“Ms. Gardener?”
Sara jumped up from her seat for the hundredth time since they’d brought Hailey into WellStar Atlanta Medical Center four hours earlier. “Yes, that’s me. How is she?”
The tired-looking doctor dredged up what he probably thought was an encouraging smile, failing miserably. “Her x-rays look fine, but she took a serious blow to the head that required stiches, so we’d like to keep her overnight for observation. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. She’ll likely be released in the morning, but I’d rather err on the side of caution in case of concussion.”
Sara’s heart slowed down for the first time since finding Hailey on the concrete, and her response came out on a stutter of air. “Yes, of course, and thank you.”
The doctor waved at a nearby nurse. “She’s awake and asking for you. Jean will take you to her room.”
It was well after midnight and the short trip down the hall was punctuated by the nurse’s squeaky shoes and noise from all the monitoring equipment being used as they passed each room. How anyone ever got any rest in these places was beyond her. Two-thirds of the way down the passage, the nurse pushed open a door on the right.
“There you go.”
Sara only had eyes for her sister as she entered, and she dismissed the woman with a nod and a quiet thank-you as she dashed over to the bed. She carefully propped on the edge of the mattress and spoke softly. “Hailey? Hailey? Honey, I’m here.”
Her sister’s eyelids fluttered open then she scrunched up her face. “You’d think, in this day and age, they could come up with something better than these hideous hospital gowns.”
Sara carefully took her hand and snorted. “You bash your head hard enough to end up in a hospital and all you care about is what you’re wearing?”
“Hey, a girl has to keep up a certain standard if she’s assistant to a hot-shot author, you know.”
Sara’s heart swelled with pride. Her sister’s self-worth had taken a hit after her stint on the streets, but it also toughened her up in other ways. Sara hadn’t realized just how tough she was till now. She also knew Hailey wouldn’t appreciate her pointing it out, so she winked instead. “It’s not like I’m snapping shots for Instagram here.” She worked to lighten her voice more. “So how are you feeling?”
Hailey shrugged then winced. “Great, as long as I don’t move anything from the waist up.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“Yeah, a pair of dick-wads jumped me, and I went banshee on their ass. For all the good that did, then Ryan—” Her gaze shot past Sara toward the door. “Hey, where is my knight in shining armor, anyway?”
Sara looked out the window only to be confronted by her own guilty expression. “I, uh…told him to go.”
She could feel Hailey glaring at her. “What the hell did you do that for, and go where?”
Eyes back on Hailey, she wasn’t sure which was worse, her own guilt, or Hailey’s suspicious look. But damn it, she’d needed some space. With all that had happened between the attack, and what she thought she saw… Thought you saw?
“Sara? What did you do? Your face is all pinched up and you’re gnawing on your lip.”
She couldn’t sit still, so she stood and straightened the wrinkle she’d left behind in the sheet before wandering over to the window. “The police said they needed him to give a statement as soon as possible, so I told him to go take care of it.”
Hailey processed her excuse in a matter of seconds. “Bullshit. You’re pacing. You never pace. You ran him off for some other reason.”
Sara rubbed her arms, suddenly cold.
Yeah, because either I’m losing my mind or there’s something very wrong with him. Sara couldn’t talk about this, nor could she deal with the source of all this confusion. So, she’d told herself it was better to simply rip the Band-Aid off fast and be done. “It doesn’t matter, Ryan was a fling and that’s all. You’re my sister, and you’re hurt. Fling over. End of discussion.” As soon as the words fell from her mouth, the panic button in her brain activated. No!
“Sara Eileen Gardener, it’s a good thing your eyes are brown or I wouldn’t be the only one who could see how full of it you are.” Hailey wiggled up higher in the bed and winced again, bringing Sara back to her side. “Ryan saved my ass tonight, and I’ve never seen you all bent out of shape over anyone, let alone like you are around him. So, cut the crap.”
Sara attempted to distract her by fixing her pillow. “Stop wiggling around. You’ll pull your stitches.”
Hailey snarled and swatted her hand. “You are going to call him first thing in the morning and take him for breakfast or something to make up for being an ungrateful jerk.”
Sara planted her hands on her hips and snarled back. “I can’t do that. I have to pick you up in the morning.”
Hailey spoke through clenched teeth. “Hand me my phone.”
All the jostling around Hailey was doing couldn’t be good, so Sara acquiesced. “Why? Who are you calling at this time of night?”
She didn’t answer, just glared as she tapped the screen, scrolled then put it up to her ear. “Nicki? Yeah, I’m fine, hard head and all that. Thanks for asking. Listen, can you be on standby to come get me in the morning when they cut me loose?” She stuck her tongue out at Sara. “Awesome, thanks. You’re a peach.”
