by Zoe Chant
He also didn’t understand why they were all rushing around so excitedly. Mr. Ash and Sir John were doing all the real work, after all. They weren’t making any fuss about it, either. Well, Sir John was singing, but that was a nice noise, not like all the yelling the other firefighters were doing.
Danny wished they would all quiet down so that he could hear Sir John better. Maybe if he could learn the words, he’d be able to make it rain by singing to the clouds too. He’d have to ask Sir John to teach him, some other time.
“Danny!”
Danny’s stomach flipped over at Mommy’s scream. She sounded as scared as if she was trapped in a fire.
“Mommy!” He tried to wriggle free of Daddy and Dr. Hugh, but they both held him tight, stopping him from jumping out of the fire engine. “Let me go! Mommy!”
“You can’t run out there, it’s not safe.” Dr. Hugh jerked his chin at the flickering red glow of the still-burning house. “Don’t worry. Chase is bringing her straight here.”
Sure enough, a second later Mommy scrambled up into the back of the fire engine too. At the sight of her, Danny wrenched himself free from Daddy and Dr. Hugh. A hundred dragons couldn’t have kept him out of Mommy’s arms.
“My baby, my baby,” she sobbed, squeezing him so tight he couldn’t breathe.
Danny didn’t care. He buried his face in her neck, smelling her, smelling home. Dr. Hugh’s hands might be able to heal, but Mommy’s touch was stronger magic. The aching tightness in his chest finally vanished.
“Are you okay?” she said, thrusting him away so that her anxious eyes could inspect every inch of him. “Are you hurt?”
“He’s going to be fine,” Dr. Hugh answered for him. “Just a little smoke inhalation. I’ve fixed all the damage.”
“He should still go to the hospital,” Daddy said stubbornly. “I want him to be checked over properly.”
“I don’t care what you want! You get no say in anything, ever again!” Mommy clutched at Danny as if she thought Daddy might try to snatch him away. “How could you let this happen? Where were you?”
Daddy’s eyes slid away from Mommy’s accusing ones. “I only went outside for a moment.”
Danny stared at him. It was bad to tell fibs. “But-”
Daddy’s lion flashed behind his eyes, and Danny fell silent. He didn’t want to start another fight. It was better when members of the pride weren’t mad at each other.
“It was only for a moment,” Daddy repeated, as though he could make it true if he said it enough times. “Danny was having a tantrum. I had to give him space to calm down, so I went outside.”
“Without any clothes on,” Dr. Hugh murmured.
Daddy glared at him, clutching the shiny silver blanket he’d borrowed tighter around his waist. “I was shifted! How was I supposed to know he’d lock me out? Let alone decide to set the place on fire!” He turned his glare on Mommy. “This is all your fault! He could never have come up with such an evil idea on his own. You’ve been poisoning him against me!”
Mommy bared her teeth at him, just like a lion. “How dare you!”
“No fighting!” Danny yelled at the top of his lungs. His voice was still all scratchy from the smoke, but it was loud enough to make all the grown-ups stop and stare at him. “You can’t fight now. We have to go find Mr. Griff.”
Daddy made a small, disgusted sound at the back of his throat. “Indeed I do. The other half of this scheme. I won’t let him surrender to me this time. I’m going to-”
“You will be silent.” Mr. Ash appeared at the back of the fire engine, outside in the rain. He didn’t yell or look mad or anything, but Daddy’s mouth still snapped shut.
Nobody talked back to Mr. Ash.
Ask the Alpha-of-Alphas about our alpha, Simba urged Danny, as Mr. Ash started telling Mommy and Daddy something too complicated for Danny to follow. Our alpha belongs to him. He must know where he is. Hurry!
Despite his lion cub’s urgency, Danny hesitated. Mr. Ash wasn’t scary, exactly, but he made Danny’s tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. He wasn’t an easy person to talk to at the best of times, and now was definitely not a good time.
Mr. Ash wasn’t wearing safety gear like the other firefighters. His regular clothes were covered in little holes where sparks from the burning house had blown on him. He wasn’t wet at all, despite Sir John’s rain. Danny could hear the faint hiss of raindrops sizzling into nothing just before they hit his skin.
