by Kimber White
“I’m okay,” I said, though I felt anything but.
He had the pack in his hands and fumbled for the medicine vials. It had been almost twenty-four hours since I had a dose. All those times I’d bragged to Grace that I didn’t need the shots anymore just fell away.
“What you did today,” Jagger said. “You need food, water and rest.”
“Jagger, I need to take my medication.”
Molly seemed to appear at Jagger’s shoulder out of nowhere. A look passed between them.
“Rowan,” Molly said, her voice taking a gentle but stern tone. “I want Suzanne, Dr. Olivet, to take a look at this stuff before you take it again.”
I sat up. Friends. She said I was among friends. Alarm bells went off inside of me. Only Jagger’s steady hand on my shoulder kept the icy fingers of panic at bay.
“Food, water and rest,” Molly said, smiling. She patted Jagger on the back. “Let’s start with that.”
Molly took a stethoscope out of her pocket. She pressed it against my chest and asked me to breathe. It seemed like such a simple request, but my heart hammered a mile a minute. She gave me a kind smile as she listened. Then, she shined her penlight in my eyes.
Liam appeared and gave her a box with other medical supplies in it. I sat mute as Molly took my blood pressure then tapped along my spine. Jagger kept that steady hand on my arm. His pulse calmed mine.
When she was finished, Molly sat back on her heels. “Your vitals are good, Rowan. Like I said, food, water, and rest for now. Would you be okay if I took some blood samples from you? It’ll help us get to the bottom of whatever condition it is they’ve been treating you for.”
His eyes locked with mine, Jagger nodded. I let out a hard breath and nodded back.
“Good!” she said with authority then patted my knee. “I’ll be around in a little while to get that started. No sense poking you with sharp objects right now. You need a little time. Jagger will find you someplace comfy.”
“I don’t need to be comfortable. I just need to be with Grace.”
“I know,” Molly said. She had a way of putting me at ease. She said she wasn’t exactly a doctor, but whatever she was, I felt safe around her. “The minute Suzanne says it’s okay, I’ll come and get you. We need to get her stabilized.”
I blinked away fresh tears. Stabilized. She’d lost so much blood. She was old and frail to begin with and those were shifter wounds. Molly was trying to keep me calm, but I could see the truth in her eyes. The same truth had burned through me with each step I took as I carried Grace in my arms.
“Come on,” Jagger said. He helped me to my feet and pulled Eve’s pink blanket closer around my shoulders. “We’ve got a lot to talk about in the meantime.”
He gave Molly that look again. I couldn’t read her. But, I trusted Jagger. I said goodbye and let him lead me down a darkened passageway.
He brought me to a smaller, empty cavern. It too was lit with LED strands. There was an air mattress with pillows and blankets set up on one corner. The lure of sleep felt almost orgasmic. I sank down on the mattress and buried my face in my hands.
Jagger came to me. He dropped to his knees in front of me. When I peeked through my spread fingers, Jagger’s expression tore me in two. His heart thundered with his own pain.
“She’s dying,” I whispered. “And it’s all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s Sampson’s fault. It’s Able Valent’s fault. It’s...my fault.” He touched me. Hesitant at first. Then, his grip tightened and heat unspooled inside of me, even now. Something had happened between us out there at the cliff’s edge. It was more than sex. Yes, we’d been fueled by primal need and our own demons needing a release. But, something deeper brewed. I felt it as if it could swirl in the air around us.
I pulled my hands away from my face and slowly framed them around his. Jagger flinched. I felt his grief and guilt wrapping its way around his heart.
“It’s not your fault.” I meant it as an answer to what he’d said, but it quickly became something else. If Grace wasn’t my fault, then Keara wasn’t his fault either. And Jagger wasn’t ready to accept it any more than I was. He pulled away.
“Jagger.”
He put a hand up. “I’m sorry...I shouldn’t have...we shouldn’t have…”
It was a lie. I knew the truth of what we were burned through him just like it did me.
