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* * *
At three A. M. Gina was on break in the extra corral next door, and I was reading a book outside Winter’s room. Things were peaceful. I should have known it wouldn’t last.
“Incoming, Edie!” Meaty shouted from around the bend. I put my book down and tried to look official.
Lucas came around the bend, wearing his hoodie again, looking rough, smelling like sweat. He seemed bigger than he had last night, and he was breathing hard. When he saw me he stopped, his face hard to read. “I just want to talk to the old man. ”
“Okay. ” I pushed my desk out of the way and let him go inside. Technically, he should have put isolation gear on, and technically I shouldn’t have let him go in alone. I stood to hover near the door where I could see them both.
Lucas went over to Winter’s bedside, staring down at the king in repose. “No wonder my father hated you, Uncle. He knew he’d never feel like this. ” He touched his own chest. “I can feel their hearts, beating inside me. This is what it feels like to lead a pack. ” He moved his hand to Winter’s chest, and I took another step inside the door. “I can feel it coming—the moon has chosen me. ”
“Lucas—”
He looked over to me, and the shadows in the room made his eyes glow copper, like an animal’s in the night. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt him. He’s already as good as dead. ”
He patted Winter’s chest again and came back toward the door. Instead of passing me, he grabbed my shoulders and spun me sideways to press me against the room’s wall, pinning me there. To call for help would be humiliating at best, injurious at worst. I remembered Charles’s story about weres saying they didn’t know their own strength afterward, and completely believed him.
I squeaked out, “How were the fights?” like a normal conversation with him would be possible now.
His face an inch away from mine, he said, “Easy. ”
He kissed me like he owned me. My head was pressed against the wall behind me, and his tongue ran deep inside my mouth. He only pulled back to tease, his hot breath gentle on my lips, before kissing me again.
Half of me wanted to leap outside my skin and run away, or scream. The other half wanted everything else from him, here, now, forget propriety, forget the disgusting hospital floor.
He planted his hand against my mouth so I couldn’t scream, and licked up the side of my face. His other hand trailed down my body outside my thin cotton scrubs, stroking my breast, diving between my legs.
“You still want me,” he said, finally letting me go.
I wiped his spit off my cheek. “People often want what they can’t have. ”
“Sometimes it makes them want it all the more. ” He took a step back from me, inhaled, exhaled, deflating, becoming less of a monster, more of the Lucas that I knew. “We’ve found five of Viktor’s men. We’re on the hunt for the rest of them. ”
“That’s good, I guess. ” I was breathing heavy, scared and turned on, mad at my body for betraying me.
“I have pack business from now until the moon. But after it, Edie—”
“You’ll be a pack leader then. ” I wasn’t going to fall for another guy who would have to leave me. I pushed him away, and he took an obliging step back.
“Don’t think that this is over, Edie. ” And then he looked past me, back at Winter. “And as for you, old man—your pack is mine. ”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I waited near my desk for five minutes, and then went out to the bathroom to wash my face and clean myself up. Luckily I’d started the evening looking disheveled, so Lucas mauling me didn’t make a huge change.
Meaty was standing, yelling into the phone on my return. “We’re a hospital, not a prison—no, I don’t care, that’s not what you pay us for. ”
By the time I got to the nursing station, Meaty’d hung up. “What happened?”
“Edie—go wake up Gina. Tell her we’ve got to open the extra were-wing. ”
* * *
Waking Gina was easy—convincing her that’s what Meaty’d said was harder. “You’re kidding—why?”
“I don’t know. ” I didn’t want to repeat half-heard conversations, but, “Something about us being a prison?”
“Oh, God. ” Gina flung herself out of the empty room’s bed.
I followed Gina back into the hallway. She went to the back wall, which had a keypad and a metal doorplate set up beside it. She ran her badge over the doorplate and entered a combination on the keys. What I’d assumed was a wall for my entire career at Y4 lifted up, like a garage door.
“How many rooms will we need, Meaty?” Gina hollered.
“Half a dozen or so!” came the shouted answer from the main floor.
“Extra help, girl,” Gina said, addressing me. “Linen and supplies for six rooms. Stat. ”
“You got it. ”
* * *
I ran back and forth, putting supplies into the six nearest rooms—the ones at the end of the hall were covered in dust.
“When’s the last time we used these?” I asked on one of my treks back and forth.
