Heart of Stone (Alice Worth Book 4)

by Lisa Edmonds

  Sean growled. I wasn’t sure if it was at the thought of my death or me rising as a vampire, or both. I tried to tell him not to let Charles turn me, but all that came out was a groan.

  Charles’s cool fingers brushed across my cheek. “Alice, open your eyes and look at me.”

  Someone ripped off what was left of my shirt. The movement hurt something, somewhere—maybe everything. I couldn’t tell anymore where one pain ended and another began.

  I moaned and my eyes fluttered open. I was so cold and the light was blinding. Charles’s face swam in and out of focus as shadowy forms moved around me. I coughed thickly and blood bubbled up, spilling down my chin.

  Sean snarled. “This is taking too long. Don’t you have healing spells to use?”

  “A healing spell would kill her now,” Bryan rumbled from my left. “She’s lost too much blood. Her heart wouldn’t be able to take the strain.”

  Charles cupped my face in his hand as I fought to keep my eyes open. “Stay awake, Alice,” he ordered. “Get the IV in,” he told Bryan.

  I blinked slowly and saw Bryan working quickly above me, his face grim. He pulled the cap off a needle with his teeth, poked at my skin with his gloved fingertips, and slid the needle into my vein. I turned my head away.

  I lay on a hospital gurney in a small white room filled with medical equipment. A bag of what I assumed was human blood waited to drain into my left arm. On the other side, a bag labeled with a large red V hung from another pole. I wondered how they planned to get any blood to stay in my right arm, which looked like it had gone through a meat grinder. My legs were misshapen, bent in unnatural directions. I was covered in bloody gaping wounds, some so deep that I saw muscles, tendons, and exposed bone. The white sheets on the gurney were already turning red.

  I drew on Sean’s comfort and wrapped it around myself like a warm blanket. Exhaustion tugged at me and the urge to sleep became irresistible. I closed my eyes and started to drift away.

  “No.” Dimly, I felt Charles slap my face.

  Behind me, Sean growled in warning.

  “Peace, wolf. She must stay conscious,” the vampire said. He slapped me again, harder.

  I forced my eyes open. Charles’s face was right above mine, his eyes fiery. “Look at me, Alice. You will not sleep. I will not let you die tonight.”

  Heat rushed into my left arm. “The IV is in,” Bryan said.

  Charles’s fangs ripped savagely into his wrist and he moved to press the wound to my mouth. My stomach rebelled at the sight of more blood and I turned away with a sob.

  Sean swore. Charles held my head still with his other hand while Sean gripped my shoulders. I suddenly couldn’t stand to be pinned down. Terror mixed with fury forced me to reach up with broken arms to fight the vampire and the werewolf restraining me. The IV pulled at my skin and pain flared through the numbness.

  “Hold her still!” Charles ordered. His torn wrist dripped blood.

  “No, don’t try to hold her down. That just makes it worse.” Sean’s face appeared above mine as everyone else let go of me. “Alice, I’m here. No one’s holding you down. We need you to drink from Vaughan so you don’t die. You’re losing blood faster than we can put more in.”

  “I’m halfway through the second unit of blood already,” Bryan rumbled. “I don’t know how much longer we have before she goes into shock and her body shuts down. It’s a miracle she’s even alive.”

  Sean cupped my face with his hands. “Trust me to take care of you. Drink. You don’t have much longer if you don’t.”

  My eyes went to Charles. “I’ll drink,” I rasped.

  Charles bit into his wrist again and pressed it to my mouth. I closed my eyes and drank.

  The power and pleasure of vampire blood coursed through me in waves. I moaned. Charles didn’t move away and I kept drinking.

  Things began to move and heal inside my body. My back and neck spasmed, went stiff, and then loosened. Sensation flooded back to my extremities and I cried out at the sudden wave of agony in my arms and legs.

  I felt the other needle going into my right arm and vamp blood rushed through my veins like a tidal wave.

