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I’d never seen a beta go feral before, but at least one thing connected in my brain. Feral was bad. For him, anyway. I crawled toward Luca, shoving myself chest to chest and locking my arms around him. I called his name, desperate to have him come back to me.
“Luca, stop. It’s okay. I’m safe.” I struggled to keep the sharp and sour notes out of my scent, focused on calming my heart and my breathing so he’d be able to feel that I was safe instead of just taking my word for it.
He buried his face against my throat, squeezing tightly, his fingers digging in until his heartbeat calmed.
The men lay dazed on the floor, neither of them moving besides a pained shift and groan.
Luca swallowed hard and clutched me impossibly tighter with trembling hands. “Call the police.”
“No!” Rodney shouted.
I tucked harder against Luca’s side. “Why would I not call the police, Rodney?”
“You really want my girls to see their dad in prison? Do you want to rip apart Stella’s family? I could tell them we were here for an affair and your punk-ass bitch of a boyfriend flew off the handle when he found out.”
Luca growled. “Luna, you can’t let them get away with this.”
I looked up at him, pleading. “He’s right, though. I can’t make Stella tell her daughters what he’s done. I can’t take the risk that she would believe him.”
With an agonized expression, Luca fished out his phone, and pressed the nine and then the one. “Both of you get the fuck out now or the call goes through.”
Rodney was pissed as hell, but this was his one chance to walk away from this. He hoisted up Kevin, and dragged him toward the door, while Luca put himself bodily between me and them.
“You two keep your mouths fucking shut,” I snapped, “and so will I. Not a single one of us wants this getting out, so stay quiet or I’ll find a way to destroy you in return.”
Luca slammed the door shut behind them, locking it and flipping the deadbolt. He clutched me to him. “Fucking hell. I’ve never been so scared in my life.” After breathing me in until he stopped shaking, he quietly added, “We should still call, Luna.”
“I don’t want to deal with cops. I just want to sleep, please. I can’t manage anything more right now.”
“Okay, but you can’t stay here tonight.”
“I don’t want to stay here tonight. They were in my nest. I feel like I need to burn everything in there.”
Luca cleared the impending call and booked us a room at one of the downtown hotels. “We’ll check out the damage tomorrow. For tonight I’m going to make sure that you’re safe.”
I didn’t bother packing anything, unsure what might have been defiled by their presence. Luca led me back down the hall, past the boxes of pizza left scattered in the hall from when he had burst in, and down to his car.
Luca white-knuckled the car door, his skin clammy and shiny in the parking lot lights. “We should swing by the hospital.”
The statement jolted me out of my doom bubble. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I might be having a heart attack.”
A sick sort of relief washed over me. Focusing on Luca’s pain was easier than focusing on mine. At least I knew what to do in this situation. I hustled out of the vehicle and gathered him into the passenger seat, making sure he was buckled in before hopping in the driver’s side, and plugging the location of the nearest hospital into my phone to guide me there.
We weren’t far, thank goodness, and I drove straight up to the ambulance bay. It wasn’t particularly allowed, but I saw the paramedics standing outside one of the ambulances and swerved on instinct.
There was a buzz of action as they got Luca into a wheelchair and took him inside. A growl sat like a hunk of lead in my throat as I was forced to go park and pay instead of going straight in with him. One of the nurses directed me once I got back inside. They had triaged him for heart issues and swept him away into a room.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked one of the nurses passing out of the room.
“Are you family?” she asked.
Before I could respond, Luca noticed me standing there. He called my name and the doctor hovering next to him stepped aside so I could take Luca’s hand.
“It’s not a heart attack,” the doctor said, and a weight of worry fell off my shoulders. “He’s tachycardic, and his hormone levels are top of the charts, which is extremely unusual for a beta. We’ll keep monitoring, and once his body settles, he can go home with you if you’re able to monitor him.”
“Yeah, of course, I can do that.”
