“Yeah, but I bet you’re wishing I’d kept the receipt.” I welcomed his laughter, but it also saddened me. “Misha, what can I do? I want to help.”

“Nothing, my love. Continue to keep me informed at all costs, but do nothing. I will not have you risk your life for me again.”

I stared at my phone when he disconnected. Crap. Now what?

CHAPTER 28

“My wife wants to have a natural birth. No medications. No IV. We are refusing any and all interventions. Western medicine is destroying our nation.”

I nodded at the first-time father-to-be as I finished my internal exam of his wife. I smiled at the woman as best I could. “You’re one centimeter dilated and your cervix is about seventy percent effaced.”

Her eyes widened as she looked to her beloved for support. “What does that mean, exactly?” he asked for her.

I removed my gloves and washed my hands. “Well, it means it’s not quite time for the baby to be born.” I smiled at the wife. “Your bag of water is still intact, the baby is moving well, the heart tones look fantastic, and you’re not showing signs of infection. I’ll call the doctor and let her know the facts. Most likely she’ll be sending you home. You can take Tylenol for pain and a warm bath for any further discomfort. Call us for strong, painful contractions occurring every five minutes, or if your water breaks, you develop a fever or bleeding, or your baby stops moving regularly.”

The father blinked back at me like I’d informed him he was having gremlins and that he shouldn’t feed them after midnight. “But…but…she’s contracting.”

I skimmed the fetal heart rate tracing on the computer. “Yes. About every twenty-two minutes now.”

“But they hurt her…a lot when they come.”

I sat on a rolling stool and scurried over to where the father sat in a chair next to his wife’s bed. “Let’s talk.” I smiled once more. “Labor—true labor—occurs when contractions come at strong, regular intervals and the pain is such that you can’t walk or talk through them.” I looked at the wife. “You updated your Facebook status during the last contraction. During labor your cervix will also open up and thin out.” I shook my head. “I’m afraid that hasn’t happened yet.”

The woman tilted her head. I was pretty sure she understood, especially when she started texting all three thousand of her closest friends. Her beloved remained unconvinced. “So she’ll continue to experience the same amount of pain, but the contractions will occur more frequently—every three to five minutes?”

“No, the pain will continue to increase and become more severe.” Until it feels like Godzilla is reaching up inside her and tearing out her intestines.

“You don’t understand,” he said, like I was the stupid one. “She’s in pain when they come. More pain than I’ve ever seen her in.” He frowned and pointed a stern finger at me. “What you mean is, the pain will stay the same and the contractions will just come more frequently.”

It was getting harder to keep smiling. He was lucky I didn’t bite off his damn finger. “Sir, there is a human being trying to come out of your wife’s body. Trust me when I say the pain will get much worse.”

Panic spread across his features. “Oh…”

I stepped from behind the triage curtain to where Shayna was doubled over trying to suppress her giggles. The doctor sitting at the desk next to her smirked.

“Hi, Dr. Summers. I was just about to call you.”

“No need. Heard the whole thing.” She handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s your discharge order.” She rose and walked around the desk to the patient’s triage bed. “I’ll just say hi.”

I leaned over the counter. “What are you doing?”

“Just finished a nonstress test. Everything is fine; she’s going home, too.”

Amy, our charge nurse, poked her head into the triage room. “Celia, can you go down to the emergency department? A woman was brought in. She’s about twenty weeks pregnant and they need to make sure the baby’s okay before they treat her.”

“Sure. Can Shayna come, too? Both our patients are going home.”

Amy thought about it. “Yeah. That might be a good idea. The ED called in a panic. They always freak when someone shows up pregnant.” She rolled her eyes. “Remember the last pregnant woman who came in? Two IVs running in her arms, covered in EKG leads, and no one bothered to check her vagina.”

Shayna and I left as soon as we discharged our patients. Our hospital, like most of the area hotels and restaurants, resembled a beautiful mountain resort, complete with Native American tapestries and wood carvings of totem poles and animals. Every visitors’ lounge had beautiful mosaic tile patterns depicting various forest animals. My favorite, of course, was the one near the main entrance portraying a wolf baying at the moon.

“Thinking about Aric?”

We had only just stepped into the elevator. “Why do you ask?”