He tore a hand through his hair and started to pace in front of the entrance way. He stopped. Just outside in the corridor, someone had left a basket and two water bottles. He brought them in. The scent of chicken soup gripped my stomach and I felt light-headed again.
The food gave us a respite. I ate in silence as Jagger sat beside me. Molly was right, the food did help.
“You were,” Jagger started. “Rowan...you were incredible today. Your strength. Your power. I’ve never seen anything like it. But, it scares me. Hell, it terrifies me.”
“Why?” I put the plastic spoon down. I’d finished the soup, drinking heartily. I set the basket aside and turned to him.
“It’s not...you’re not…”
“Normal? Natural? Jagger, people have been telling me that my whole life. But, this is what I am. It’s natural for me.”
He let out a sigh. “You’re not a shifter. There are maybe five or six female wolf shifters in the world. You have to know that. The Alpha’s been trying to capture one. He tried to breed one. I just want to make sure that whatever it is...whatever you are...I just want you to be safe.”
“Is that all you want?” I knew I shouldn’t ask him that. Not yet. Not now. But grief, exhaustion and the lingering echoes of what we shared mixed me up inside.
The answer tortured him. I wanted to go to him, hold him, do anything I could to take away that pain. Because with each beat of his heart, it became my pain too. And he knew it.
“Rowan,” he said, eyes wide with agony as he turned to me. “I want...I can’t…”
I smiled and touched his face. “It’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s anything but all right. Rowan, I don’t want to hurt you. I want to…God. It’s killing me to be near you. It’s killing me not to be near you. And you didn’t ask for any of this.”
I shrugged and slapped my hands on the mattress. “Neither did you.”
“Yeah. I did. I knew I was taking a risk by coming to Heartland. I didn’t know what I’d find. I thought…”
“You thought you’d find him. And you thought you’d be able to end all of your pain by killing him and dying in the process. But, it looks like I ruined all of that for you.” I gave him an ironic smile then quickly dropped it. The pain in Jagger’s eyes deepened and I hated myself a little for putting it there.
“It’s okay,” I said, though we both knew it wasn’t. He let me touch his face again. I grew bold, edging toward him. I put a soft kiss on his lips. Jagger made a soft, sharp intake of air. I felt his need growing along with my own.
We broke just as a shadow fell across the door. Dr. Olivet stood there. Her white lab coat stained with Aunt Grace’s blood.
“She is awake,” Suzanne said. “She is asking for you. But…”
I dropped Jagger’s hand and ran down the corridor to Aunt Grace.
Seventeen
Jagger
Rowan’s Aunt Grace was fading, but she refused to let go. Rowan stayed at her side morning and night for the next three days. She left only to eat and sleep for an hour here or there. I was worried about her. Three days without taking any of the medication Grace had been giving her, and Rowan’s strength or health hadn’t altered one bit.
“Has either of them said anything coherent?” I asked Suzanne. I stood at the mouth of the cavern where we’d chained Sampson. He remained in his wolf, eyes fixed open and his jaw slack.
Suzanne dusted off her pants and rose. She’d just taken Sampson’s vitals for the second time today. “He is in some sort of stasis. I’ve not seen anything like it. It is almost as if his min
d is, what’s the word...booby-trapped.”
“Not booby-trapped,” I said. “He’s waiting for a command that won’t reach him this far underground. It may be the rest of the Pack thinks he’s dead.”
Suzanne shrugged. “You may be right. It is a horrible thing. As if his thoughts and will have been hollowed out for so long, there is nothing left behind.”
She put a light hand on my chest as she edged around me out of the cavern. “You,” she said. “Look terrible. You are not sleeping.”
I sleep when Rowan sleeps. I let the answer die on my lips. It was the truth though. When she was in turmoil, so was I. But, I’d kept my distance, letting her be with Grace. The woman would die. It was only a matter of time.
“You should get some air,” Suzanne said.
“I’m fine.”
She cocked her head to the side and gave me a wry smile. “You are not fine. You have been underground for three days. Get outside. Shift if you have to. It is not good for you to be in the darkness for so long.”
