He clicked off the penlight and straightened. “My name is Doctor Carter. I’m the doctor for the Lorenzo wolf pack. You’re in my clinic.”
I coughed and my vision went blurry for a second. I was worried I would pass out, but I got myself under control. “So, you guys are the ones who attacked me?”
He frowned in surprise. “What? No, no, no. You misunderstand. You were attacked by a group of unknown shifters, yes, but that wasn’t the Lorenzo pack. The Lorenzo alpha and his friends interrupted the attack and chased off the perpetrators. They probably saved your life.”
With each moment that went by, my head cleared a little more and I was able to think. One thing he said made no sense. “If I was that bad off, why didn’t you take me to a real hospital?”
Doctor Carter shrugged. “I had all the equipment here to fix you up. Some stitches and a pint of blood? Another IV for fluid and a heavy dose of pain meds? All here. Now, as for why they chose to call me first and not 911? That’s something you’ll have to ask Nico.”
“Who’s Nico?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mention his name before. Nicolas Lorenzo, the alpha of the Lorenzo pack. He’s the one who helped rescue you.”
I struggled to slide my arms underneath me, trying to lift myself off the bed. I needed to get out of here. Abi was probably worried sick about me. Had they locked up the bar? Jesus, all the money in the register could be sitting there for anyone. I sat up, and the whole room seemed to tilt sideways. Overcome with nausea, I lay back down, gingerly resting my head back on the pillows.
“Easy there,” Carter said. “You aren’t going anywhere. The stab wounds on your sides were fairly deep. Nothing major, but it took a few stitches to fix. You’ve got a pretty good concussion, too. You’ll be out of commission for a couple of days at least. I need to keep an eye on you until I’m sure everything is okay up there,” he said, nodding toward my head.
“But my business?—”
“Nico has quite a bit of pull around here. I’m sure if he took the time to bring you to me, he’d have someone make sure the bar they found you in is fine. Don’t worry about that.”
I sighed, exhaustion rolling across my body. I was in no condition to go anywhere, but it was hard to admit. I looked at the doctor and slowly shook my head. “Why did those guys attack me? I never did anything to them.”
The penlight disappeared into his chest pocket. “That, I’m afraid, is the million-dollar question we’ve all been asking.” He paused. “How do you feel? Pain-wise?”
I was honest. “Pretty bad. My sides hurt.”
“Okay. I’ll have my nurse get you another Vicodin, but a smaller dose than last time. I don’t want you getting dependent.”
I nodded, and he left the room. I didn’t feel like I was in danger. There was no way to know for sure if he was telling the truth, but it felt like he was being honest.
A nurse came in a few minutes later with a small plastic cup. I took the small pill from the cup. As soon as I swallowed, I realized that it might not have been the smartest idea, but it was too late. Plus, the pain in my sides was getting worse by the second. The nurse left without a word, and I lay there. Ten minutes later, the drug kicked in. It was like someone was pouring warm honey all over my body. My eyes fluttered shut, and I drifted into sleep.
“Your bloodline should have been completely wiped out,”the shifter said. His eyes were a glowing, bloody red, his teeth like steak knives ripping out of his gums in crimson spikes.
“I don’t know what you mean!” I screamed.
“You’ll be dead soon enough.” His face had completely changed, a full wolf’s head, but a wolf from the bowels of hell.
The others had shifted, too. The howls were loud enough to crack the walls. Crevices formed in the ceiling and floor, blooderupted from each fissure. It spurted up until it was inches deep on the floor.
The wolves were on me. Their paws tearing my clothes, shredding my skin. Me, screaming as their jaws clamped onto my body. The flesh ripping from my breasts, my cheeks, my stomach. The leader tearing at my insides while I screamed. Raising his maw to the sky, blood flying from his teeth, and howling?—
I screamed and sat up, waking from the nightmare. The quick movement sent a fresh barb of pain into my brain. I clasped my hands to my head and lay back on the bed. I shivered and realized I was covered in a cold sweat.
The nurse came in a moment later, her eyes worried. “Are you all right, miss?”
I nodded. “I—sorry, it was a nightmare.”
She shook her head. “No apologies needed. Here, I brought you dinner.”
Dinner? I glanced outside and saw the window had a faint purple glow. The sun was almost down. There’d been bright Florida sunlight blasting through the glass before I fell asleep. It hadn’t felt like that long of a dream, but I’d been out for hours. My stomach grumbled, though. I was starving. I sat back up, slowly and carefully this time.
She set the tray on a rolling table that she positioned over my bed. It didn’t look like standard hospital food—a still-hot burger and fries with a pudding cup and container of diced fruit. There was a bottle of water beside it.
“I’m going to change some of your gauze while you eat, if that’s okay?” the nurse asked, twisting off the water bottle cap for me.
“That’s fine,” I said, my words muffled by the burger I’d already started to stuff into my mouth.
