Sealed With a Curse (WG 1) (30 page)

I skimmed the fetal heart rate tracing on the computer. “Yes. About every twenty-two minutes now.”

“But they hurt her…a lot when they come.”

I sat on a rolling stool and scurried over to where the father sat in a chair next to his wife’s bed. “Let’s talk.” I smiled once more. “Labor—
true labor
—occurs when contractions come at strong, regular intervals and the pain is such that you can’t walk or talk through them.” I looked at the wife. “You updated your Facebook status during the last contraction. During labor your cervix will also open up and thin out.” I shook my head. “I’m afraid that hasn’t happened yet.”

The woman tilted her head. I was pretty sure she understood, especially when she started texting all three thousand of her closest friends. Her beloved remained unconvinced. “So she’ll continue to experience the same amount of pain, but the contractions will occur more frequently—every three to five minutes?”

“No, the pain will continue to increase and become more severe.”
Until it feels like Godzilla is reaching up inside her and tearing out her intestines.

“You don’t understand,” he said, like I was the stupid one. “She’s in pain when they come. More pain than I’ve ever seen her in.” He frowned and pointed a stern finger at me. “What you mean is, the pain will stay the same and the contractions will just come more frequently.”

It was getting harder to keep smiling. He was lucky I didn’t bite off his damn finger. “Sir, there is a human being
trying to come out of your wife’s body. Trust me when I say the pain will get much worse.”

Panic spread across his features. “Oh…”

I stepped from behind the triage curtain to where Shayna was doubled over trying to suppress her giggles. The doctor sitting at the desk next to her smirked.

“Hi, Dr. Summers. I was just about to call you.”

“No need. Heard the whole thing.” She handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s your discharge order.” She rose and walked around the desk to the patient’s triage bed. “I’ll just say hi.”

I leaned over the counter. “What are you doing?”

“Just finished a nonstress test. Everything is fine; she’s going home, too.”

Amy, our charge nurse, poked her head into the triage room. “Celia, can you go down to the emergency department? A woman was brought in. She’s about twenty weeks pregnant and they need to make sure the baby’s okay before they treat her.”

“Sure. Can Shayna come, too? Both our patients are going home.”

Amy thought about it. “Yeah. That might be a good idea. The ED called in a panic. They always freak when someone shows up pregnant.” She rolled her eyes. “Remember the last pregnant woman who came in? Two IVs running in her arms, covered in EKG leads, and no one bothered to check her vagina.”

Shayna and I left as soon as we discharged our patients. Our hospital, like most of the area hotels and restaurants, resembled a beautiful mountain resort, complete with Native American tapestries and wood carvings of totem poles and animals. Every visitors’ lounge had beautiful mosaic tile patterns depicting various forest
animals. My favorite, of course, was the one near the main entrance portraying a wolf baying at the moon.

“Thinking about Aric?”

We had only just stepped into the elevator. “Why do you ask?”

Shayna shrugged as she adjusted her long ponytail. “You’ve been so sad. Especially after Aric left yesterday.”

My foot traced a circle on the floor as images of his anger flashed through my mind. “I didn’t like how we ended things; you know, he seemed so angry.” I shoved my stethoscope deeper into my pocket. “I can’t stand having him hate me, but in a way I guess it’s better. Maybe he’ll stop coming around.”

The doors opened. We stepped into the large foyer and walked across the beautiful wolf made of brown, black, and rust-colored tiles. The gloss to the wolf shone bright against the sunlight peeking through the tall windows of the front entrance.

Shayna draped her arm around me. “Aric doesn’t hate you, Celia. And I don’t think he was mad. If anything he’s jealous.”

“What could he possibly be jealous of? He’s the one with a pack of gorgeous, half-naked
weres
chasing him, ready to rip his clothes off at the first howl from his lips.”

Shayna laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. That hot hunk of fangs who vonts to drink your blad…among other things.”

“There’s nothing between me and Misha. Besides, even if those other girls weren’t around he has a baby to think about.” I scoffed. “If he’s any kind of man, that is.” I told her about our conversation.

Shayna smiled weakly. “Aric doesn’t strike me as deadbeat-dad material.”

I thought back to his sexy grin and how he’d fought to protect me. “I didn’t think so either.”

“Don’t give up on him so easily, Celia. There’s something special between you. I see it every time he looks at you…and every time you see him.” Shayna’s eager hand tugged on my arm. “Will you let me ask Koda about it, please?”

