AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ChapterTwenty-Eight
CASTOR
"What's wrong with him?" Dr. Kelly asked as I carried Eddie into the medical bay. He was inconsolable and barely conscious, and I had no fucking idea how to help him. I wasn't even sure there was anything that could be done. Not when the cause of his pain was the death of one of the beasts we had hunted. His sire.
Of fucking course it had to be his sire. Of all the damn wolves in the region, it had to be that one.
At least now I understood where he got his strength. Even for an alpha, that thing had been absurdly powerful. I didn't even need a full hand to count all the times I had seen Arrow overwhelmed on a mission, but that was one of them.
"Arrow killed his sire," I said, since I was pretty sure Eddie was too far gone to hear me as I set him down on one of the beds. "Sedate him."
Dr. Kelly's eyes widened, and he looked back down at the man who was hunched over, curled up on his side on the cot as sobs racked his body. He was holding his stomach as if he was in agonizing pain, and shuddering like he had a hundred degree fever. The doctor moved quickly, filling a syringe with light blue sedative, and Eddie didn't even try to resist him as he injected it into his arm.
Seconds later, he mercifully blacked out, and I finally let myself breathe.
"He's hurt," Dr. Kelly said, looking over the sleeping shifter. His eyes widened as his fingers brushed over the wound on Eddie's neck. I was equally confused for different reasons. Why hadn't it healed? "What is this?"
When I didn't answer, the doctor looked up at me, frowning. Before he could ask anything else, the doors to the medical bay flew open and Arrow strode in, his clothes still soaked in blood even though he had wiped most of it off his face.
He paused, looking over at Eddie in the cot before he turned back to me, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "Where the fuck have you been?"
I groaned inwardly.Here we go.
I barely had time to brace myself before he was across the room, planting his hands on my chest and shoving me back. "Two fucking weeks?" he hissed. "Do you have any idea how worried we were? How worried Marius was?"
Well, that explained why he was furious. I was pretty sure I could've stayed gone for a year without Arrow having much to say about it, if his beloved patriarch hadn't been adversely affected.
"I had my reasons," I muttered.
"Bullshit," he snarled, shoving me again.
I shoved him back and he knocked down a nearby tray before regaining his footing. "I didn't come back here to take shit from you,” I growled.
"Then you shouldn't have come back," he countered, looking like he was about to punch me before Dr. Kelly got in between us, one hand planted on each of our chests.
"That's enough," he snapped. "Not in my clinic. If you two want to fight like children, you're more than welcome to take it outside, but don't think I’ll be patching either of you up."
I clenched my jaw, and even though I usually would have gone ahead—especially since I could definitely use an outlet for my rage right about now—I didn't want to be separated from Eddie, so I backed off.
Dr. Kelly looked expectantly at Arrow, who was still watching me intently, like he hadn't quite made up his mind. He finally muttered something in acknowledgment and took a step back.
The doctor relaxed, stepping away from us both. "That's better," he said, looking back at me. "You were saying, about the mark?"
Arrow looked over my shoulder, frowning. "Yeah, I noticed that earlier when he shifted back. Why do I get the feeling that's related to you going MIA?" he asked pointedly.
So he didn't know. I was shocked that Eddie hadn't told the others in my absence, but I probably shouldn't have been. Somehow, that made me feel even guiltier. Like he was my battered boyfriend keeping the abuse a secret or something. That was probably closer to the truth than I wanted to admit on all counts.
I had hoped that my time away from the Abbey—and from him—would give me some clarity, or at least the space to understand this bizarre new facet of my nature.
It hadn't.
At least not in the time I had been gone, but I hadn't come back because I was ready. I’d had a strange, inescapable sense that something was wrong. Specifically, that something was wrong with Eddie. And it looked like I was right about that.
The fact that I could somehow sense he was in trouble from a distance was just more proof that whatever I had done when I bit him had forged some kind of connection between us. That, too, I was no closer to understanding, but I had a few theories. Theories I'd had plenty of time to ruminate on in my absence.
This wasn’t good. Any plans I might've had to continue the secrecy died out when I realized I didn't actually know what was happening. Not entirely, and even if my theory that I had somehow marked Eddie turned out to be correct in any measure, it still didn't account for the fact that the bite hadn't healed. If it was a mark, why was it still a wound?
"Well?" the doctor pressed. They were both watching me expectantly. I really would've rather not discussed this in front of Arrow, but I didn't have much of a choice, and I knew he wasn't going to leave of his own volition.