Danny swallowed hard, gathering up his courage. “Mr. Ash?”
Mr. Ash, who had been in the middle of talking about reports and procedures and boring grown-up stuff with Mommy and Daddy, stopped mid-word. Danny flinched a little as that dark, deep gaze fell on him. “Yes, Daniel?”
“Where’s Mr. Griff? Is he coming too?”
“I am afraid he cannot. He is needed back in the control room, where he can monitor what is happening and tell us all what needs to be done.”
“Can I talk to him? Please?”
“He’ll be very busy right now, honey,” Mommy said to him. “We’ll go see him as soon as we can. You can thank him then.” She gave Daddy a hard stare. “We can all thank him.”
“I need to talk to him now,” Danny said stubbornly. “Please, Mr. Ash. Can you talk to him in your head? I can’t find him and I want to know if he’s okay.”
“I have been attempting to keep him updated as to what is happening here, but I do not know if he is listening. He is unable to respond to me telepathically.” Mr. Ash considered him for a moment, his eyebrows drawing down a little. “Daniel, do you still have a pride-bond to Griffin?”
“Sort of. I think. I could feel him earlier, when he was talking to me on the phone, but he’s gone again now.” Something about that eerie silence at the back of his head made Danny’s stomach churn, like he needed to throw up. “Please, Mr. Ash. Something’s wrong.”
Mr. Ash leaned back, flagging down a passing firefighter. “Excuse me. I need to talk to the control room, please.”
“I’ll fetch the radio, but it won’t do you any good, sir.” The firefighter shook her head, looking annoyed under her helmet. “They’ve got absolutely no clue what’s going on down here. Or up there, for that matter.”
Mr. Ash frowned. “Is Griffin MacCormick not still handling this incident?”
“I wish. We can’t raise anybody at our control room. We’ve had to switch to backup control from the next area, and those muppets can’t tell their arses from their elbows.”
Mr. Ash went very still.
“Sir?” The firefighter waved her gloved hand in front of his face. “Do you still want the radio, sir?”
“No,” said Mr. Ash, as Dr. Hugh started frantically flinging things back into his doctor’s bag. “Thank you. Please ask the second-in-command to take over here. Alpha Team must attend to another emergency.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hayley
According to the hospital floorplan, Ward S officially didn’t exist. According to the signs above the door to the small annex, it was the Highly Contagious Diseases Research Centre (Access Strictly Restricted).
What it actually was, past the triple-locked doors and hulking security guards, was the shifter ward.
After six hours curled up in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the tiny waiting room, Hayley was desperately hungry and longing for a coffee, but she didn’t dare leave to find a vending machine. She was scared that she’d never manage to get back in again. She’d only managed to enter in the first place because she’d been personally escorted by Fire Commander Ash.
The Phoenix had been allowed through to Griff’s private room, but Hayley had been firmly stopped at the door. Apparently Griff was still in critical condition. No matter how much she begged passing nurses and doctors for any more information, that was all anyone would tell her.
Why’s Ash allowed in, but not me? What’s taking them so long? Why won’t anyone tell me what’s happening?
All Hayley could
do was clutch her phone, exchanging comfortingly banal texts with Connie about when Danny was likely to wake up and what he was allowed for breakfast. She and Chase had agreed to stay over at Hayley’s house, so that she could head to the hospital to be with Griff. Hayley was deeply grateful to them both. There was no way in hell she was letting Reiner take Danny. Not ever again.
I’ll flee the country first. I’ll disappear. He is never, ever going to have sole responsibility for Danny. Not after this.
“Hayley?” She jumped, her dozing head jerking up at Hugh’s voice. The paramedic looked ten times as shattered as Hayley felt, his pale skin ashen in the harsh fluorescent lights. “You’re still here?”
“Of course I’m still here.” Hayley jumped to her feet. “How is he? Is he going to be okay?”
“He’s stable.” Hugh swayed on his feet. “For now.”
