Evershaw held him back from charging into the room where a team of people in scrubs worked over Persephone. Bags of clear fluids and medications and even blood hung on poles all around her. It looked like just as much had spilled on the floor. Dodge saw almost nothing of Persephone except one arm where it flopped off the side of the gurney, her fingers curled delicately but still stained with blood and dirt.
A knot constricted his throat and made it more difficult to breathe as he remembered how she’d fought to live. She’d fought the bastards who hurt her, fought back when the tiger tried to hunt her, and she’d been dragging herself to safety when he finally got to her to carry her the rest of the way. Surely that meant something. Surely that meant her will to live would carry her through or at least justify turning her. She wanted to live.
He gulped for air and tested the words aloud, ignoring that the alpha remained at his right. “She fought to live. She wanted to survive.”
“Fucking right she did,” Evershaw said. He didn’t move to push Dodge into the room, but he tensed. No doubt the alpha was prepared to incapacitate him if Persephone died and Dodge lost his fragile hold on control. Dodge didn’t know what the wolf would do if their mate died, if she went so far beyond him…
He didn’t let the worst case outcome drag him down. Dodge gripped the door jamb as he stared at the medical professionals tossing supplies to each other and calling for another cart and more blood.
Persephone wanted to live. Even if she hated him forever for taking ‘normal’ away from her… at least she’d be alive to hate him. He could survive if he knew she lived. It wouldn’t break him the same way her death would. She could find happiness with someone else, if it came down to it. That was what mattered.
He had to clear his throat a few times before he could get the words out, still feeling like it was a betrayal of her trust. “I can give her blood without it turning her right away. Two bags won’t turn her but it might save her life.”
“It’s a start,” the alpha said, and shoved Dodge into the room. “Blood donor. He’s universal and her mate. Hook him up.”
“She’s human,” one of the nurses said. “It might not be enough unless it’s a full change.”
“Start with two bags,” Evershaw said. “Then drain him if you need to. The rest of the pack will donate. I’m next if you can’t get enough from him.”
Then Dodge was shoved onto another gurney and straps tightened around his arm, needles shoved into veins, going directly into hers. He squeezed his eyes shut. Let everyone think him squeamish about blood. It didn’t fucking matter. He knew he couldn’t see Persephone’s slack expression without it haunting him forever.
He breathed through the feeling of his blood draining away, listening to the nurses talk about whole units, ratios, and blood oxygenation and other shit that he’d heard far too many times in field hospitals and emergency evacuations on helicopters.
He focused on Persephone and all the ways he would make up for what he’d done, as soon as she regained her strength.
Chapter 41
Percy
Ididn’t recognize the room when I woke up. I hoped it was Dodge’s room in Deirdre’s house, somewhere cozy and warm where I could hide out and get over the awful migraine that clamped around my head. But the walls were white and there wasn’t any furniture. The awful fluorescent lights had been dimmed a little but not enough.
And then there was all the noise. Beeping and cheeping and a steady tick-tick-tick that threatened to drive me out of my mind.
Everything hurt but kind of distantly, like it wouldn’t flare up as long as I didn’t move. Or as long as they didn’t forget to give me more pain killers. I vaguely remembered being in the tiger enclosure and a massive wolf flying over the fence, but everything after that blurred into a gray fog that didn’t offer any hints on where the fuck I was.
It took way too much effort to move my head so I could see more than just what was right in front of me – my legs hidden by white sheets and a blanket – but I managed to tilt my chin to see where some of the beeping came from.
Wires and tubes connected to me and linked to other things behind me that I couldn’t see. I stopped caring about all that the moment I saw the broad shoulders occupying the chair immediately to my left. The dark hair and the scar on his shoulder where his t-shirt gapped and the tattoos made it clear who it was, even though it was impossible.
Dodge had died, been shot by the fake cop at the door to my apartment. He was gone. My mind just tormented me with everything I would never have.
My lips parted, though they were dry and cracked and tried to stick together. Maybe I could ask him whether he’d been the wolf in the tiger enclosure and why he was haunting me. If shifters and witches were real, then surely ghosts could also be real?
My thoughts drifted as I tried to hold onto the right words, but I knew I wanted to touch him.
His arm rested on the mattress next to my head, his face pressed into the crook of his elbow. If I could just touch him…
My left hand twitched. It took forever for my brain to tell my arm to move. For a looooong moment, I wondered if I’d been paralyzed and no longer controlled my limbs. I blinked a few times and eventually my hand moved and drifted closer to where his hand rested on the mattress.
He felt warm and solid. He felt real. My eyes narrowed as I tried to think through the pudding in my brain. I didn’t want to think too hard about it. I felt better with him there. I felt safe and secure, and knew everything would be okay because Dodge was with me. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen. I started to smile, or at least tried to convince my muscles to obey me, but darkness reached up and swallowed me again.
He was gone the next time I dragged my eyes open. I felt his absence like a hole in my chest, a desperate ache that got worse with every second that passed. A whimper of sheer need, sheer grief, worked its way through my chest until it escaped.
Someone immediately moved, sliding into view, and I braced myself as Deirdre suddenly loomed over me. “Moon above us, you’re back. You’re here. How do you feel?”
I squinted and struggled to parse the sudden volley of words. It took monumental effort to whisper, “Awful.”
I meant ‘awful’ because Dodge wasn’t there, that he was gone, rather than the physical pain. I wanted to explain, to ask her what happened, but Deirdre’s expression turned worried and she hit a button to call a nurse.
