Angeline lay sleeping her back against his chest she fit perfectly against him. Her pink cheeks and slight smile made Killian’s heart ache in an overfull, too good to be true way.

Her pale blond hair was spread out on the bed above her head like a halo.

My angel.

The floor boards creaked in the hallway. Killian listened turning his attention away from Angeline. Barthos had just come out of his mother’s room and was standing outside Angeline’s door. He was sweating and the pace of his heart was fearful.

Killian didn’t want Barthos to wake Angeline. The dark circles under her eyes made it clear she hadn’t slept well in a long while. He unwrapped his arms from around Angeline and carefully climbed off the too small bed.

When he opened the door Barthos jumped back in surprise. Killian held his finger up to his mouth signaling Barthos to be quiet. Looking back over his shoulder at his wife, Killian couldn’t help but smile as her hand searched for Killian in her sleep.

He stepped out into the hallway and pulled Angeline’s door closed. “What is it?”

“She was doing well. No fever, and resting too. I left to go to the bathroom and when I came back she was suddenly so much worse. I don’t know what to do.”

Killian narrowed his eyes at the young man. “If this is a trick to get to Angeline while I’m seeing to your mother, I will kill you for threatening my wife. Understand?”

Barthos nodded, his tired eyes glassy as though he was barely awake enough to hear Killian. He still didn’t trust him. Now that he understood what Angeline went through his dislike of Barthos was so intense it was difficult not to reach out and remove the threat from Angeline’s life.

“Lead the way,” he said deciding that he wasn’t going to give Barthos the chance to get to Angeline.

Inside Geanya’s room Killian noticed new scents that were not present the last time he entered. Geanya was awake. Tears were running down her face in a constant stream but she made no noise.

“Didn’t you give her medicine for her pain? I left it right here.” Killian picked up the empty tube.

Barthos nodded. “Yes, I gave it to her. She fell back asleep and it seemed to be the trick but then-”

“Geanya, are you in pain?” Her blue eyes looked met his but she didn’t speak.

Killian took her temperature and found that to the touch she felt feverish but with the thermometer from his medical kit he found she wasn’t.

“Say something if you can talk, Geanya. Anything.”

Her chest pushed upward with a clear effort but nothing came out of her mouth. A seizure took her then. Her sudden shaking and spasming would be unbearable with all the raw skin currently exposed.

Killian turned her on her side and put pressure on her body to keep her as still as he could until the seizure passed. He was mentally going over all her symptoms, and the possible causes of the seizure and heated skin.

When her body finally grew still again, Killian was gentle as he rolled Geanya onto her back. The look of exhaustion on her face ran deep. “Can you speak, Geanya?” Killian asked her again.

She looked at Killian and then toward the floor.

“It’s okay, Mom. He’s a doctor. He’s seen this before,” Barthos said as if to comfort her.

Geanya repeated the same motion. She looked at Killian and then to the floor. Killian took a step back from the bed and looked down at the floor. There was nothing he could see but he was sure she was trying to tell him something.

He lowered himself down onto the floor and looked under the bed. A strange nest looking object was beneath the bed. Killian pulled it out from under the bed, seeing a pink leaf had fallen out of the nest and was the cause of the new smell.

Killian dropped the pink leaf in with the others inside the nest of pink leaves and was surprised when he could no longer smell the strange scent.

“Oh shit,” Barthos said taking a step back and opening the door. “Those are poisonous.”

Killian looked at the pink powder on his finger and then the red leaf revealed by the removal of the pink powder that stuck to his fingers. The red leaves he recognized. They put out toxic fumes. Humans engineered them in their efforts to do away with shifters.

The pink powder and the strange sticky webbing on the nest, Killian didn’t recognize. He opened his bag and pulled out a specimen bag. He dumped the poisonous leaves inside the bag and sealed it.

“Explain this,” he said turning on Barthos.

“I didn’t put that there. I’ve been in here the whole time except when I went to the bathroom.

Killian opened the window and door. The rush of fresh air awakened his scenes that he had not even been aware were dulling with the effects of the poison.

Geanya pointed at Barthos and shook her head.

“Who was it?” Killian asked her. She coughed hard and threw up. Dead tissue in her throat was coming up and it was dangerous. “I need to put her under and take out the loose tissue before she aspirates,” Killian said pulling his medical bag closer.

“Should I get Angeline?” Barthos asked.

Killian shook his head. “Let her sleep. This would only be upsetting for her to watch.”

Geanya was trying to talk around her coughing. He couldn’t understand her, and waiting was too dangerous. Killian administered the anesthetic. It was only a few seconds before she fell under.

“Hold her head like this,” Killian ordered Barthos.

He did as Killian asked. The young man was unsteady on his feet as Killian used a smaller scraping tool to remove the damaged loose tissue from inside her throat.

When Barthos started to lean to the side Killian said, “Don’t watch what I’m doing. Look the other way before you pass out.”