Hayley instinctively reached out to support him, but he recoiled from her hand so violently that his back slammed into the wall. She’d forgotten that the paramedic hated to be touched.
“Sorry,” he muttered, staying as far away from her as it was physically possible to get. “Too tired to keep my psychic walls up. Hayley, I’ve done everything I can for him. He’s conscious and lucid, and I don’t think he’s in immediate danger.”
The unspoken but…hung in the air between them.
Hayley swallowed. “But?”
Hugh sighed, raking a hand through his disheveled silver hair. “He’s half-shifted. His body is a horrendous mismatch of parts, and it’s putting extreme stress on his internal organs. His heart and lungs are barely functional, but his digestive system…well. You get the picture. It’s a bloody mess.”
“He was stuck halfway before.” Hayley remembered how she’d watched Griff’s twisted, half-beast form gradually ease back to human, during that long vigil weeks ago. “He came back then. He can come back now, can’t he?”
“I don’t think he can. I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Hugh scrubbed his hands over his face, rubbing at his bloodshot eyes. “Ash was trying to burn out one of Griff’s animals and get him unstuck that way…but Griff and his lion and eagle are too intertwined now. Even Ash can’t distinguish between the three of them.”
Hayley stared at him. “Ash has been trying to do what?”
Hugh shook his head. “The details aren’t important now. It didn’t work. Ash can’t do anything. I can’t do anything. Hayley, he’s got weeks left at best. Possibly days.”
No.
Hayley’s knees wanted to buckle. She made herself stand up straight and tall, spine rigid. “I want to see him.”
Hugh hesitated. “He’s…he doesn’t want you to see him. Not like this.”
“I don’t give a damn. I am his mate and I will see him. Now.”
Wisely, Hugh didn’t try to argue. Without a further word, he escorted her down the corridor, flashing his hospital ID pass as they passed yet another security checkpoint.
Hugh opened a plain, unmarked door, revealing a small private room. A couple of beeping machines lined the foot of a hospital bed, wires trailing off under the covers. Most of the bed was blocked from view by a privacy screen.
“I told you not to let her in here, Hugh,” said a low, pained voice. The words were so badly distorted, Hayley could barely understand them. “Ash. Take her away.”
Ash emerged from behind the screen. The Phoenix did not look quite so collected as usual. He was still wearing the same clothes he’d been earlier, at the fire. The smell of smoke hung around him, and something else too—a hot, scorching scent like desert winds and burnt metal.
“Ms. Parker,” he said, nodding at her.
Hayley braced herself for an argument, but Ash just touched Hugh’s elbow, drawing him away. The pair left, and the door clicked softly shut behind them.
“Bastards.” A deep growl drifted out from behind the screen. “Hayley, please. I don’t want you to remember me like this.”
Hayley’s heart hammered, but her hand was steady. She pushed back the privacy curtain.
“Like what?” She met his mismatched eyes without flinching. “Like the man I love? Like my mate?”
All the breath sighed out of him. His muzzle wrinkled a little, like he was trying to smile. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Hayley threaded her fingers through his left paw, careful of the claws. “Don’t ever try to keep me away again. I thought we’d agreed you weren’t going to do that anymore.”
“I won’t.” The sheets stirred oddly, next to his bent legs. It took Hayley a moment to realize that it was a tail, flicking under the covers. “Where’s Danny? I can feel he’s sleeping, and that he’s safe and happy, but not more than that.”
“He’s back home, with Chase and Connie. He wanted to come to the hospital too, but I wouldn’t let him.”
“Good,” Griff said, simply. “Don’t.”
“Griff-”
“Don’t.” His right arm—no, his right wing—flexed in agitation, the gleaming feathers unfurling and closing again like a massive golden fan. “Promise me.”
“All right, I promise. I won’t bring him unless you say it’s okay.” She tightened her hand on his, feeling the roughness of his thick, feline pads. “But he wants to say thank you. And he’ll want to say, to say…”
She couldn’t finish the sentence, words jamming up in her tightening throat.
“To say goodbye,” Griff finished for her. He leaned his head back against the pillows with another deep sigh, closing his eyes. “I’ll think about it. Turns out I’m a lot more vain than I care to admit.”
