The Alpha's Fight: Huntsville Pack Book 3 (20 page)

"That's some feat, even for a shifter." Talon remained unconvinced. "She'd have to not only run up the wall, but get off the duct cover, crawl inside,
and
replace the cover."

"I know. Just give me a boost so I can check, though."

"Look." Ryder pointed.

A drop of blood had formed on the edge of the vent while they'd been talking. It hung suspended for a long moment before dropping to the floor.

Talon's eyes widened. "Well, damn. You were right."

"I just hope we're not too late." Lia wrenched the duct cover off and tossed it to the floor. Ryder stripped off his gloves and handed them over to the sheriff. Then he came over to lift her higher so she could look inside, but, even with the flashlight, it was too dark to see anything. Patting the bottom of the duct, she tried to find whoever was hiding up there by feel. "Hello? It's safe. You can come out now."

No one answered and her hand only found more wet blood.

Ducking her head out of the duct, she said, "Can I borrow your flashlight? I can't see anything."

"Yeah, just let me get these gloves off." He dropped Ryder's gloves, which he'd been holding, to the floor. Tucking his flashlight under his arm, he peeled off his gloves and threw them on top of Ryder's. He then passed Lia his flashlight and she went back into the duct, checking both directions. Other than smeared, wet blood, she didn't see anyone, but the duct extended beyond the room, making a sharp left in the distance. "Okay. I'm done up here."

Ryder gently set her down. "Anything?"

"Just blood. I think they're still up there though. There's a trail."

Talon motioned her out of the way. "Let me see." Ryder hoisted the sheriff up and Lia passed him the flashlight. Peering into the duct, he said, "I think there must be another room behind the back wall."

Lia narrowed her eyes at the wall in question. "But there's no door."

"It might be part of a different room down here." Talon jumped down. "We passed all those doors, remember? They have to go somewhere."

"Holy shit," said Talon's men as they spilled into the room. They stopped short as one when they saw the bodies, their eyes going wide as more than one clapped a hand over their mouths.

"What the hell happened in here?" asked one of the men.

"We don't know yet, but we think there might be a survivor in the air ducts," Talon said. "It turns and runs along the back wall of the basement. We need to track it and see if we can find whoever is up there."

"We'd have to break down all the doors to check the vents."

"I know. We have no choice. We have to look in the vents." Talon pointed to a short, stocky man with a blond crew cut. "Go up and check on Dixon. If the healer is here, bring her down. Whoever is hiding down here is bleeding."

"Got it, sheriff." The men filed out of the room. Within seconds the sound of doors being broken down filled the air as they got to work.

"Let's get out of here," Ryder said, catching Lia's elbow and nudging her toward the door.

She nodded and gingerly navigated the bodies, eager to get into the hallway. Blood squelched under her feet, but she tried not to think about it. Her heart throbbed in her chest if she let herself dwell on how the dead around her had once been full of life and possibility. Someone had ripped that away and dumped it on the floor like so much trash.

And her sister. Moon help her. What about her sister? All Lia could do was believe she hadn't been part of the massacre, that she'd gotten away. Maybe she was even up in the duct. Her gut seemed to feel that was the case, but Lia didn't know if she could trust it.

"Sheriff," came a bellow from the other end of the basement. "We've got something."

Talon pushed past Lia and Ryder, first jogging and then breaking into a flat run, his flashlight leading the way. Lia started to run, too, but Ryder held her back.

"I-I can't," he said, his voice more air than sound. He let her go suddenly and stumbled into the wall.

"Ryder!" Lia reached for him, but it was too late. The man who'd been her protector and her solace was already sliding down, his eyes unfocused, the lids sagging.

"Everything okay back there?" This was the sheriff.

"Ryder's down," Lia called back. She kneeled next to him, pressing a hand to his forehead. A damp coolness filled her palm. Not good. Shifters ran hot. Cold meant bad things were happening.

Static crackled as Talon barked orders to Dixon via his radio. "We need that healer now. Not in five minutes.
Now
. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, sheriff," Dixon's voice responded. "We're coming."

"Faster, Dixie. You're slow and we don't have time for that." To Lia, Talon said, "Just hang tight. They'll be here soon."

