“I’m looking for my sister, Laina Flynn,” Silas told the woman behind the desk.

“You must be Silas. I’ve been expecting you. I have a note here that one of our nurses wants to meet with you directly about Laina’s condition. I’ll page her for you.”

A nurse needed to talk to him directly. He bet his life he knew who it was.

“Silas, thank the goddess!” Grateful Knight grabbed him by the elbow and ushered him away from the desk, her massive belly leading the way.

“Whoa,” he mumbled. “You are exceptionally pregnant.” He couldn’t help but stare. Her stomach seemed to have popped out overnight.

“I won’t take that personally.” She lowered her voice. “Between you and me, I’ve been using a spell to help conceal it, but I’m so far along now, the magic won’t work anymore.” Grateful paused, looked both ways, and pulled him into a consultation room.

“So, what’s going on with my sister?” Silas asked. It always fascinated him that Grateful, one of the most powerful witches of her time, chose to keep her job as a nurse. Then again, working in the intensive care unit gave her access to insider information on human injuries caused by supernatural beings. As a Hecate, judge and jury of all things not human, that was useful information.

“She’s in surgery.”

“Fuck. Is she going to be okay? What happened?”

“She was attacked. Stabbed four times in the abdomen about an hour ago, outside Four Paws Animal Hospital.”

“During daylight hours?”

“Yeah. That’s not even the weirdest part.”

“What’s the weird part?”

“The stab marks… the flesh around the entry points is singed as if they stabbed her with a hot poker.”

Silas swallowed hard. “In the parking lot?”

“Right. And there was a substance injected into her body. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I took a sample, and let’s just say it made Nightshade light up like a laser beam.” Nightshade was Grateful’s sword, a magical blade that served as a supernatural lie detector, sniffing out evil intent in both supernatural creatures and enchanted objects.

“What do you think it is?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ll find out. As soon as I know what it is, I’ll do whatever it takes to heal Laina. But Silas, the stab wounds… they weren’t random.” She pulled out her phone and slid her finger across the screen to bring up a picture.

“The letter A,” Silas said grimly. “Alex did this. I got too close last night. This is his warning to me. He wants me to back off.”

“You saw Alex last night?”

“Yeah. Almost shot his ass. He was collecting bones at a crime scene I was investigating.”

“Bones?”

Silas shrugged. “I have no idea what he plans to do with them.”

Grateful shook her head. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Alex couldn’t have done this. The stabbing occurred in the parking lot of Four Paws. Gerty and I have had a protective ward around the place for months. The same one we put around Rivergate. Nothing supernatural can get in there without our knowledge. It’s sealed so tight that Laina has to call me if a witch or fae wants to bring their dog in for an exam. And, before you ask, she hasn’t added any new clients recently.”

Silas closed his eyes tightly. “So Alex got a human to do his dirty work.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Fuck. Does Kyle know?”

She nodded. “We called him first. He’s waiting outside of surgery.”

“Tell me the truth, Grateful. What’s the expected outcome here? Don’t sugarcoat it. What’s going to happen to my sister?”

Grateful’s entire body seemed to sag, and she slipped her hands into the pockets of her scrubs. “Honestly, if she were human she’d already be dead. But she’s not human. Her heart is still beating, and Gerty is asking permission of the fae council to bring fire lily juice here. I’m going to make a healing potion based on what I determine was on the blade. She’s not out of the woods, but she’s got some powerful people pulling for her.”

Silas choked back tears. “Thank you. Just do your best.”

Smoothing a loose strand of blond hair back into her ponytail, Grateful frowned. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

“Go ahead and say it.” Silas scratched his jaw. “Nothing can make this situation worse.”

“They ran her blood work before surgery.”

“Yeah? And?”

Grateful ran a hand over the mound of her abdomen. “Laina’s pregnant.”

* * *

The steady beep of the machines in Laina’s room was almost hypnotic. Even though her surgery had gone as expected, for still unknown reasons, she hadn’t woken up. All the human doctors were calling it a coma. Grateful quietly declared it a curse.

“She’s going to be all right,” Silas said to Kyle. “Grateful will figure out the nature of what’s doing this to Laina, and she’ll undo it.”

“I called Jason,” Kyle said. “He and Selene are flying back from Italy. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Good. Laina needs all the support she can get right now.”

The men sat in silence, Silas on Laina’s right, Kyle on her left. She looked small in the bed, small and thin. He thought of the way she’d packed away the burger at Valentine’s and wondered if it was because of the baby. Goddess, he was going to kill Alex for this. For this and for everything else the bastard had done to their family.

