to flinch and stared him down, noticing after a moment the blueness of his eyes – so deep and clear it was like staring into pristine waters. The fierce quality of his gaze dissipated until his expression became impassive and his grasp on her began to loosen.
Her heartbeat increased as she realized this was just like the ending of her dream, only she was the conqueror and he the prey. She slowly lowered the knife to the collar of his shirt, preparing to slit it down the middle and...
“Whoa, what the fuck’s going on here?” Coop called from the stairwell landing.
Ro snatched her hand away and said, in a voice shakier than she liked, “We’re just setting some things straight.” She stood up and glared down at Dean. “I’m the hunter, you’re the healer. So I’d suggest you make with the healing before I decide to do my job again.”
He didn’t answer right away, continuing to stare at her with impassive eyes, his breath heaving. “Are we done?”
She nodded, breathing just as heavily as he was. She sheathed her knife and backed up a step to allow him to get off the ground.
When he was finally upright, he locked eyes with her for another moment then said in a tense but steady voice, “We’ll go ahead with the transfusion, as requested. It’s probably our best bet at this point. Hopefully it’ll be enough, especially this close to the full moon.”
“And if it’s not?”
“I’ve still got the wolfsbane I bought from Strike. It might be enough to slow down the infection, but it has to be a last-ditch effort since I’m pretty sure any dosage could potentially kill him.”
“We could have tried that days ago.”
“I know, but I was really hoping to have more concrete answers than ‘will probably kill him.’”
Ro considered this, then nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
“Be a donor, obviously.”
She laughed tightly. “If this wolf thing doesn’t work out, you can always try making it as a vampire.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re hilarious? No? I didn’t think so.” He pointed to his desk chair. “Roll your sleeve up and sit your ass down.”
Dean prepared the transfusion kit, but when it came time for him to insert the needle into her vein, his hands shook so much, he didn’t trust himself. Without being asked, Coop stepped in and took over, deftly sliding the needle into place, the flash of red in the tubing indicating success.
Dean watched as the blood collected in the bag, then he instructed Coop to collect a second pint in case the first transfusion didn’t work.
When Coop finally took the needle out of her arm and patched the puncture site with a piece of gauze, he instructed her to sit still and relax while he handed off the bags of blood to Dean, who immediately began to process them for plasma.
Ro watched him work silently, hoping that she’d done the right thing coming down, confronting Dean, and forcing his hand. Deep down, though, she realized it was the only option she had left.
Now to only hope that it hadn’t been in vain.
16
The steady drip of yellow plasma flowed down the IV tubing leading into John Sinclair’s arm. Drip, drip, drip. It was maddeningly slow, but Ro’s experience told her that if her father was going to have an adverse reaction, it would be within the first few minutes of the transfusion.
He continued to mutter incoherently in his delirium, and she suspected that if this didn’t work, there was a very good chance he wouldn’t survive to see the waning of the moon. Coop had administered some more sedatives, but they seemed to have barely touched him. She didn’t dare ask for anything stronger, though. They needed to reserve the more powerful drugs for Dean and his transformation. Besides, anything stronger might only serve to kill her father faster.
His breathing was ragged and labored, his skin dry and hot despite the ice packs they kept applying. Ro did the only thing she could – held his hand, wiped his brow, and, even though she’d long ago disavowed any belief in a higher being, prayed.
She was midway through the Lord’s Prayer, barely remembered from her childhood, when his breathing changed. It had a strangled quality to it. When Ro looked up at him, she saw his eyes rolled up into his head.
“No!” She clamped off the tubing but knew the damage had already been done since only a small amount of plasma remained in the bag. “I need help!”
She hurried to connect the IV fluids which they’d kept ready to administer in the event of this very scenario, in the hope of flushing the toxins from his body, but it was a desperate gambit at best.
He began to shake violently, and she pushed her hands onto his chest to keep him in the bed. It seemed as if every inch of him were fighting her, and it was all she could do to keep him from falling off onto the floor. After several moments of struggling to hold him down, he stopped thrashing and fell back onto the bed where he lay unmoving save for his labored breathing.
“Dad?”
Without warning, his entire body seized up, his eyes flew open, and he snapped his jaws at her. A terrible growl erupted from his throat. On instinct, she let go of him and stumbled back, just as Dean and Coop rushed into the room.
“What the hell...?” Coop muttered, staring wide-eyed at her father.
And then the seizure or whatever it was ended and her father fell back onto the bed, his body completely slack.
Ro didn’t hesitate, her medical training taking over. She returned to his side, listened to his chest, then lifted her head. “He’s stopped breathing.” When the guys continued to stare mutely at the scene, she shouted, “Help him!”
She tilted her father’s head back slightly in an attempt to open his airway as they finally sprang to action. Coop grabbed a syringe from the top of the dresser while Dean checked for a pulse.
“Stay with us, John!” He muttered a curse beneath his breath and then, without another word, began chest compressions, his arms locked above her father’s sternum, pumping his heart from outside his body. “Coop, where’s the epi?!”
“It’s in.”
They administered CPR for what seemed an eternity, with Ro and Dean taking turns attempting to pump life back into the aged hunter’s chest. Ro couldn’t think – she could only do what her training had taught her. She pushed away the knowledge that this was her father, her only family, and focused on the burn in her arms and the rhythm of her compressions. One, two, three...
She wasn’t sure how long they tried to resuscitate her father but she was prepared to keep going until she passed out from exhaustion. Through the fog in her mind, she heard Coop announce, “I’m out of epi,” but she ignored him. She needed to keep going. She couldn’t lose him.
Dean placed a hand on her shoulder but she continued to press on her father’s chest. “Ro,” he called. When she continued to ignore him, he repeated, “Ro!”
“No.” He attempted to pull her away, but she shoved him back.
“Ro, he’s gone,” he announced more gently. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” One, two, three ... she refused to stop.
“Wait a second,” Coop said from John’s other side.
“I said no!”
“Hold on! I ... I think he’s breathing again.”
The words finally registered in her adrenaline-soaked brain. She stopped the compressions while Coop checked for a pulse.
Awe and disbelief showed on his face. “Holy shit. He’s back. Ro, he’s back.”
Relief flooded her exhausted form as she put a hand to her father’s neck and felt the strong, steady bumps of a heartbeat beneath her fingers. “Oh my God.” She wiped the tears off her cheeks with an unsteady hand and asked, “Dad, can you hear me? It’s Rowan.”
He didn’t respond, but his color was definitely improving, and his breathing seemed much less labored than earlier. In fact, even though he had literally died before her eyes and been brought back to life mere seconds earlier, he looked better than he had since she’d discovered he was being kept at the mansion.
“What happened?” Dean asked. “We only left the room for a moment.”
She gave a brief recounting of her father’s reaction to the transfusion, then added, “I think it’s time we bring him to a hospital. We can’t keep him here, not after this.”
Dean shook his head and backed up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Too risky.”
Ro wasn’t about to let him cop out so easily, though. She stalked him to the corner of the room. “For who? For you? His heart fucking stopped no more than five minutes ago. He needs proper care with monitors and medicine and fucking sterile conditions.”
Coop cleared his throat, though his voice was still hesitant when he spoke. “Hey, man, I kinda agree with her. I think we’ve done all we can for him here.”
“Think this through, both of you. What are we going to do, drop him off at the nearest emergency room and tell them, ‘Hey, this old guy died and came back to life while fighting off a werewolf bite?’ They’re gonna ask questions about that wound on his shoulder and why exactly we waited so long to get him treated.”
Lycan Moon: An Urban Fairy Tale (Lycan Evolution Book 1) Page 12