Another answer swirled in my brain that I wouldn’t give voice to. I’d been in the darkness for far longer than even Suzanne knew.
“That’s an order!” Molly appeared in the corridor. “Go, Jagger. Liam’s topside. He sent me down here to get you.”
“I thought you were going to look in on Rowan.”
“I have,” Molly said. “I even got some food in her. If you have some magic method of getting her to sleep for more than an hour at a time that would also do her some good. You too. In the meantime, I wouldn’t keep Liam waiting. It sounded kind of urgent. Go on. I’ll let you know if there’s any change in our patients down here. Any of them.”
I couldn’t very well argue with both of them, so I pushed myself off the wall and headed up to the woods.
It was raining when I got up there. A low fog obscured the bottoms of the trees. Liam waited for me in the mist, his wolf eyes flashing gold as he dressed after a shift. He straightened when he saw me. He clasped my hand and thumped my back.
“You look better,” he said. This got a laugh out of me.
“Molly and the doctor just told me the exact opposite.”
“I was being nice. They’re right. You look like shit, man. Why don’t you go for a hunt? It’s safe enough for now. That wolf doesn’t seem dialed into the Pack in his current condition. It’ll do you good.”
“Maybe I will. Meantime, Molly said you wanted to talk. What about?”
Liam looked over my shoulder. “You can ask her yourself.”
I turned. Molly climbed out of the cave entrance, her expression grim. She and Liam passed a look that only mates can share. In tune to each other’s moods and thoughts, their connection grew stronger by the day. I was happy for them. Truly. At the same time, I prayed they’d never have to suffer the loss that I had.
“I like her, Jagger,” Molly said, never one to bother with a preamble. My heart clenched. “I like her a lot. But, she’s scared out of her mind. And grieving. Her aunt’s held on longer than I ever could have imagined, but she can’t come back from the wounds she’s suffered. Her kidneys are starting to shut down. We could take her to a hospital. They might be able to prolong her life a little bit, but it would still take a miracle for her to survive.”
“And she won’t go,” I said, already knowing how this would play out.
Molly shook her head. “No. She won’t. She smart enough to know the Pack spies would get tipped off the minute she showed up in an emergency room. She won’t put Rowan at risk.”
She hesitated a fraction of a second before she said Rowan’s name. Just that one little pause sucked the air straight out of my lungs.
“Molly, what?” I went to her. I took Molly’s wrist. My grip was firm, but I would never hurt her. Even so, Liam growled and put himself between us. A quick flash of his fangs gave me a warning. I stepped back.
Molly put a hand on Liam’s chest and another on mine, standing in the middle. Her eyes were kind, but filled with sorrow as she looked up at me.
“Tell me, Molly. I need to know.”
She took a breath of courage. “We’re still waiting on some test results. Rowan’s vitals are good. There’s no sign of any disease or infection or anything immediately life-threatening. I don’t yet have an answer for you about all they’ve done to her. But, I do know one thing they’ve done, and that’s lie to her.”
“What are you talking about?”
Whatever Molly was about to say, Liam already knew. He knew because he could read her mind when she wanted him to. But also, as her protector and Alpha, he would have insisted he be here when Molly delivered this news. He was afraid of how I might react.
“We’ve run tests on the medicine in those injections Grace was giving her. Jagger, they’re a placebo.”
Molly’s words swam around in my head, their meaning not catching. My own protective nature flared. There was a threat to Rowan, I could feel it, but it wasn’t one I could attack for her.
“It’s normal saline,” Molly continued. “There’s no active agent of any kind that we could find. It’s basically salt water with a non-toxic dye. We’ve run the tests over several times. There is just no medical benefit to those shots, Jagger. They’re not keeping her alive. They’re not doing anything. So, that’s good news in a sense. It means they’re not harming her either.”
I walked away from them. My stomach roiled and I doubled over. I dug my fingers into the rough bark of a maple tree and Liam and Molly came to me.
“You said good news in a sense. Why in a sense?”
Molly moved to put her hand on me, but Liam stopped her. He could sense the conflict churning inside of me. I would never hurt Molly, but I understood his instinct.