  My jaw popped and reset. My broken ribs—injuries I didn’t even know I had—rearranged and healed. My arms and legs moved, jerked, and trembled as the various fractures knitted back together. Bryan and Adri carefully held my arms steady to keep the IVs from being pulled out as I convulsed.

  Finally, Charles gently pulled his arm away from my mouth. I licked the last of his blood from my lips. As my body continued to repair its wounds, I twitched and shuddered.

  When the bites and gashes in my flesh began to heal, it felt like hordes of ants on my skin. I cried out and tried to move, but Sean held me. He lowered his face to my neck and nuzzled my throat. His touch comforted me. The strange sensations faded as I drifted in the pleasure of Charles’s blood and Sean’s soothing forest scent.

  When I opened my eyes, I found Charles sitting on the bed next to mine. He’d probably given me every drop of blood he could without risking his own life. He’d been on death’s door himself just two nights ago.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Please do not apologize.” His face was pale, but his voice was strong.

  My heartbeat felt much too slow. “Will I live?”

  “Yes,” Bryan said. “But we need to continue with the transfusions and minimize the strain on your heart. Your injuries are healed, but your blood pressure is dangerously low.”

  I was afraid to sleep, afraid I’d never wake up again if I let go, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. “Sean?”

  His gripped my hand and squeezed. “Rest now. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

  Comforted by his touch, I slipped away into darkness.

  I slept for a very long time. Terrifying nightmares alternated with more pleasant interludes of dreamless sleep and dreams of Sean.

  A few times I felt as though I might be waking up—I heard voices and sensed movement that seemed real instead of part of a dream—but the darkness always pulled me back under. The scent of forest never left me, however, and whenever I drew on the warmth and comfort of Sean’s magic, it filled me and eased my fear. Somehow I knew he’d never let me go in all the time I’d been asleep.

  Finally, the darkness receded like a tide going out and I began to surface—not quite awake, but not fully asleep either, as if I were dozing instead of unconscious. Voices rose and fell on the edge of my awareness, voices that sounded like Sean, Ben, and Jack.

  The first words I heard clearly were from Ben. “Caleb cloned your phone. That’s how he tricked her into going out there. He was able to send texts that appeared to come from you. When she replied, the texts went to both phones.”

  “And I didn’t receive hers until twenty minutes later because I was at that damned dinner with Zachary.” Sean’s voice was quiet, but it sounded like he was next to me, holding me against his body with an arm around my middle. “He told her it was a pack emergency so she’d be more worried about that than whether it was a trap.” He snarled. “I should have seen it coming. I knew he was dangerous.” His anger sizzled on my skin.

  “I take the blame,” Jack said heavily. “I thought he’d find his way if he had a pack’s support, but I was wrong. He was just too angry. I don’t know what the hell he was thinking. He had to know he’d never get away with it. We’d know it was him, even if he’d succeeded in killing her.”

  “You and Delia share responsibility for this attack.” Sean’s voice hardened. “He listened to everything you said about Alice and became fixated on solving what he saw as a problem. He saw her as a problem because you see her as a problem—something that needed to be dealt with, one way or another.”

  “I never intended—” Jack began.

  “I don’t give a shit what you intended. Delia helped Lily hex Alice and then Caleb tried to kill her. A lot of Delia’s resentment comes from her insecurity about having a dominant female
in the pack, but that doesn’t excuse what she’s said and done. Your prejudice against Alice was the biggest factor in both of these attacks. That hex nearly killed her. Caleb tore her to pieces and she’s been unconscious for almost twenty-four hours.”

  His arm tightened around me. “I had to ask a vampire to save her life, Jack—a vampire I hate because he victimizes her every chance he gets. Every time I see him I want to tear him apart. Instead I had to make Alice drink his blood because it was either that or watch her die. Do you have any idea what that was like? She smells like him, even now. There’s more of his blood in her than her own.”

  “I take responsibility for all of it,” Jack said. “For the hex, for Caleb’s attack, for forcing you to ask your enemy to save your consort.”

  “Caleb’s blood is on your hands. Alice’s too,” Sean told him.

