Touch of Darkness (8 page)

She nodded brusquely. “We have a couple people inside the airport. That’s the only reason I let you go in ahead of me. I’ll let them know what happened. Consider it an apology for the arm. If our people had been where they were supposed to be, Janine would never have gotten close to you.” She sounded disgusted and angry. I’d have given odds that some of the Vegas wolves would be getting a serious dressing-down when the crisis was over. My nod of acknowledgment was met with a look of weary gratitude.

I got in the ambulance without further fuss. In truth, it felt good to lay down. It must’ve shown, too, because Ruby sat in uncharacteristic silence next to the gurney in the back of the ambulance for the entire ride. The ambulance took me to the same hospital where Dusty had given birth. She was recovering nicely—probably would be given her walking papers today. Too bad. We could’ve shared a room.

I spent very little time in the emergency room before being wheeled into X-ray. Just enough time to sign forms and give them my insurance information. From X-ray I was taken straight into surgery. Yeah, the wound was that bad. It made me nervous as hell, being put under anesthesia in a strange hospital, without either Tom or Joe to keep an eye on things. But there really wasn’t any choice. So I had to hope that the surgeons, doctors, and nurses assigned to me were not only skilled, but that they weren’t under the influence of the vampires—something that wouldn’t have been nearly as much of an issue if I hadn’t had to negotiate for Dusty’s safety just a couple days before. I didn’t think the Thrall would be as reasonable about me as for her.

The last thing I saw before they wheeled me down the hall and the anesthetic took me under was Ruby, standing in the middle of the wide white hall. She was hugging herself with skinny little arms, with tears and mascara streaming down her face.

HEY, NIFTY! I came out from the anesthesia. Hearing came back first. A calm female voice asked me the answer to a simple math problem. I got it right, and managed to open my eyes. They didn’t focus all that well at first. But eventually I saw that I was in a mid-sized room with dim lighting and all sorts of machines being monitored by a pair of nurses in colorful scrubs. The elder was middle-aged and gray haired, with an efficient if slightly macho manner. She slid a blood pressure cuff on my good arm, inflated it, and slid a cold stethoscope against my skin to listen.

“One-twenty over eighty-five,” she announced. The second nurse wrote it down with a smile. Good numbers on the blood pressure and the ability to answer properly meant that I’d probably come out of the anesthesia in good shape. In fact, it earned me a smile and a trip down the hall to a semiprivate room. I slept. I’m not sure how long—but long enough that I woke to find Mary sitting up in the bed next to mine. She looked distinctly worse for wear in a gaudy souvenir tee-shirt and the kind of cheap shorts you can pick up on sale at your corner drugstore. The shorts made her legs look stocky. The kiwi green of the shirt looked awful with her coloring and emphasized the dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was even unkempt, unusual in a woman whom I knew to be almost obsessively tidy by nature.

The curtain between the beds was open and the door closed, so we were able to talk without worrying about being interrupted or overheard.

“Tom?”

She nodded toward the door. “He’s been sitting by your bedside fretting ever since you arrived, but his grandparents wanted a few minutes with him. He’s talking to them in the hall. Figures you’d open your eyes while he’s out.” She shook her head. The gesture made her dark bangs fall into her eyes, and she brushed them back with an irritated gesture. “Actually, I’m glad we’ve got a minute. We need to talk.”

She sounded grim. I reached for the controls to the bed and pushed the button. Whatever we were going to talk about, I’d feel better—less helpless—if I wasn’t looking up at her from flat on my back. When I was sitting upright I let go of the controls and turned to look her in the eye. It was as I was turning that I noticed the cast, an old-fashioned plaster job that was dyed black. What the hell happened in surgery? But that wasn’t a question for Mary, so I asked the one that she could answer.

“What’s up?”

“How much do you remember of what Janine and Betty said in the parking garage?”

“All of it.”

“Good. I’m not Acca any more. Some of the wolves thought I had too much going on in my personal life, that I needed a break. Some just flat disagreed with how I ran things. Any way you slice it, Janine is the new elected Acca.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. The pack had been Mary’s whole life for a very long time. Now she has Joe. But losing the pack had to have been a real blow.

