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Sloan shrugged, not at all bothered, the saint. “Consider yourself forgiven. I’m not really upset.” His glittering eyes dropped to my face. “But thank you for defending my honor when you should probably worry more about yourself, V.”
“Any...time...” I got out through waves of agony.
Holy cow, Sloan was seriously the whole package. Remind me to pine for him when this was all over.
Guess even poison couldn’t stop me from my horrifying teenage hormones. How sad. I was definitely beyond help. Definitely. No more evidence was needed. If the edge of death hadn’t distracted me from hot guys and their super suave moves, then it was a problem nothing would likely solve.
I turned to look at Nigel again, truly seeing him for the first time since I’d been attacked. Sadly, I hadn’t noticed the Shifter was stark-naked, and I jerked my head to look away a little too quickly.
“Ouchie,” I complained, sucking in a gasping breath when the sudden head turn hit my chest.
Angry, injured, or no, I’d never get used to seeing Nigel in the buff. It was ridiculous how even as injured as I was, I still blushed like a virgin; how I was likely to be all kinds of pale and sweaty after nearly ten minutes of pain, but still managed to bring blood into my face to display the full extent of my embarrassment.
If I survive this, I’m going to spend a lot of time working on my game face.
Nigel howled low in his chest, the sound of it absolutely haunting. It surprised my head back over to him, and I cursed the pain again. But I was mesmerized by a naked man howling on purpose and it not being the slightest bit weird on him.
A minute later, Mia stood over me, in her birthday suit, still projecting her devil-may-care attitude. “What’s up?” And as if just noticing me, she looked down and her eyebrow rose in interest. “Why’s she on the floor?”
“Can you sniff out what this poison is and what it needs for an antidote?” Nigel cut in, tone clipped.
The gorgeous woman went onto all fours in a crouch, on full display, and Sloan didn’t even blink. The dude didn’t even blink. I, on the other hand, went a brighter shade of red despite the tremendous pain working its way through my body in rolling waves.
“Oh, that’s a rare one. They call it Sleeping Death. I’m just surprised someone even knows how to make this beauty anymore,” she remarked in obvious excitement.
Not weird at all. Guess Mia lived up to her attire.
Grams had told me about Sleeping Death though, mainly because it was what one of her previous partners died from. Most poisons were slow to work on Hunters, but this one was designed specifically with them in mind. It attacked vital organs first and shut them down. It was quicker than most Hunters could regenerate. And without an antidote on hand, fatal.
Lucky me.
But because it was one of very few poisons we could die from within the usual twenty-four-hour period, the Organization had an immense supply of the antidote. Still, we’d have to get our hands on it in time, which proved the biggest obstacle.
“Don’t have any of this antidote already made,” Mia commented, brow knitted together. “Like I said, been a long time since I’ve seen it.”
“Can you make the antidote?” Nigel demanded, his glowing amber eyes jerking over to me as I sucked at the air and fought away the anguish in my chest and head.
Poison, dude. It’s the worst.
In thirty to forty minutes, I’d go into a seizure and no longer have control over my body. In an hour, if this pain was any indication, I’d be comatose. In two hours, maybe less, I’d be dead. But as with anything, the timeline fluctuated based on potency, how much was administered, and how quickly it reached the blood.
Funny, poison wasn’t how I envisioned I’d die. I thought for sure it’d be by an old-ass vamp draining my blood, or my bones crushed to powder in a fight—or maybe with a blade stabbed into my heart or other vital organ I couldn’t heal from.
But not poison.
How anticlimactic.
Mia nodded, confident in herself. “It’ll take anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes, but luckily I have almost everything we need, and what I don’t have I can find in the forest.”
Seriously, what is this chick? A dark sorceress?
Honestly, with my vision so watery already and my body on fire, I’d likely go into a seizure in the next few minutes. It was the weird sensation in my head that made me think so. Also, my injury probably didn’t help, and it was likely the poison entered my blood stream sooner because of how it was administered. In less than an hour, I’d be comatose. Still, for some reason, even on the edge of death, I was oddly calm.
“Go,” the naked Shifter next to me commanded of his female counterpart.
Sloan lifted me into his arms, and I inhaled a pain-filled breath. “I have the antidote, but getting it will require I contact someone. It may take less time to get them here than for Mia to concoct it, so I’ll make the call.”
Head pounding, I closed my eyes and slumped inside Sloan’s hold, while the other Hunter talked on his phone to whoever he planned to get the antidote from. The terrifying burn was in every part of my body, and I could only moan low in my throat.