Shayna shrugged as she adjusted her long ponytail. “You’ve been so sad. Especially after Aric left yesterday.”

My foot traced a circle on the floor as images of his anger flashed through my mind. “I didn’t like how we ended things; you know, he seemed so angry.” I shoved my stethoscope deeper into my pocket. “I can’t stand having him hate me, but in a way I guess it’s better. Maybe he’ll stop coming around.”

The doors opened. We stepped into the large foyer and walked across the beautiful wolf made of brown, black, and rust-colored tiles. The gloss to the wolf shone bright against the sunlight peeking through the tall windows of the front entrance.

Shayna draped her arm around me. “Aric doesn’t hate you, Celia. And I don’t think he was mad. If anything he’s jealous.”

“What could he possibly be jealous of? He’s the one with a pack of gorgeous, half-naked weres chasing him, ready to rip his clothes off at the first howl from his lips.”

Shayna laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. That hot hunk of fangs who vonts to drink your blad…among other things.”

“There’s nothing between me and Misha. Besides, even if those other girls weren’t around he has a baby to think about.” I scoffed. “If he’s any kind of man, that is.” I told her about our conversation.

Shayna smiled weakly. “Aric doesn’t strike me as deadbeat-dad material.”

I thought back to his sexy grin and how he’d fought to protect me. “I didn’t think so either.”

“Don’t give up on him so easily, Celia. There’s something special between you. I see it every time he looks at you…and every time you see him.” Shayna’s eager hand tugged on my arm. “Will you let me ask Koda about it, please?”

I groaned. “No. I don’t want—”

An agonized howl from the ED pierced right through my sensitive ears, sending every one of my senses into “oh, shit” mode.

“Celia, what’s wrong?”

“We’ve got trouble. Call Emme and Taran to the ED.” I took off at a dead run. The howls turned threatening, deadlier. “Get the wolves!”

Preternaturals stayed away from hospitals. They relied on their families, packs, and clans when injured. The fact that one was here meant trouble.

I shoved through the automatic doors. A doctor in a bloody white coat flew through one of the glass partitions that made up the ED. A panicked tech punched numbers into the phone, but he continued to misdial. The snarls turned into roars.

“What’s happening?”

The tech jumped when he saw me. He shook horribly. “A-a-a couple were attacked by b-b-bears in the woods. The husband just died.” His trembling worsened when he gawked at the demolished doorway. “I think she knows.”

A second doctor soared through the window, along with a nurse and two security guards. They fell limp near unconscious doctor number one. I raced inside and gasped at what I saw. A she-wolf thrashed on the bed; blood—her blood—saturated her shredded T-shirt and jeans. Both her legs and an arm were bound in leather restraints. She’d chewed through the restraints on one hand and she was working on the other. Syringes filled with the pungent odor of sedatives remained lodged in her thighs, while the one piercing her jugular flapped against her neck as she thrashed. The meds likely kept her from changing, but despite the extent of her injuries her metabolism would soon burn through them.

I threw my body on top of hers, trying to keep her still, knowing her thrashing would worsen her injuries. Her carotid artery had already been severed and both femoral veins damaged. Her clammy gray skin told me her blood loss exceeded the amount that would allow her to heal completely. Sweet Jesus. The couple hadn’t been attacked by bears; they’d been mauled by infected vampires. I shuddered at the extent of her injuries, confused as to how she’d survived.

The wolf buckled beneath me, growling and trying to wrench her arm away. When she realized she couldn’t toss me like the others, she growled and snapped at my shoulder.

“Listen to me; I’m trying to help you—”

“Give me my mate!”

“What?”

“I’m going with my mate. I’m going with him now!”

She yanked my nursing scissors out of my chest pocket and tried to stab herself through the heart.

Shayna muffled a scream. “Oh, my God.”

I twisted the she-wolf’s wrist and forced her to drop them.

The wolf broke through the other restraint, punching me hard in the head and knocking me into a metal table full of instruments. I rebounded and grabbed her in a full nelson. “Shackle her arms!”

Shayna manipulated the metal bars of the stretcher and snaked them along the wolf’s arms. The wolf lashed out violently, vengeance and heartbreak fueling her strength, twisting the metal. Taran flew into the room as a slew of reinforcements pounded into the ED. “Son of a bitch!”