“I would’ve been a shitty doctor,” Barthos murmured.

Killian ignored Barthos and finished what he was doing. When Geanya woke next she would have a sore throat but she should have no trouble talking.

He folded the discarded tissue into a towel so that Barthos wouldn’t see it and pass out. “Throw this away. Use the bathroom and then come back here and watch your mother. No leaving this room until someone comes to relieve you. Understood?”

Barthos nodded, leaving with the folded towel.

Killian pulled out the strange nest and tried to figure out how the nest cloaked the inner scent of the nest. With his enhanced ability to smell, he should have been able to locate the source as soon as he’d opened the door.

It was also strange that there was no other scent in the room besides Geanya and Barthos. Whoever came into this room and tried to poison Geanya should have left a scent. It was just like in the woods with the murderer leaving no trail.

“What is this?” Killian asked Barthos when he returned.

He looked at the nest and then back at Killian. “It’s supposed to be a secret. Humans use it to sneak past shifters. Succaroot, is what it’s called. It absorbs scent. Don’t tell anybody I told you.”

Succaroot?

A sharp intake of air from Angeline’s room grabbed his attention. Killian put the bagged nest back into his bag and walked out into the hallway.

Angeline whimpered, a sound full of fear. Pulling open the door he found her thrashing on the bed. The smile he loved seeing on her face gone. She winced, tears spilling from her eyes. Angeline threw her hands out like she was fighting someone off.

Killian took hold of Angeline, sitting her up in the small bed. “Wake up,” he said trying to hold onto her as she began fighting him off. “Angel wake up,” he tried again this time raising his voice.

Her eyes fluttered but she seemed to fall right back into the nightmare. “Wake up, Angeline. Wake up. Come on honey, open your eyes.”

This time as she began waking up she sat up straight. “You woke me up?” She asked him as if he’d committed a mortal sin.

“You were crying and fighting in your sleep. It was a nightmare.”

Angeline climbed over him, onto the floor. She pulled on pants and a shirt and raced out the door. Killian caught up with her easily but didn’t realize what she was doing until she opened the front door.

“He’s taken another one?”

“Yes, but it’s different this time,” Angeline breathed. “He’s so angry this time.”

Killian could still see the wet trails on her face from the tears she’d shed. “You felt what she felt, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t bruise or get cut. It’s only in the vision I feel it. Killian, I think he killed her before he took her into the woods. She’s probably already dead.”

“We’ll see if we can save her,” Killian said following Angeline into the forest. Just beyond the darkness he heard the launch of a crossbow and tried to move out of the way but the arrow caught him in the upper thigh. It was silver tipped. The poison from the arrow leaching immediately into his blood stream.

Angeline turned around as his hand slipped away from the small of her back. “Killian?”

“Run, Angel,” He said as he began to crumple to the ground.

Angeline saw the arrow sticking out of his leg and gasped. “What should I do?”

There were heavy footfalls coming toward them, the murderer would be upon them any second.

“Pull it out,” Killian gritted out.

As she took hold of the arrow Killian saw him. He was four feet behind her and closing in fast. She yanked on the arrow pulling it almost out of his leg. The silver was shutting down his vital organs. He couldn’t move.

He was paralyzed as Angeline’s father wrapped an arm around her throat and drug her away into the dark forest.

Of course, it was him. Who else would have access to the house?

Killian felt himself beginning to suffocate. He knew he would die right where he was while the man who was Angeline’s father murdered her with no one to stop him.

Maybe it was the final stages of death or maybe someone was approaching but as the darkness closed in on Killian he could have sworn he heard someone swearing.

****

“Every time I kill one of them, I pretend it’s you,” Angeline heard her father say as he continued dragging her deeper into the forest. “You’ve bled anything that ever was good in me away, squeezed it out of me like juice from an orange. Always, squeezing everything you can from me.”

Angeline pulled at his arm fighting to get free and return to Killian. His arm was so tight around her neck she couldn’t pull in a full breath of air.

“I only get to kill you once even though you’ve killed me over, and over, and over again,” he snarled. “I always said that when I finally killed you I would take my time and enjoy it. I thought I’d take away your dignity, like you’ve stripped away all of mine. I was going to offer you a chance to escape and then take that away too, like all the times you said you’d stop following and tracking down your visions.”

She couldn’t keep her feet under her anymore and the drag of her legs through the forest seemed to slow him down. He dropped her on the ground and then stomped his foot down hard on her chest. “You’re robbing me of that too, aren’t you? The wolf pack will come for me after I killed Killian. They’ll tear your mom and brothers to pieces and I’ll miss that too. Again, because of you.” He dropped Angeline in the bed of rocks she’d seen in her vision. The woman he’d killed was still there. Her head was crushed by one of the large rocks, her eyes were open and the blood on her face horrified Angeline.

“Scared, Angel? You should be.”