Mary’s golden-brown eyes met my gaze and held it. “Ruby wasn’t wrong. Janine dated Tom for a while before he met you. She got serious. He didn’t. He broke it off. She never got over it. Somehow she tracked him down and came to Denver after him.” She leaned forward intently. “The thing is, the shit the vampires are pulling plays right into it. We had enough problems before, when the average man on the street thought they were a myth. Now that they’re real and helpful the wolves are the ones who are the monsters.”

I understood that. Hell, I’d been experiencing the same thing as a Not Prey.

“Most of the wolves think that we need our own good press. Tom’s handsome. He’s a fireman and a hero. He rushes into burning buildings and saves lives.”

“The wolves want to use him.”

“You bet your ass.”

“And they think I’m in the way.”

She sighed and shook her head. The look she gave me was almost pitying. “You are in the way, Reilly. The way they see it, every good thing he’s done is offset by something negative about you.”

I flinched, even as she shrugged.

“I don’t agree. But I’m just one wolf, and I’m not even Acca anymore. Worse, they think I’m prejudiced in your favor because of Joe.”

“They’ve obviously never met Joe.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice. I love my older brother desperately, but there are times when I don’t like him. We get along for a while, then I do, or say, or don’t do something and we’re back to square one with him pissed and pissy and me not even knowing exactly what I’ve done wrong. “I just wish I knew what I did to turn him against me again. Something happened at the wedding, and I just don’t know what.”

Mary sighed and stared at the wall for a moment, thinking. I let her, because I was thinking too. It’s all I’d been doing since Joe sent back the wedding gift. But I was still coming up with nothing.

“Okay,” she said after a moment. “I’ll give you enough hints to figure it out for yourself. But as far as Joe is concerned, we never had this talk. I’ll deny it to your face to the point of beating it in if you tell him.”

Well, that was certainly direct. I raised my brows and realized I could. The drugs must be wearing off a little. I took the opportunity to try sitting up. I managed it, but the process wasn’t pretty. Mary didn’t offer to help, and I didn’t expect her to.

“You know Joe’s been in therapy since the… accident.” I nodded, but she didn’t even notice. “We call it that, because he still can’t handle words like kidnapped or tortured. In a way, it was accidental. He was in the wrong place, born into the wrong family.”

That stopped me cold and I couldn’t keep the shocked anger from my face or scent. She stared me in the eye, a meeting of equals. We always had been—the two toughest girls in Catholic school, rival captains when we played the same sports. Of course, at the time, I hadn’t known she was a werewolf. But we’d still always been fiercely loyal to one another. I counted Mary as one of my few friends. Had that changed?

“Yeah, it’s all about you, Reilly. How can it not be? Joe competed with you always, from the day your parents died. But it wasn’t until you got the Not Prey title that his life changed… and not for the better. You brought Bryan back. Terrific. Joe was massively grateful for that. But then you did the same damned thing to Bryan his friends did all those years ago when he overdosed. You dumped him—left him on the side of the real world road to handle shit all on his own.” I opened my mouth to protest that I’ve always made myself available, but she anticipated the comment. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Nobody called. But, see, your own life sucks so bad that nobody dares ask you for help. Your tiny little bit of sunshine is Tom, and you’re so damned happy with him that nobody wants to be the one to ruin it by intruding.”

She swung her legs off the bed and turned to face me with arms crossed over the hideously green shirt. “It’s like the time Joe leased the Hummer and you got pissed. He didn’t ask about how much you were paying Father Mike in expenses for Bryan’s care, and you didn’t volunteer the info. So, you mortgaged yourself to the point of foreclosure and got pissed off, and he nearly lost his cookies when he found out how bad off you were. No communication. You think that’s somehow miraculously changed just because Bryan’s cured?” She snorted, and it sounded like a bark. “Try again. But that’s not the worst part. When Joe finally got rehabilitated enough to go back to work, he expected a hero’s welcome. But what he got was pity. Candy stripers helping him walk down the hallway. Special ramp additions for his braces that are in the way of every doctor in the ER. And sure, shit happens. But his therapist figured out that every single nightmare, his reaction to his braces, his job, his friends … it all comes back to you.”