Even under the fur, she could see the pain in the drawn tightness of his distorted face. “You’re tired. You should rest.”
“I’ve got all of eternity to rest.” He opened his eyes again, though she knew the effort it cost him. “We need to talk about you. And Danny. And Reiner.”
“Later. You need to concentrate on regaining your strength.” She stroked his feathery mane back from his forehead. “Don’t worry about any of that now.”
“I have to worry about it now,” Griff said fiercely. “I’m not going to be able to worry about it later. And I am not going to die and leave you at the mercy of that, that-”
One of the machines connected to him let out a shrill whistle.
“Hugh!” Hayley shrieked, as Griff convulsed.
The door banged back. It wasn’t Hugh who rushed in, though, but a whole pack of white-coated nurses. They swept Hayley aside, one of them grabbing her arm as the rest converged on Griff’s thrashing form. She caught a brief glimpse of two of the nurses struggling to hold down his powerful, mismatched limbs while a third plunged a syringe into the side of his neck, before she was hustled out the door.
“Let me go!” Hayley twisted futilely against the nurse’s grip, but he was clearly a shifter. He held her captive with inhuman ease. “I want to stay with him!”
“I don’t care what you want,” the nurse snapped as he dragged her back along the corridor. “I don’t have time to deal with hysterical humans. How did you even get in here in the first place?”
“I have a right to be here.” Hayley looked around wildly for Ash or Hugh, but they were nowhere to be seen. “You can’t throw me out. I’m his mate!”
“I have no idea what that freak is, but he’s certainly no shifter.” The nurse dumped her unceremoniously outside the ward doors. “And that means he can’t have a mate. You have no rights here. Get out, and stay out.”
***
There was a police car parked outside her house. Hayley stared blankly at it as she paid her taxi driver, her numb mind struggling to process its presence.
Police car. Here.
Why would Connie call the police? Has Reiner been trying to get in?
“Connie? Chase?” she called softly as she let herself into the house. She could tell immediately from the stillness that Danny was still asleep, even though it was nearly ten in the morning.
He must be e
xhausted after everything last night. We’ll both need lots of rest today. I’ll have to call school, and work…
Her brain stalled out. She was simply too tired to think of what else needed to be done. At least she could count on Griff’s friends—her friends—to help out.
“Connie?” she said again, heading for the front room. “Why’s there a police car-?”
She stopped dead.
There wasn’t just a police car outside.
There were police officers in her house.
“Hayley!” Connie leaped up from a chair, taking her hands. The curvy pilot’s face was pale and worried. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t to tell you over the phone. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to rush back.”
“She should have rushed back,” muttered a man sitting on her sofa. He was wearing a sharp suit and an extremely pissed-off expression. “She’s kept us waiting over an hour.”
If looks could kill, Chase would have buried the man over an hour ago. The pegasus shifter radiated menace as he glared at both the man, and a woman seated next to him. Every muscle in his shoulders and chest was tense and ready.
“I’m sorry too, Hayley,” he said. “We couldn’t keep them out. But just give me the word, and I swear I will kick them out. One way or another.”
The two police officers flanking the sofa growled, low in their throats. With a jolt, Hayley realized that they possessed the subtle but unmistakable feral aura of shifters.
“There’s no need for that,” said the woman, rising. Her pink twinset had clearly been chosen to appear friendly and approachable, but there was a certain firmness to the set of her jaw that meant the overall effect was of a Rottweiler wearing a fuzzy cardigan. “Let’s not have any unpleasantness.”
“What is this?” Hayley looked around at them all, unable to comprehend why there were so many strangers in her house. “What’s going on?”
“Me first,” the man on the sofa interrupted as the woman opened her mouth. “I’ve wasted enough time here today already.” He got up, unceremoniously thrusting a folder of papers into Hayley’s hand. “Ms. Hayley Dana Parker, on behalf of my client, Mr. Reiner Hans Ljonsson, I am formally notifying you of our intent to sue for full, sole, and immediate custody of Daniel Jamie Parker.”