Sara’s frayed nerves unraveled more. “That was completely unnecessary.” Her voice was shrill, but she couldn’t seem to curb it. “Ryan is my business, and I say it’s over—”
Hailey’s voice, on the other hand, was quiet and all the clearer for it. “Stuff a sock in it, Sara.” Her eyes flashed between anger and something else. Disappointment? “I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’ve decided to be an idiot, kicking the best thing, next to me, that’s ever happened to you to the curb like yesterday’s garbage, because you’re right that is your business.”
“Good. Now I—”
“But that man saved me from god knows what tonight, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you be a coward about it. If you’re going to break it off, the least you can do is grow a pair and do it to his face.”
Sara blinked and wrestled to keep the whirlpool of conflicting feelings from sending her over the edge. Her head insisted she run as far away from Ryan as possible, but her heart was mounting a valiant battle to run straight back into his arms, regardless of what she thought she’d seen.
“Sara, you owe him that at least.”
Hailey’s true statement shoved that argument aside, leaving Sara wrung out and exhausted. “I’m too tired to think right now.” She leaned forward and kissed Hailey’s forehead. “But I promise I’ll sleep on it before I decide anything. That make you happy?”
“No, it’d make me happy if you grabbed the wolf man’s prime tail and never let go.”
Sara’s grin was weak as she waved goodnight from the door and headed toward the elevator.
A few hours ago, she’d have been happy to do just that. Since then, wolf man had taken on a whole new meaning, one that had Sara questioning her sanity.
*****
Zander’s paws were going to wear a hole in the floor of the hauler’s back section at this rate. Before his trip to the police station, Ryan had been desperate to get back to Sara at all costs. Now with what he’d found out, he had more than one urgent priority, and he hated it.
She doesn’t want to see you right now anyway.
“So, if I have this straight, Sara’s sister is Wulverkynn.” Zander swung his head back over his shoulder but didn’t stop his caged behavior. “You’re sure it was a Sigil you saw?”
Ryan sat on the floor with his back against the wall, getting a sore neck from following his friend’s movements. “Yes, I’m sure. Which means Sara probably is too, unless they have different mothers.” The gene passed maternally, and Ryan wasn’t sure which he should hope for. If yes, her sister would be hauled into their world without her. If no, they both would, with no choice but to give up the lives they knew.
“You know how unlikely it is for a Wulverkynn, let alone two, to turn up like this?”
Ryan banged the back of his head against the wall, having answered this same question several times. “I know, but I saw what I saw.”
“Okay, okay, I believe you.” Zander stopped in front of Ryan. “Let me see your back.”
Ryan leaned forward and tugged up his shirt.
“Damn, it’s still not healed.”
“Yup, I know that too. Trust me, it still feels like there’s acid burning back there. I wish I’d been able to find the knife. I know where it should’ve landed, and I looked all around for it, but it wasn’t there. The only thing I can think of is that the guy who got away grabbed it while I was fighting with the other one.”
Zander sat back on his haunches with his eyes focused somewhere in the past and paused before continuing. “After the Overseer stronghold fell, it was me who took the last one of those fucking things from…from Sofia’s body with my own hand and I was there at the end when it was destroyed, Ryan. I watched the Seelie Court’s emissary vanquish it.”
Bloody hell. “I’m sorry, Zander. I never knew that. It must’ve been—”
Zander cut Ryan off. “Doesn’t matter now.” His eyes focused back on the present, making it clear the subject was closed. “By the description and stalled healing of your wound, there’s no other explanation. You’re lucky he just scratched you. Baneblades were designed to force a change so violent it tore you apart. Still might’ve if you hadn’t been Alpha-line.”
Ryan nodded. “I’ve heard the stories.” Scrubbing his face, he lobbed the next astonishing bit of news Zander’s way. “That’s not all. When I was at the police station, I found my way back to the holding cells and had a chat with the one that got caught.”
Zander tilted his head. “Found your way?”
Ryan puffed up. “I persuaded my way in and out again by diverting attention elsewhere. Satisfied?”
Zander pawed his muzzle. “Great.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“No need to get your tail in a knot. Go on.”
Ryan blew a breath out slowly before continuing. “I think the guy was a Mongrel.”
Zander shot to all fours at full attention, and his eyes flashed to full glow. “What?”
During the war, humans from the fringes of society, considered blights in their own way, were injected with Wulver blood and controlled by the generals from the enemy’s elitist ranks. It didn’t turn them Lycan—half human, half Wulver hybrids—as a direct bite would. Instead, it destroyed any control they had over their own minds making them “programmable”. Disposable weapons to be used against Wulvers and others like them in a war aimed at supremacy.