I sat there, open-mouthed but speechless, because I couldn’t figure out what to say for the life of me. She took a deep breath. “The day of the wedding, there was a trauma victim that came in at St. Elizabeth’s. It was Joe’s specialty and I won’t even pretend that I can understand, or even pronounce, what the issue was. But they didn’t call him.” She looked at me with fierce eyes, turning golden with repressed adrenaline. “Not because it was his wedding day. Not because they didn’t know where he was. But because of how they think of him now. He’s not a brilliant doctor to the upper management anymore, not a specialist with skills that are worth accommodating. He’s a victim in the eyes of his peers there, and he can’t handle it.” Another deep breath, during which she could only stare down at her chewed nails. “A man died that day in the ER, and Joe could have saved him. I’ll let you work out all the things that have been eating at him since a day that should have been the happiest of his life.”

The part of me that had been fed a diet of Catholic guilt since birth wanted to vomit. The part that had grown up knew it wasn’t his fault… or mine. But that didn’t change the fact that a man died when he might not have had to. For whatever reason. And it was definitely something Joe was going to have to come to terms with. The senseless death of innocents was something I’d been forced to deal with a long time ago—about the same time I first encountered the Thrall.

Mary shook her head and wiped a quick palm across her eyes. “But enough of that. Like I said, we never discussed it. Anyway, Janine’s mother is not only the Acca here in Las Vegas, but she’s also the head of the Conclave. I know Tom hasn’t told you anything about the Conclave, because I ordered him not to. Until you actually were on the far side of the altar, it didn’t matter to your life. But I’m not the Acca anymore, so feel free to ask him. I know you won’t give up Tom, and he’d rather die than lose you. But I have to warn you. Things are going to get really ugly.”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but she waved me to silence. Tilting her head at some sound I couldn’t hear, she abruptly changed the subject. “Thank-you, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For everything.” Mary began ticking off items on her fingers. “For dealing with the hospital about Dusty, for protecting Ruby, for making sure somebody was there to guard me while I was unconscious.” Her expression darkened. “It shouldn’t have been necessary. Janine—”

“Janine is nuts, and dangerous.” Tom said the words as he stepped through the door carrying cups of coffee. My breath caught in my chest at the sight of him. I blinked a couple of times, trying to bring my mind back to the conversation at hand. Tom noticed, and gave me a dimpled grin that made my heartbeat speed up just a little. He crossed the few steps from the door to the bed, handed Mary both cups of coffee, then leaned down to kiss me hello. It was a great kiss: it started warm and gentle, building slowly. His left hand cupped my cheek … his touch delicate as his tongue slid gently into my mouth. His right hand pressed against the bed for balance as I leaned into the kiss, savoring the warm strength of him. Lust is wonderful, and God knows I always lust after him, but it was the steady unshakable love that had built between us that I treasured most. We’d been through a lot together. We’d probably be going through more. But I didn’t doubt that whatever trouble came up we’d face it together. I wasn’t alone. Not any more.

Mary gave a very deliberate cough. We broke the kiss. I blushed. Tom laughed. It was a joyous sound, and I caught a wisp of thought from him that let me know just how much he enjoyed the effect he had on me—which made me blush even harder.

“I can’t believe Janine tried to attack a surrogate. She needs to be put down.” Tom turned to Mary, deliberately changing the subject. He took one of the cups from her hand, using the bulk of his body to block her view of my face. He was giving me a chance to recover from my embarrassment. As far as I could tell he was never embarrassed, at least not about anything to do with me. Maybe it was upbringing. I’d been raised with all of the sexual taboos firmly in place. Things that made me writhe in mortification didn’t bother him in the least. In fact, he thinks it’s cute. I hate cute. But it tells you something about how smitten I am that I can’t even hold that against him. I watched him bring the cup to his lips, and couldn’t keep the wistful expression from my face. Tom gave an amused shake of his head and handed me the cup. Now that is love. I took a long pull of the steaming liquid, letting the heat and taste soak into my poor, abused body.

“You have to do something.” He spoke to Mary.

Mary shrugged. “What am I supposed to do? We’re not in our home territory, and even if we were, I’m not in charge any more. But if what happened at the airport gets out beyond the Vegas pack, there’s going to be even more bad press. Knowing Janine, she’ll try to lay it right at Kate’s door.”