“Do you think the aunt knows this?” Liam asked. “Has she been lying to Rowan all this time too?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Dammit, I have no idea. Her whole life though, she’s believed she wouldn’t live without those fucking shots. They used them to keep her prisoner.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it, Jagger. I promise,” Molly said. She waved Liam off and put a hand on my shoulder, peering into my face.
“Don’t promise, Molly. We’re dealing with Valent. Who knows how many tricks he’s used to keep the Pack and the people of Heartland in line? It’s why he needs to die. Liam, do you hear me? No matter the cost. Valent has to die. He’s weak. I saw him. His confrontation with Payne hurt him more than he’s letting on to the rest of the Pack. I was so close. I could have done it. I could have torn him to bits. He’s not strong enough or fast enough to stand up to me one on one. To any of us. God. I should have ripped him apart when I had the chance.”
Rage poured through me. I punched the tree trunk until I bloodied my hands. Liam held Molly back as she tried to reach for me.
Finally, Liam grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me around. We stared eye to eye, both of our wolves simmering.
“I had him,” I choked out the words.
“Jagger, stop!” Molly shouted. With Liam holding me back, she got bold and reached up, putting her hands on my face.
I strained against Liam’s grip. Only the fear that I might inadvertently injure Molly kept me from shifting. She was standing far too close.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked, but there was no accusation in her tone. “Tell me, Jagger, why didn’t you kill Able when you had the chance?”
I tore myself away from both of their touches. My heart flipped as grief thundered through me. Keara. I’d failed her. In so many ways.
“Jagger,” Molly pressed on. She knelt beside me. “Look at me. Tell me the truth. Tell yourself the truth. What stopped you? You could have killed Valent and then the Pack would have surrounded you. Valent would be dead, but so would you. That’s what you intended when you left here, wasn’t it? Don’t lie to me.”
Hot tears stung my eyes, but Molly didn’t relent. She touched my face again. “What was it, Jagger?”
“Don’t,”
I said, my voice coming out as a hiss. “Don’t do this.”
“What pulled you back?” She put her hand over my heart.
I dropped my head and let the tears fall. “She did.”
“Rowan,” Molly said.
I stumbled away from her and ended up on my ass, leaning against a tree. Liam and Molly stood before me. He’d wrapped his arms around her and she pressed her head to his chest. Tears filled Molly’s eyes too.
“Jagger, let go,” she said. “It’s time to let go.”
“They would have killed her.”
“You felt her,” Liam said. “Didn’t you? She was in danger and you felt it.”
I dropped my head and nodded.
Molly put a hand to her lips. A single tear fell from her cheek. Slowly, she squatted down again so we were eye to eye. “Jagger, you thick-headed fool. I love you.”
I met her eyes. “Don’t.” I covered my face with my arm, curling into myself.
Liam was at my side. “Man, it’s okay. It is. You know it in your heart. You know this is fate. Molly’s right. You have to let go. It’s what Keara would say if she were here right now. You know that.”
“She’s yours,” Molly whispered. “My God, Jagger. Rowan is yours. She’s a second chance for you. And she’s worth it. Oh, Jagger, she’s so worth it. You were meant to find her. She pulled you back. You didn’t kill Valent because she pulled you back. That makes me love her too. Well...that and also because I’m getting the sense that she’s kind of a badass. And she seems to be the only one who’s had any luck saving you from yourself.”
Liam laughed and slapped my shoulder. “Come on, man. This is a good thing. It’s a marvel.”
I buried my face in my hands. In one sense, it felt like a weight had been lifted from me. In another, the hollow space in my heart felt even wider. Keara. She was in that hollow. But, for the first time since I’d met Rowan, the pain in that space was gone. I just hadn’t been willing to admit it to myself.
“Come on,” Molly said. She pulled on my arm, trying to get me to stand. “She’s waiting for you. She needs you. The days to come are going to be hard for her. But, there’s hope now, Jagger. For you. For her. For all of us. You just have to let yourself feel it.”