“A Mongrel? Shit.” Zander shook his body and huffed through his nose then started pacing again. “If he is, we’re not going to get much out of him, at least not voluntarily.” He paused mid stride and glared over his shoulder at Ryan. “Unless…”
Ryan’s Alpha blood took it as a challenge, and he glared back in warning. “Yes, I did, and I won’t apologize for taking that path, not with so much at stake. Nor will I justify my decision again.” Yes, he’d resorted to an outlawed Alpha ability. Digging around in the gray matter of a submissive Wulver who could withstand it was bad enough, but using it on a human mind meant tearing those thoughts free, leaving little else behind, and was considered barbaric. Under the circumstances, he’d do it again in an instant.
Zander lowered his head and dropped his gaze. “Nor should you. Desperate times… What did you learn?”
Relieved his former mentor didn’t condemn him for his drastic measures, Ryan continued. “His mind was a mess already, but I did determine he and the one that got away were one of several teams sent out in advance to track our Alpha-lines and assess for current weaknesses.”
“By whom? And, after what they did to wipe out the Wulverkynn, what other weakness do they think we have? Because of them we lose more to the moon every year, so to what end?”
“I don’t know. All I kept getting was…cut off the head of the beast, the rest will fall.” Ryan shrugged. “That was it. He just kept repeating it.”
“Well, nothing cult-o-maniacal about that chunk of rhetoric, is there? Anything on the one holding his leash?”
Ryan frowned and shook his head. “I was almost down that deep when something happened. I can’t explain it, but without my severing it, the link was suddenly broken. I don’t know, maybe I did something wrong. It’s not like we get to practice this kind of thing beyond learning to contain it. Anyway, next thing I knew, the Mongrel grabbed his ears, squealed like a pig, and ran headfirst into the cell wall.”
“Holy shit.”
Ryan shuddered and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I heard his skull crack, Zander. I have no idea if he was still breathing or not after that, but figured it was time to cover my tracks and get the hell out of there.”
Zander huffed again, but slowed his pacing. “We used to call those Imploders—a higher-grade Mongrel, if you will. Pre-programmed to self-destruct under interrogation. Fuckers were rare, Ryan. Not many had the strength, let alone ability, to make them—and it took Alpha-line blood to do it.”
Wulvers captured during the war had been starved and tortured to the brink of death, kept weak but alive for the sole purpose of using their blood to make more cannon fodder. He still wondered if that was what happened to Ethan. Gods, he hoped not.
“Ryan, are you listening?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Were you able to find out if he had prior knowledge of the Sigil on Sara’s sister, or possibly saw it when he attacked her?”
“If he didn’t know beforehand, he would’ve seen it when her wig came off in the struggle.”
“Goddesses be damned, then so did his maker.”
“Sure you should invoke any more legends at this point.” The Wulver origin story claimed it had been a couple of pissed off Celtic goddesses who’d cursed them in the first place, and a third goddess, taking pity on them, had provided the Wulverkynn to soften the blow. Or some such crap like that. Ryan never bought it, but after today, he didn’t think it was a good idea to push their luck.
“Good point. Though it’s feeling more like there’s a twisted hand of fate involved here somewhere.”
“Let’s just focus on what we know, like the fact the second guy from the hotel is still out there, and if they know about Hailey, she, and probably Sara too, are still in danger.” Every nerve in Ryan’s body screamed for him to get back to them.
“True, though chances are good he ran straight back to whoever’s holding his leash to report. Still I agree we shouldn’t take any chances. Since they targeted Hailey, and you know what he looks like, you should stay close to her at the hospital till morning. I can keep an eye on the hotel from outside, just in case. We also can’t waste any more time here. You need to contact your father so he can get word to the Council and other Clan leaders. They’ll need to confirm the whereabouts of all their people as soon as possible. If we’re right about the Mongrel, at least one of our kind will be missing, probably more.”
“Shit.” Ryan dug his cell out and tried to dislodge the boulder of despair pressing down on his chest as he dialed home. Just when he’d begun to believe he could carry his responsibilities, not like Ethan maybe, but well enough, things were going to hell. When the time came, would he have what it took to protect his people in another war? He’d have to. And what about Hailey? She now had a target on her back. Because of him? And if Sara turned out to be Wulverkynn too?
Ryan ground his teeth to settle the itch of his growing canines. Damn it. If she carried the Sigil too, the life he’d craved had been possible for a split-second, but with only weeks till his birthday, it had just as quickly burned to ash at his feet. If he could’ve introduced Sara to his world slowly, maybe she’d have come to accept the restrictions it would place on her life and they would’ve stood a chance. Now she’d probably end up hating him for destroying hers.
After he told her what he really was, he’d be lucky if she’d still let him near enough to protect her.