“What’s the weird part?”
“The stab marks… the flesh around the entry points is singed as if they stabbed her with a hot poker.”
Silas swallowed hard. “In the parking lot?”
“Right. And there was a substance injected into her body. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I took a sample, and let’s just say it made Nightshade light up like a laser beam.” Nightshade was Grateful’s sword, a magical blade that served as a supernatural lie detector, sniffing out evil intent in both supernatural creatures and enchanted objects.
“What do you think it is?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ll find out. As soon as I know what it is, I’ll do whatever it takes to heal Laina. But Silas, the stab wounds… they weren’t random.” She pulled out her phone and slid her finger across the screen to bring up a picture.
“The letter A,” Silas said grimly. “Alex did this. I got too close last night. This is his warning to me. He wants me to back off.”
“You saw Alex last night?”
“Yeah. Almost shot his ass. He was collecting bones at a crime scene I was investigating.”
“Bones?”
Silas shrugged. “I have no idea what he plans to do with them.”
Grateful shook her head. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Alexcouldn’thave done this. The stabbing occurred in the parking lot of Four Paws. Gerty and I have had a protective ward around the place for months. The same one we put around Rivergate. Nothing supernatural can get in there without our knowledge. It’s sealed so tight that Laina has to call me if a witch or fae wants to bring their dog in for an exam. And, before you ask, she hasn’t added any new clients recently.”
Silas closed his eyes tightly. “So Alex got a human to do his dirty work.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Fuck. Does Kyle know?”
She nodded. “We called him first. He’s waiting outside of surgery.”
“Tell me the truth, Grateful. What’s the expected outcome here? Don’t sugarcoat it. What’s going to happen to my sister?”
Grateful’s entire body seemed to sag, and she slipped her hands into the pockets of her scrubs. “Honestly, if she were human she’d already be dead. But she’s not human. Her heart is still beating, and Gerty is asking permission of the fae council to bring fire lily juice here. I’m going to make a healing potion based on what I determine was on the blade. She’s not out of the woods, but she’s got some powerful people pulling for her.”
Silas choked back tears. “Thank you. Just do your best.”
Smoothing a loose strand of blond hair back into her ponytail, Grateful frowned. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you.”
“Go ahead and say it.” Silas scratched his jaw. “Nothing can make this situation worse.”
“They ran her blood work before surgery.”
“Yeah? And?”
Grateful ran a hand over the mound of her abdomen. “Laina’s pregnant.”
The steady beepof the machines in Laina’s room was almost hypnotic. Even though her surgery had gone as expected, for still unknown reasons, she hadn’t woken up. All the human doctors were calling it a coma. Grateful quietly declared it a curse.
“She’s going to be all right,” Silas said to Kyle. “Grateful will figure out the nature of what’s doing this to Laina, and she’ll undo it.”
“I called Jason,” Kyle said. “He and Selene are flying back from Italy. They’ll be here tomorrow.”
“Good. Laina needs all the support she can get right now.”
The men sat in silence, Silas on Laina’s right, Kyle on her left. She looked small in the bed, small and thin. He thought of the way she’d packed away the burger at Valentine’s and wondered if it was because of the baby. Goddess, he was going to kill Alex for this. For this and for everything else the bastard had done to their family.
“Did Grateful tell you?” Kyle asked eventually. “About what they found when they tested her blood?”