  A long silence. “For the record, my feelings about Alice changed after you came back from your trip,” Jack said finally. “The pack has become stronger since then—I sensed it and so have others. I didn’t want to believe it was because of her. I was born a shifter and the idea that a human might be a pack’s strength instead of a weakness goes against everything I’ve ever believed. But even I could deny the truth only for so long before I had to admit you were right when you told us she would make us stronger, because she has.” A pause. “If I’d communicated that openly to Delia and Caleb, probably there would have been no hex and no attack. If you plan to challenge me, I understand.” He sounded resigned.

  “I plan to discuss the matter with my consort when she wakes up,” Sean said. “In the meantime, is the scene cleaned up?”

  “Yes.” It was Ben who answered. “I went out there before I came here and I can’t smell any trace of Caleb or Alice.”

  “Sean, you need to eat something and take a break.” I was surprised to hear Nan’s firm voice. “You’ve barely moved from that bed all day. I’ll hold her while you heat up some of the food I brought.”

  “I want to be here when she wakes up.” Sean’s voice had that mulish tone I knew all too well.

  “You’ll be moments away in the kitchen downstairs,” Nan pointed out. “We’ll come get you if she opens her eyes. She wouldn’t want you to go without eating.”

  “Come on, man,” Ben said. “Nan’s right. You haven’t eaten all day and you barely slept last night. Take a little break. We’ll take care of her. She’s pack.”

  Ben’s words broke through the last of the fog in my brain and I made a tiny noise. “Alice?” Sean asked.

  I moved my hand. He grabbed it and squeezed. “She’s awake,” he said, his relief and happiness a warm feeling on my skin. “Can you open your eyes?”

  I got my eyes open about halfway and found myself in Sean’s bed under several blankets. Since Sean was behind me, the first person I saw was Nan, who’d crouched at the side of the bed. “Hello there, sleepyhead,” she said, smiling.

  Ben and Jack stood behind her. Ben was grinning, as usual. Jack looked haggard. He must be taking Caleb’s death hard.

  Sean moved so he could see my face. His eyes were deeply shadowed and he had several days’ worth of beard that did nothing to hide how strained he looked.

  “You look terrible,” I whispered.

  He smiled and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “My Alice,” he murmured and rested his forehead on mine.

  Nan patted my arm and got to her feet. “This man hasn’t left your side since last night.”

  “And he looks like it.” I managed a smile. “What’s this I hear about you not sleeping or eating? You’re supposed to mind Nan when I’m not around.”

  “Who is the alpha of this pack?” Sean asked, frowning in mock outrage.

  “You are.” I touched his face. “But Nan is the voice of reason, and sometimes even the alpha knows he isn’t being reasonable.”

  “I’m all kinds of unreasonable when it comes to you.” He took my hand and pressed a kiss into my palm.

  Nan stepped back and gestured at the door. “Let’s give Alice and Sean a few minutes to talk, gentlemen. Sean, I expect you to shower and then come downstairs to eat presently.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sean smiled. “Thank you, Nan.”

  She shooed the others out and closed the door.

  Once their footsteps had gone downstairs, Sean closed his eyes and hung his head. “Damn it,” he said softly. “Alice, it’s been almost an entire day.”

  “Not as bad as the seven-day snooze I took a couple of months back.” I brushed hair back from his face, letting my fingertips run lightly over his lips. “This wasn’t even a coma, just a really long nap.”

  The pain in his eyes made my heart hurt. “I thought I’d seen horrors before, but nothing I’ve seen was as bad as what you went through to keep from becoming a werewolf,” he said, his voice rough. “Your legs broke and your ribs broke and your jaw broke and still you wouldn’t shift, wouldn’t give in. And then the agony of burning the virus away…” He swallowed hard. “I will hear the sound of your back breaking for the rest of my life.”

  I recalled what for me had been the worst moment of last night: when he’d asked if I would rather be dead than be a werewolf. My own suffering seemed inconsequential next to the hurt I’d unintentionally inflicted on him.