I groaned. “No. I don’t want—”

An agonized howl from the ED pierced right through my sensitive ears, sending every one of my senses into “oh, shit” mode.

“Celia, what’s wrong?”

“We’ve got trouble. Call Emme and Taran to the ED.” I took off at a dead run. The howls turned threatening, deadlier. “Get the wolves!”

Preternaturals stayed away from hospitals. They relied on their families, packs, and clans when injured. The fact that one was here meant trouble.

I shoved through the automatic doors. A doctor in a bloody white coat flew through one of the glass partitions that made up the ED. A panicked tech punched numbers into the phone, but he continued to misdial. The snarls turned into roars.

“What’s happening?”

The tech jumped when he saw me. He shook horribly. “A-a-a couple were attacked by b-b-bears in the woods. The husband just died.” His trembling worsened when he gawked at the demolished doorway. “I think she knows.”

A second doctor soared through the window, along with a nurse and two security guards. They fell limp near unconscious doctor number one. I raced inside and gasped at what I saw. A she-wolf thrashed on the bed;
blood—her blood—saturated her shredded T-shirt and jeans. Both her legs and an arm were bound in leather restraints. She’d chewed through the restraints on one hand and she was working on the other. Syringes filled with the pungent odor of sedatives remained lodged in her thighs, while the one piercing her jugular flapped against her neck as she thrashed. The meds likely kept her from
changing
, but despite the extent of her injuries her metabolism would soon burn through them.

I threw my body on top of hers, trying to keep her still, knowing her thrashing would worsen her injuries. Her carotid artery had already been severed and both femoral veins damaged. Her clammy gray skin told me her blood loss exceeded the amount that would allow her to heal completely.
Sweet Jesus.
The couple hadn’t been attacked by bears; they’d been mauled by infected vampires. I shuddered at the extent of her injuries, confused as to how she’d survived.

The wolf buckled beneath me, growling and trying to wrench her arm away. When she realized she couldn’t toss me like the others, she growled and snapped at my shoulder.

“Listen to me; I’m trying to help you—”

“Give me my mate!”

“What?”

“I’m going with my mate. I’m going with him now!”

She yanked my nursing scissors out of my chest pocket and tried to stab herself through the heart.

Shayna muffled a scream. “Oh, my God.”

I twisted the she-wolf’s wrist and forced her to drop them.

The wolf broke through the other restraint, punching me hard in the head and knocking me into a metal table
full of instruments. I rebounded and grabbed her in a full nelson. “Shackle her arms!”

Shayna manipulated the metal bars of the stretcher and snaked them along the wolf’s arms. The wolf lashed out violently, vengeance and heartbreak fueling her strength, twisting the metal. Taran flew into the room as a slew of reinforcements pounded into the ED. “Son of a bitch!”

“Taran, knock everyone out; wipe their memories. Do it now!”

Taran paused briefly before the scent of her magic filled the room. A storm cloud of blue and white shot from her core, expanding as it seeped out into the hall, engulfing the entire ED. Screams faded into yawns until only silence remained.

Silence except for the increasing snarls from the she-wolf and Taran’s cursing. “For shit’s sake, I knocked out Emme!”

The wolf kicked her legs out, freeing her feet and further damaging the bleeding veins at her hips. “Get Emme up. We’re losing the wolf!”

Tires screeched near the front entrance. My heart pounded. I left Shayna to continue to strengthen the shackles she’d fashioned around the wolf’s arms as I dove on her legs. She kneed me hard in the stomach. I couldn’t control her flailing limbs.

But then I was no longer alone.

Aric and Gemini grabbed onto her legs while Koda and Liam locked onto her arms. Aric growled.
“What happened?”

I fell back to search the cabinets for packing and tape while Shayna retracted the metal bars away from the she-wolf’s arms like slithering serpents. I grabbed another
metal tray and poured my supplies on top of it. “She and her partner were brought in. The staff thought they’d been attacked by bears.” I paused to look at Aric. “Her husband didn’t make it.”

The collective fury of the wolves filled the room like a heat wave. The she-wolf thrashed harder, snarling through clenched teeth. “They took my Paul! They took my Paul from me!”

Aric’s head snapped up. “Liam, go find him.”