A scream sounded and feet shuffled on the floor as if there was a fight or struggle of some kind. Lia squinted down the hallway. She could make out the flashlights, which moved in a strobing pattern, and the glow of the useless red lights on the wall, but not much more. The basement ran a good fifty plus feet and the flashlights didn't have enough strength to beat back the darkness.

"What is it? What's going on?"

"Lia?" Her name was screamed so loud it echoed.

"Adele? Is that you? I'm here. Over here." Lia waved her arms, and then let them drop. Her sister wouldn't see her at this distance.

"Let her go," said Talon.

There was a sharp yip and nails tapped on the floor mixing with the sound of humans wearing boots. Someone had shifted. The nails danced faster and faster. They were running. Lia strained to see who it was and made out a shadow, one low to the ground and streaking toward her.

"Adele?" she asked, bracing herself for a hit.

A ball of fur slammed into her and a warm tongue licked her cheek. The scent of lilac filled her nose and she knew exactly who it was. Her brain gave her the memory of her sister on their last birthday. They'd shared a cassata cake like always, followed by a run at their family's favorite patch of woods. Adele had howled at the moon, one howl for each year they'd been alive. She'd smelled just like this that night, minus the blood, which had since dried and barely marked her scent at all now.

Hugging her sister close, she sobbed into the scruff of her neck, allowing herself to sink into the soft fur. Her sister whined and nudged her.

"I didn't think I'd find you, or if I did, that you'd still be alive." Lia tightened her arms around her sister and struggled to breathe as she let herself realize that Adele had almost been one of the bodies in the basement.

Ryder gave a loud groan, and then fell silent. The quiet made her pause. Lia lifted her head, still holding tight to her sister—she didn't plan on letting her go anytime soon—to see Ryder had fallen completely to the floor. His chest barely moved, and that scared her.

Keeping her sister with her, she scooted closer to Ryder. His eyes had closed and his dark-as-night lashes shadowed his pale face. She touched his shoulder. "Ryder?"

Her sister whined and licked her chin with short, fast strokes of her tongue.

Lia shook him. "Ryder? Are you awake?"

Without warning, his back arched off the floor until his hips reached as high as her waist. For an unbearably long second, he stayed suspended in the air. Then, without warning, he crashed to the ground with a loud thud, limp as a body missing its soul.

"Sheriff," Lia screamed. Her sister tried to pull away, but she refused to let go. Digging her hand into Adele's fur, she screamed for the sheriff again. Footsteps pounded the floor as they ran to her.

"What happened?" Talon came running and kneeled next to Ryder.

"He had some kind of seizure. He's not breathing. Do something," she babbled at them, her voice spiraling into a high-pitched shriek as the men around her failed to move fast enough.

Adele howled and growled at them, supporting her sister. They'd had each other's backs since they were kids, Lia remembered.
One always in trouble, one to save the other.
Her mother's words echoed in her head along with her light laughter.

Lia hit Ryder's chest. "Breathe, dammit. I'm not going to let it end like this." Sobs choked her words, making them thick.

Adele leaned down and sniffed Ryder. Looking at Lia, she gave a soft, mournful howl that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

"No, you're wrong. He's going to be fine. He has to be." She looked down the hallway. "Where the hell is the healer?"

Talon just shrugged at her.

Didn't they understand? She was dying, too, right there in front of them. There wasn't going to be a life without Ryder.

"I'm here, child," came a female voice, calm and focused. Her short, bowed form shuffled toward them. "Don't let the panic take you. That's not what he needs right now."

"You're almost too late, Marie," said Talon stepping out of the woman's way.

The woman, who smelled faintly of roses and pine, came to kneel next to Lia. Someone shone a light on Ryder so she could see him. She checked his pulse. "Very weak. You said he was poisoned with silver? How?"

"It was injected," Talon said.

"When did this happen?" Marie peeled one of Ryder's eyes open and stared into it.

The sheriff considered her question for a second. "I would guess it's been several hours by now."

"Will he be all right?" Lia's voice quavered.

