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“I don’t know, baby,” Evangeline said softly. His wolf preened at the affection in her husky voice. And after hearing Wright call her babe so easily, like he had the right? It felt pretty damn good to be her baby again “That stuff you drugged him with is kinda strong. Remember what it did to me?”
He knew his mate didn’t say that to make him feel guilty—which was good because he abso-fucking-lutely refused to regret a single one of the drastic measures he had taken to get her back. If he’d sat on his claws, waiting for the bond to snap into place instead of completely ignoring the Claws Clause, Evangeline wouldn’t be with him.
But Colton wouldn’t be down for the count, either.
Yeah. What happened to his brother? Maddox might not regret how he got Evangeline back, but his shoulders were hunched, weighed down by the guilt he harbored over Colt’s near brush with death.
It had only been one week since Cilla threw Colt out of the window, though it seemed like Maddox was still trapped in that terrible moment when he burst into Evangeline’s apartment. The scent of Evangeline’s terror was seared into his nose, the sight of Colt’s broken body on the asphalt below burned into the back of his mind. His brother’s shifter nature meant that he regenerated much more quickly than a human; as strong as his wolf was, Colt was on his way to being healed.
Maddox… wasn’t. He had to fight the urge to pull Evangeline into his arms whenever she moved more than a few feet away from him. Seeing her vanish like that so soon after he claimed her had messed him up and bad. It would take a long time before he got over it so it was a good thing that they had forever.
If it wasn’t for him being partly responsible for Colt’s injuries—no matter that Colt hadn’t listened when he told him to hang back—Maddox might have just given in to his wolf’s demand that he run off with his mate, hiding her away so that he knew she was safe and protected. But he couldn’t do that. Not yet.
Not until Colt was back on his feet again.
The hospital finally released Colt yesterday morning, though Maddox thought it would be fairer to say that the medical staff kicked his brother out. He didn’t blame them, either. The entire time Colt was in the hospital, the orderlies, nurses, and doctors insisted that he be strapped to the bed. Since it was a mixed hospital with a shifter ward, the straps were made of treated silver—and, okay, maybe they were necessary. The sedative the paramedics gave him at the crime scene had worn off sooner than expected and Colt wolfed out as soon as he realized that he’d been brought in.
Three drug-laced darts to his backside knocked him out long enough for them to wrap a pair of silver cuffs on him and strap him to his hospital bed. He fought like a demon when he regained consciousness again. Luckily, the silver kept him human and in one place, even if it did nothing to stop his growled curses and angrily muttered threats.
So, yeah. Colt wasn’t a fan of hospitals.
He had to go, though. Maddox insisted. A shifter’s regenerative abilities meant that he should’ve been halfway healed by the time the ambulance pulled up to Grayson General. During the first rounds of tests, the doctors diagnosed four cracked ribs, a fractured tibia, and a broken hand. Pretty severe injuries, but nothing that would put Colt out of commission for long. Except for one thing. He was healing at a fraction of his usual speed. And fuck if they could explain it.
It was the magic. With Cilla still gone, there was no one who knew what it was she hit Colt with. It had to be something powerful to almost take out an alpha wolf like that. Luciana was contacted, the head witch meeting the ambulance at the hospital, but even she was at a loss. Maddox had howled in rage, Luciana escaping from Colt’s room before the other shifter woke back up. She said something about dragging Cilla back herself, but Maddox’s wolf wasn’t too picky about which witch paid for her crimes. Luciana was lucky to get out before he lost it entirely.
Which was good in retrospect since he didn’t really need the entire might of Coventry on his head like that.
Six days later, when Colt threatened to go all Big Bad Wolf on the human nurse checking his vitals that morning, the head of Grayson General’s security team escorted Colt out personally. They used a hospice van to transport Colt to his Bumptown before the hospital staff washed their hands of their ornery patient. Maddox was glad. The harsh stink of the industrial-grade cleaners wasn’t enough to hide the sickness, death, and decay that permeated hospitals. Colt could recuperate at home where Maddox could keep a better eye on him. And he wouldn’t resort to silver cuffs to do it.
Of course, that didn’t mean he was going to let Colt get back to work like he obviously expected to. Six days in and the right sid
e of his body was barely serviceable. The fracture in his leg had healed enough that he could step lightly on it, but that was about it.
Pulling rank, going Alpha on Colt, Maddox put his brother right to bed. Sure, Colt complained about it, but it wasn’t like he could fight back—and not just because his wolf was submissive to Maddox’s. Just like the silver collar had done to Maddox back when he was still in the Cage, the silver in the hospital straps left Colt as docile as he’d ever been.
And that scared the ever-loving shit out of Maddox.
He didn’t let that stop him. As Alpha, he needed to be stronger, faster, and more devious than the rest of the shifters in his pack if he wanted to stay in charge of it. He might not be the official Alpha yet—that was still his father—but in Colt’s house, he was the dominant beast and he was going to act like it.
It wasn’t just the pack hierarchy, either. This was family; he’d always been responsible for his younger brother. So Maddox did what he had to do to keep Colt from hurting himself while he was recovering. Colt was in even worse shape than anyone thought if his own wolf hadn’t detected the liberal amount of sedatives that Evangeline had sprinkled in last night’s dinner.
Considering Colt’s size and shifter metabolism, Maddox gave her triple the amount to dose Colt’s plate than what he had used for Evangeline. It, uh, definitely did the job.
He expected his brother to wake up, snarling and foaming at the bit when Colt realized he’d been drugged. Except it was going on twenty-four hours and Colt hadn’t even twitched.
Maddox paced. He had too much nervous energy and he had to keep moving. “Do you think I made a mistake?”
Evangeline got up from her perch by the window, crossing the room and meeting Maddox in the middle. She laid her hand on her mate’s arm. He immediately stilled.
Just her touch had the power to calm him. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in her scent, letting it wash over him.
“Maddox, honey, you did what you had to. You know that, don’t you?”
“Colt’s gonna—”
“Colt’s going to understand. If he tried to get up, he’d only end up hurting himself more. And I know you big, tough shifters like to think you’re infallible. You can still get hurt like the rest of us. He was thrown through a window by a witch. Six floors high, Maddox, right into the road. It’s going to take time for him to heal.”
“I know.” Frustrated, he ran his free hand through his shaggy mane of hair. “It’s just, I hate feeling so helpless. It’s all my fault—”