Gemini and Koda took over flailing-limb duty as Aric and Liam released their hold. Aric stroked back the she-wolf’s blood- and sweat-soaked hair. “Leya, calm,” he whispered before murmuring sounds that resonated more animal than human. Aric took slow, deliberate breaths. Within moments, Leya began to mimic his breathing. “That’s it. Breathe with me, Leya.”

Liam returned. “Paul’s dead. His neck was in pieces and his heart was torn out.”

Leya stopped breathing. A wet sob tore out of her as she wept like a small, hurt child.

“Shhh…we’re going to take care of you, Leya.” Aric’s voice stayed soft and reassuring. “I need you to trust me.”

Leya’s eyes rolled back into her head with Aric’s very next stroke. Her arched back relaxed until she lay flat on the gurney. “Don’t let go of her,” Aric instructed the wolves. “Her grief is such that she could easily break my hold.” The wolves nodded, relaxing their grips enough so her limbs weren’t twisted against theirs. He motioned for me to get started. Emme stumbled in behind Taran, frazzled like she’d been startled awake by an obnoxious alarm.

“Seal her wounds,” I whispered. “She’s bleeding out.”

Emme staggered toward her, dazed by all the blood saturating Leya’s body. She touched Leya’s ankle. As her soft yellow light encased her, Leya’s eyes shot open and she bucked her off.

Aric’s voice grew more stern. “Leya,
stop
. These are friends of the pack. Let them help you.”

Leya stopped struggling, but this time wouldn’t fall back into a relaxed state; her breathing bordered on the verge of hysteria. I grabbed her wrist and felt her pulse.

Taran leaned in. “How is it, Celia?”

“Weak and thready. She’s lost a lot of blood. We need to transfuse her or she’ll code soon.”

I could sense Aric’s worry, yet his voice remained smooth as silk. “Tell me what happened, Leya.”

“We were out with the pack, hunting the infected vampires. Paul didn’t want me out because…because of our baby.” Her choked sobs barely kept her words audible. “He was walking me back to the car when a cluster of them attacked. They took me down. Paul tried to protect me but…there were too many, Aric.” A whine broke through her core, thick and heavy with misery. “I watched them feast on my m-m-mate, Aric. I watched them eat him alive.”

My sisters covered their mouths as tears slid down their faces. The wolves growled, demand for vengeance squelching Leya’s cries of hysteria. Emme released Leya. Her wounds were sealed, but she still needed care.

I shoved away my sadness and examined Leya closely. With all the volume she’d lost, her veins had collapsed. “She needs blood. And she needs it fast.” I glanced at Taran, who’d turned away, not wanting anyone to see her cry. “Taran, can you start an IV in her femoral vein? I think that’s the only option we have to transfuse her.”

Taran wiped her eyes and nodded. “Shayna, go to the blood bank and get some platelets. We’ll need a few units.”

Gemini shook his head. “Human blood is not compatible. It will cause an allergic and potentially fatal reaction. Take ours instead.”

“Mine first,” Aric insisted. “As a pureblood and her Leader, my blood will stabilize her faster.”

Shayna’s panicked face met mine. “But how will we transfer it?” Her eyes danced to Koda’s. “Your blood clots quicker, doesn’t it?”

Taran grabbed a set of scissors and cut through the side of Leya’s jeans. “I’ll get the catheter into her vein. You draw her blood in a syringe and pass it to me right away.”

Shayna gripped the side of the stretcher. “But if the blood clots too fast, we can send an embolus into her heart.”

Koda placed his arm on Shayna’s shoulder. “It’s okay, baby. Blood clots don’t kill us.” He skimmed Leya’s graying tone. “Usually.”

Shayna and I set up the catheters Taran needed. Taran shrugged off her jacket and directed the wolves on how to hold Leya’s legs. Emme wiped the blood from Leya’s face with a warm washcloth.

Aric spoke to Leya as we rushed to get things started. “How did you get away?”

Leya’s glassy eyes blinked back at Aric. “They let us go. In the middle of feeding on us, they turned toward the mountains like something had called them. And just like that, they were gone.” Her pale lips pursed together. “I picked up Paul and carried him to the road. Some humans stopped and brought us here. They kept trying
to take Paul from me…but I didn’t want to let him go.” Leya’s voice trailed into an echo before her lids closed.

Aric and his wolves exchanged glances. I groaned.
Someone is controlling the infected vamps.