Once inside, she slammed the door and dizzily followed the commotion coming from the middle of the house. Halfway to the stairs, she collapsed.
“Blue!” Viktor appeared over her like an angel. “Why do you not shift?”
“I need to see the girl.” Blue sat up but had to lean on her hand to steady herself. “I have to make sure she’s okay.”
Guilt set in. Why hadn’t she noticed someone in the trunk of her car? How long had that girl suffered in the heat? Even though it was late afternoon and she had parked the car in the shade, it was too hot for a kid that age to lie in the trunk that long. Blue thought about sitting on that rooftop, sipping lemonade and eating while that little girl was probably beating on the trunk lid to get out.
“You must shift,” he insisted. “So much blood.”
“Not enough to kill me, Viktor. Help me up—I need to see if she’s going to make it. I have to be there. I have to see.”
Viktor lifted her into his strong embrace. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, nuzzled close to his stubbly neck, and caught a faint whiff of cologne. He swiftly moved down the hall, whispering Russian words she didn’t understand. Was he admonishing her? Praying for her? Reciting the grocery list?
None of it mattered. She was home.
Chapter 14
“How’s your arm?” Christian asked, a twinkle in his eyes.
I glanced at the dried blood where a bear clawed me and then finished pouring his whiskey. “My arm’s fine, but I still have phantom pain in my leg.”
“You get used to it.”
I set the glass down and sat in the bench seat opposite him. We had the dining room to ourselves, and it was nice to have a moment of peace after our scuffle with the bears. Blue and Niko hadn’t made it back yet, so we were waiting to see if they had anything exciting to report.
Candlelight flickered on his handsome features as he lifted the crystal glass. “Thirsty?”
“Depends on what you’re offering, Mr. Poe. I’ve had my fill of the red stuff tonight.”
“’Tis a shame.” After sipping his drink, he gave me a hot look. “Are you sure you don’t want to take a short walk upstairs and rub your knockers on my knob?”
“Not when you put it like that.” I sat back and stared at his glass. “Blue and Niko should be back soon. We need to figure out what we’ve got—if anything.”
“My money’s on the apocalyptic virus.” He swirled his drink before gulping it down.
I sighed, glancing at a lantern by the entryway. “I can’t rule it out.”
A piercing chirp sounded from somewhere in the house. I looked over my shoulder. “That sounds like a fire alarm. Do we have a fire alarm?”
Christian guzzled his drink and stood. “Get your arse up. Someone’s hurt.”
“How do you know?”
“Wyatt sounds the alarm to get everyone in the medical room.”
I jogged behind Christian down the hall until we reached the foyer. The moment the door swung open, Shepherd bolted through the dim room with someone in his arms. I barely saw anything but a blur.
“Was that Blue?” I asked Niko, who walked in next.
“It’s a child.”
“Where’s Blue?”
The team appeared from all directions and rushed to the medical room, Niko in the lead. Claude and I entered the room while everyone else watched on.
“She’s burning up,” Shepherd said, feeling her forehead and neck. “Claude, get the IV pole. Niko, keep her cool. I need bags of ice!”
Christian vanished from sight.
I neared the table but kept out of the way. Her yellow Mickey Mouse shirt was dripping with sweat. “What can I do to help?”
“Look in the cabinet to the left of the sink and get me the red vial. Everything’s color coded. Niko, what’s her Breed?”
“Shifter.”
I rummaged through Shepherd’s weirdly organized cabinet until I spotted three red bottles. “Which one?”
“Any. They’re in the same drug family. I need it for when we cool her down. She’s gonna start shivering, and that’ll raise her body temperature again unless I do something about it.” He set up an IV bag and started putting in a line. “Shit. I’ve never treated a kid before. What the fuck did you do?”
Niko kept his hands on her neck and forehead. “We found her in the trunk of the car.”
“Jesus fuck,” Shepherd breathed.
Viktor came in with Blue in his arms. “She’s bleeding.”
“Tell her to shift,” Shepherd said, adjusting the IV drip. “I can’t give up the table.”
“Maybe you should have two,” Gem suggested, peering in.
There wasn’t much to Shepherd’s makeshift medical room. Just a metal table and a long cabinet with a sink in the corner by the door.
“Set her in the chair for now.” Shepherd touched the girl and furrowed his brow. “She’s not thinking clearly, her head hurts, and she’s scared. But not of us. Something else I can’t read.”
The girl lurched to her side and vomited on Shepherd’s pants.
“I can read that,” Wyatt remarked from his spot in the corner. “She doesn’t like your style.”
“Button it up or I’ll make sure you never have children.”
“Don’t want them.”
Viktor and I hovered over Blue, my hands pressing against the wound on her leg to stanch the bleeding.
She craned her neck to see the kid. “Is she going to be all right? I didn’t know she was in there, Viktor. I swear it. Her pack showed up and ran us off the road. They thought we stole her.”
“Why did you not give her back?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t.”
Viktor removed his shirt and used it to tie around her leg. “If she dies, her pack can legally seek retribution. You understand this.”
Blue nodded weakly. “If they want a life, I’ll give them mine.”
I wiped my bloody hands on my shirt and swung my gaze to Viktor. “They can’t just kill one of us as payback. This wasn’t her fault. You heard what they said—the girl hid in the trunk.”
“It is the way of the pack.” He finished tying the tourniquet. “This will keep you for a while. But you must shift before you pass out, and we cannot wake you.”
“Not until she’s okay.” Blue’s normal olive complexion was now a sickly grey, her cargo pants soaked in blood.
“You are indispensable,” he said, leaning in close. “We will do what we can to help the child, but you must not go too far over the edge.”
Christian returned with several bags of ice. He and Claude arranged them under the girl’s armpits, along her torso, and everywhere that Shepherd instructed.
“What the immortal hell happened to your pants?” Wyatt asked, looking at Christian’s missing pant leg. “If that’s the new fashion, don’t sign me up.”
“Get him out of here!” Shepherd boomed, startling me enough to look back at the door.
Hunter had wandered into the room and was staring at the blood on the floor.