The healer looked at her, the flashlights casting her face half in light and half in shadow. Kindness ran in soft lines along her aged faced. Giving Lia a warm smile, she said, "I think so. He's hurting, but I know how to treat him."

Lia let out the breath she'd been holding.

"He'll need you, though. He'll be weak for a while." She pulled small packets out of the satchel slung across her chest, followed by a bottle of water.

"Yes." She would do anything for him.

"And," Marie narrowed her eyes and studied Lia's face, "you'll need him to help find that wolf hiding inside you."

Lia cocked her head, watching as the woman dumped the contents of the packets into the water bottle and shook it. "What do you mean?"

"If the sheriff here had called me that night, I could have saved you from being so lost." The healer shot a stern glance at the sheriff. "Now you're stuck."

"You mean my memory won't ever come back?" She frowned. "Am I going to be left with bits and pieces the rest of my life?"

The healer tilted Ryder's head back and dribbled some of the water into the corner of his mouth. "I can give you medicine, but it works best when the injury first occurs. Now you have to wait for your other half to make you whole, and judging by his condition now, it'll be a while before he has the strength for that."

"Ryder can bring back my memory? How?" Lia touched Ryder's shoulder, wincing at how cold it felt. She wanted to lay on top of him and give him her body heat, but that would just put her in the healer's way.

"Simple. None of us are whole until we find our mates." The healer tapped her nose. "And if my smeller hasn't lost its mind, you two belong together. Once you join, I wouldn't be surprised if everything snaps back into place, both your mind and your wolf. You just need this guy to wake up."

Lia blinked and shook her head. Ryder was her mate? Something deep inside her echoed the word.
Mate.
It had the weight of truth, of something that could only be right and never wrong. So that was why she'd felt pulled to him this whole time. She'd found her mate even though she'd completely lost who she was.

Would Ryder even want someone as messed up as her? He was a powerful wolf. An alpha and what was she? An amnesiac whose wolf had gone MIA. She didn't need her memory to know that was not a winning combination for a mate.

The healer thrust the water bottle into Lia's hands. "Here, you take over. I need to talk to this one." She pointed to Adele who ducked her head and gave a whispered whine.

"I don't deal in pity, child. You'd best shift and face what you are. You've been running from it so long, you have no place left to go."

"What?" Lia maintained her hold on her sister.

"Let her go. You've found her, but you don't get to keep her. She's not a pet." The healer's tone was gentle, but also firm and Lia released her sister. "Now give your mate his medicine. Let me worry about this wolf."

"She's my sister," Lia said, torn between two people who meant so much to her.
But he's my mate.
How could she choose between them?

"I know. I can see the bond between you, but she's not like you, is she?"

Lia exchanged a confused glance with Adele, who still hadn't shifted.  "I-I don't really know. I don't remember anything much except that she's my sister."

"Give him more medicine and I'll see if I can explain while your sister shifts." She pinned Adele down with a piercing gaze. "And you
will
shift if I have to pull the human out of you myself." To Lia she said, "Your sister is an addict because she has no idea how to be anything else. My guess is your pack must not have healers, or they would have stepped in right from the beginning."

"What does that have to do with any of this?" Lia's hands shook as she dribbled more of the healer's solution into Ryder's mouth. To her relief, he swallowed, and followed that with a deep breath.

"Healers are special and if the pack doesn't recognize them, they can get lost. So very lost. You see, we feel everything in the pack. Every joy. Every sorrow. All the danger. And when death comes, that rips us almost in two. If no one teaches us how to bear it all, we'll do almost anything to make it stop."

"Our parents died and..." Lia trailed off wishing she could remember what had happened. Nothing really made sense to her because she didn't have any true memories. Just second-hand information about that part of her life. Ryder was real to her. She remembered him and that was why it had been so terrifying to think he might leave her. But her sister? Was a concept more than an actual person. Her home pack? She didn't even know them anymore.

"And that probably broke your sister. If your alpha didn't understand what she was, she would have fended for herself. So it is, of course, natural that drugs seemed like an answer to her. The high would have taken her away from all that pain. Not only did she lose her parents, she felt the loss of the pack on a deep level. Healers are supposed to heal that pain, but without training, she couldn't move beyond it."