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Tasha had a rare blood type, and none of them had been able to donate. They’d brought blood in from Sydney, but they didn’t know that it would work.
Time would tell.
Time was the enemy.
Kenzie had cried and Kala had walked off, Cooper following after her.
The Taggarts had held on to each other.
And he sat.
They’d given him a chair at her bedside, and the days seemed to flow into each other. There was light and darkness, and someone brought him meals he wouldn’t eat. He stepped out only to give her family time with her.
If she died, he wanted to go with her. He wouldn’t, of course, but he knew he would spend the rest of his life waiting to see her again.
Three days seemed like three years.
“Dare, you need to shower, man,” Taggart would say.
Charlotte would gently force him to drink water.
They’d updated him on his father’s situation. Ben had called and told Dare how he’d been allowed in on the raid, and they’d found what they needed to arrest his father and the majority of his board.
He didn’t care.
His siblings called, worried. He’d assured them they would all be okay.
He’d lied because nothing mattered if Tasha didn’t wake up.
Why wouldn’t she wake up?
He stared down at her. She looked so peaceful. Like she was sleeping.
“Dare, we’re going to have to talk.”
He hadn’t heard the door open. He glanced back and Taggart was standing there, a grim look on his face.
Dare didn’t like that look. “She needs more time.”
Taggart walked in. He looked like Dare felt. Haggard. Beyond tired. A little hopeless. His sons had made it in the night before, and they’d both begged their oldest sister to wake up.
“We can give her a few more days, but at some point we have to make decisions,” Taggart said.
“Can we take her back home?” He’d thought a lot about this. “Maybe if she was home…”
“We can if that’s the decision we make. But, Dare, we’re past the point where the odds are in our favor. She lost so much blood. I have a friend who’s a neurologist. She’s going to come in and consult. She thinks Tasha’s brain was deprived of oxygen for too long.”
“She’s not brain dead.”
“Not technically,” Taggart agreed. “But she’s losing function every day. Rebecca is sending some experimental drugs she’s been working on. They should be here sometime today, and she’ll be here shortly after. If these don’t work…”
He didn’t want to even think about the possibility. “They’ll work.”
“If they don’t,” Taggart began.
Dare shook his head. “No. You don’t get to do that to me. You’re the fucking alpha of this pack, and you are the one who taught me. She will wake up. The drugs will work. She will be awake, and we will deal with anything else. I’ll take care of her no matter what. There might not be anything legal, but she’s my wife and she won’t leave me.”
Taggart’s eyes closed and he reached out, putting a hand on Dare’s shoulder. He took a long breath. “She will wake up. She will be okay.”
Dare woke up deep in the night. A big man in a white coat stood at the end of Tasha’s bed. “Doctor?”
The man turned, his dark eyes flashing just for a second. “Hello. You must be Tasha’s boyfriend. I’m Doctor Federov. I’m going to administer a special medicine for Tasha. I think this will help.”
Dare stood. “The medicine Dr. Rebecca Walsh sent?”
“Yes,” the doctor replied. He had a syringe in his hand. “That medicine. It’s experimental, but you shouldn’t worry about it. Give it a few hours and she should wake up.”
Something about the big guy made him calm. “How does it work? You’re the first doctor to give me hope.”
“It will reopen the neural pathways that were damaged by the lack of oxygen to the brain.” The doctor pushed the plunger. “It’s not anything that’s on the market, but I assure you it’s safe for Natasha.” The doctor turned and stared down at her for a moment before looking back Dare’s way. “I wish you both a happy life.”
“My life will be perfect if she’ll just wake up,” Dare admitted.
The doctor seemed to shake something off and slid the syringe into the sharps container. “You know you won’t hurt her if you slip into bed beside her. It might be good for her to wake up warm and safe.”
It was what he’d wanted to do for days. Hold her. Sleep beside her.
He climbed into bed beside her, easing her into his arms, and for the first time in days, he managed to get to sleep.
* * * *
Tasha came awake, the weird dreams she’d had of her father falling off slowly. The fact that she’d dreamed of her biological parents told her she’d slept hard. Her dreams were mostly normal. She was trapped in a giant shoe store and had to navigate around in seven-inch heels. She was sitting in a briefing with the head of the Agency and she didn’t have any clothes on.