  “I didn’t choose to burn the virus out because I would rather be dead than be a werewolf.” I looked into his eyes so he could see and feel my truthfulness. “The only reason I did what I did was I believed I would survive. What mattered to me was having the choice. I went a very long time without the ability to make any decisions whatsoever about what I did and what happened to my body, and after I got away from all that, I swore I’d never give up that control again.”

  “I understand.” He ran his nose along my hairline. “I realized that when I could think more clearly. I know damn well you don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a werewolf.” His smile made the hurt in my heart go away. “You would have been a magnificent wolf, Alice. I saw her, you know, right before you burned the virus away. Part of me wishes you and I could have run together as wolves, though I know it’s a selfish wish.”

  “It’s not selfish,” I assured him. “I wish that too. It would have been wonderful, I’m sure.” I took his hand and squeezed it. “Speaking of wolves, how’d your dinner with Lily’s father go?”

  “Not as smoothly as I’d hoped.”

  “What happened?”

  “When I got there, instead of just Zachary and his brother Matt, there were two other members of the Were Ruling Council—one a wolf and the other a panther shifter. Like Matt and Zachary, both of them are of the opinion that alphas should have shifter mates. Our discussion got a bit heated, as you might imagine. There’s no law against an alpha having a human mate and each pack has sovereignty over relationships. We’d been arguing for about forty-five minutes when I got your text and left.”

  “So where do we stand?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing more to discuss. They expressed their opinions. I told them I respect their views, but I disagree. Zachary admitted there was no agreement between us in regard to Lily and apologized formally for her hexing you. Their pack has been sanctioned by the Council for her actions.”

  I could tell he was holding something back. “What else?”

  His anger sizzled on my skin. “I had to inform the Council last night about Caleb’s attack and that you’d killed him in self-defense. Zachary contacted me earlier today to express his condolences. He used the opportunity to say this wouldn’t have happened if I’d chosen a shifter as a mate.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  He growled. “I was holding you at the time and you were unconscious. I may have told him, rather undiplomatically, to fuck off.”

  “Sounds like he deserved to be told that.”

  He rubbed his face. “Alice, I’m sorry I ever let Caleb join our pack. I’m sorry I gave Jack a second chance after he tried to find the other cuff to give
to Lily and blocked you from seeing me. Before you woke up, I told Jack that he’s largely responsible for both the hex and Caleb’s attack, but the fact is I’m to blame. That’s what I’ve been thinking about while I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. I made two poor decisions and that’s what led us to this moment. I’m questioning the previous alpha’s wisdom in suggesting I would be a good alpha.” He growled. “I can’t even keep my consort safe from members of my own pack.”

  I’d never seen Sean with his confidence shaken. I squeezed his hand. “Stop. What was your mistake, exactly? That you believe people can change and be better? I already told you that’s not a failure on your part. If you weren’t that sort of person, we wouldn’t be together now because you wouldn’t have believed in me. Look at the person I was when we first met—the things I did and said, and the horrible way I treated you. Most people wouldn’t have been able to get away from me fast enough, but you stuck it out because you believed I could change. I wouldn’t want you to change that about yourself for anything, even if it meant I’d end up hexed and a little chewed up.”

  He shook his head. “You weren’t a little chewed up, Alice. You were chewed to pieces.”

  “Potato, potahto.” I waved my hand dismissively. “So you were wrong about Caleb. You weren’t about Jack. You heard him; he started to see things more clearly in the past few weeks.”

  “You heard all that?”

  I nodded. “I was waking up while you were talking. He should have told the others what he thought, but look at how he stepped up to help after Bell threatened me and the way he reacted to what Delia did. He isn’t the man he was when he tried to give that cuff to Lily. He did change. You were right.”

  He rubbed his bristly chin. “I don’t want to make another mistake, Alice.”

  “Me neither. None of us do, but we will both make mistakes. I have faith that we will get through it. I’ll be here to give counsel. You’ve got Ben, and Nan, and Jack too.” I smiled up at him. “Keep calm and carry on, alpha. You heard Jack—the pack is strong and growing stronger.”