“Did Grateful tell you?” Kyle asked eventually. “About what they found when they tested her blood?”

What should he say? Congratulations seemed inappropriate, given the circumstances. Silas decided a nod would be enough.

“They say the baby is about seven weeks along. We didn’t even know.” He looked at Laina. “I guess she still doesn’t know.”

“She’ll be so excited, Kyle. The entire pack will be.”

“I hope so.”

Silas ran a hand through his hair. Too long and bushy, it caught in his fingers, but who had time for haircuts when you were hunting down your mortal enemy?

“We’ve got to find him,” Kyle said, his voice low and threatening. “Alex needs to pay for this.”

“I won’t stop until he does,” Silas said.

“What’s taking so long? Jason said Alex was so weak he could hardly use the amulet. That was weeks ago.”

“I know. Alex has to be working with a healer. Has to be.” Silas rubbed the back of his knuckles against the stubble on his chin. “I’m getting closer. I’m staking out a new place tonight.”

Kyle rose from his wife’s side and paced the room. “Maybe. Maybe you got too close and that was why he targeted Laina.”

“Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Kyle’s voice rose in pitch. “You have a Hecate on your side, a best friend who’s a caretaker. Fuck we’ve got a fairy godmother in Gerty, for Pete’s sake. Stop trying to do this on your own and get it done.”

Silas was pondering how to respond without losing his shit, when Meredith stumbled into the room, panting and doubled over. She looked like hell. Half her red hair spilled from her ponytail, her clothing was disheveled, and her eyes bulged.

She grabbed Silas by the collar and shook him. “You… you left me there. Why did you leave me there?”

“I… Uh….” Goddess, he felt like an asshole for leaving without her. But he’d had no choice.

“Do you know what cupping is?” Her voice was quiet but held a tinge of venom.

Slowly, he shook his head.

“After you left, Dr. Lucky Charms decided the therapy I needed involved suctioning heated glass cups to my skin.” She pulled the neck of her blouse aside to reveal an angry red welt. “Not only did it hurt like hell, he charged me five hundred dollars!”

“We’ll submit that to the department for reimbursement,” Silas mumbled.

“And then… And then…” She shook him harder. “By the time I left, my invented condition was a real one. I feel like I’ve been hit by a frickin’ truck. You abandoned me. I had to call for an Uber. An Uber, Silas! I could barely sit down.”

“Did he do that to your butt too?”

Meredith scowled. “My entire backside from neck to ankle looks like an infection of megasized adult acne.”

Kyle snorted, then broke into a full-out laugh despite himself.

Meredith raised her head, seeming to notice Laina in the bed and Kyle by her side for the first time.

“My sister,” Silas said. “She was stabbed today. We think it was Alex. I had to leave unexpectedly. I’m sorry.”

Lips parting, Meredith shoved against his collarbones and staggered backward, glancing between him and Kyle. “Manahan said you were here for your sister. I had no idea.”

“Who is this person?” Kyle asked Silas.

“Meredith.” She held out her hand in Kyle’s direction. “I’m Silas’s new partner.”

“She’s not really my partner,” Silas said. “Well, technically she is, but temporarily... and not really.”

Kyle raised his eyebrows. “I’m Silas’s brother-in-law, Kyle.”

Meredith took a moment to process the family dynamic, then said, “I’m sorry.”

With a grim smile, Kyle turned back to Silas. “You were saying something about a stakeout?”

“I’m going to stake out Dr. Copper’s office. He said his partner specialized in werewolves, and there was a room off the office that could potentially be a small apartment.” Silas took a deep breath.

“I’ll tell you one thing, Dr. Copper has some secrets,” Meredith said.

Silas peered at her expectantly. “Yeah?”

“Look how he signed my take-home instructions.” She pulled a folded paper from her back pocket and handed it to him.

“Dr. Herald?” Silas squinted at the signature.

“There was only one desk, one examination table, one set of equipment, and one nameplate I could find anywhere. Copper Herald. One name.” Meredith rested her hands on her hips. “I think Dr. Copper started my exam and Dr. Herald finished it.”

“So…”

“He’s both men, a Jekyll and Hyde, and you know what else? After my exam, I barged through that door behind his desk, and you were right.” She gave Silas a knowing grin. “I’m not sure it’s Alex, but someone is living there. Someone with a pair of muddy boots.”