“Please don’t leave me, Max. I love you.”
She babbled the words over and over, praying it was enough to help him live. He tried to respond, but no sound came out. His heart pounded faster and faster. He wasn’t going to last long.
Then Trey and Alex were at her side, yanking Max out of her arms and rolling him over to check his back.
“Two of them went through and through,” Alex said, his voice tight. “The one in his chest is still in there.”
Lana watched through her tears as they flipped him over onto his back and went to work, shoving forceps and probes into the wound, coming out with fragment after fragment of the poison-filled hollow point before flushing the wound with saline.
Max was already unconscious but still convulsing. His heart was starting to slow. He was dying.
Lana didn’t know why they were still bothering to clean the wound. The poison was already in him. Nothing they were doing was going to save him.
“Go help the others,” Alex said to Trey. “I’ve got this.”
Others had been hit? This nightmare couldn’t get any worse.
Trey took off at a run. Then suddenly, Dr. Saunders was at Max’s side, his face calm, his movements sure. For a moment, Lana tried to convince herself the doctor could help, that he could get Max cooled down and into a hypothermic coma before he died. Then she remembered that the research clinic had only this one small OR, and Zane was already using the only equipment capable of putting a werewolf under.
But as Saunders shoved a syringe needle into the top of a small vial of a familiar-looking yellow liquid, she realized he wasn’t thinking about putting Max into a medically induced coma. He was going for something more permanent—and risky.
“We don’t have much,” the doctor muttered as he drew back on the plunger of the syringe and began to fill the barrel. “But it will have to do.”
Lana stared in disbelief. “We haven’t tested the antidote. It could kill him.”
Dr. Saunders pulled the syringe out of the vial, then looked at her. “He’s dying already. This is the only chance we have to save him.”
Lana knew he was right but still dreaded giving Max a drug that could make the short time she had left with him even shorter. Dr. Saunders was right, though. This was the only way to save Max.
She blinked back fresh tears and held out her hand for the syringe. “Let me,” she whispered. “If someone has to give it to him, it should be me.”
Dr. Saunders hesitated, then handed her the needle. He guided her hand as she slipped the syringe in between Max’s ribs and straight into his heart. Then she slowly pushed the plunger—and prayed.
Nothing happened. Max’s heart rate continued to drop and his body continued to spasm.
“Should we give him more?” she asked.
Dr. Saunders shook his head even as he started filling four more syringes. “If it’s going to work, the amount I gave him will do it. If I give him more, I won’t have enough for Gage, Hale, and Diego—or Zane.”
Saunders gave two of the syringes to Alex, then both men were up and moving, heading to help the others.
“I’ll get Gage,” the doctor said. “You take Hale and Diego. If the antidote works, we’ll try it on Zane last.”
Alone in the room now, except for a comatose Zane, Lana leaned forward and rested her forehead against Max’s shoulder, still praying as she tried to come to grips with the fact that they might lose more pack members tonight.
She reached down and grabbed his hand, not having a clue whether he knew she was holding it but doing it anyway, just in case. Then she knelt there, waiting for the next beat of Max’s heart to be the last. As she listened to its unsteady thump, she replayed every second she’d spent with this amazing man over the past week. It was difficult to believe it had only been seven days since they’d met. Seven beautiful days she would always remember as the best of her life.
She found herself smiling as she remembered meeting him at the award ceremony and how he’d immediately attracted her attention with his witty charm and devastating smile. Everything from there had been a whirl of emotions and experiences she couldn’t imagine ever forgetting. There’d been the flirting over pizza, the trip to Austin, their first night of perfect lovemaking at his place, the afternoon spent with Terence and his sisters, that crazy night he’d told her she was a werewolf, and then the night she’d shown up at his place after getting away from the hunters and learning Max had been right all along and that she really was a werewolf.
Her smile broadened as she relived that moment she’d shown up at his door, flashing her claws and telling him he’d been right. They’d torn each other’s clothes off and made love up against the door. She actually laughed a little when she realized she hadn’t worried one bit about protection at that point—or at any point over the next couple hours they’d made love over and over. She absently wondered if a child would come out of that crazy night of passion. She hoped so, simply so she’d have something more of Max to remember.
Lana was still daydreaming about that possibility when she felt a hand lightly trailing up her back and into her hair. Her breath caught in her throat when the hand she was holding gripped her fingers tightly and the chest she’d collapsed against bore a heart beating strong and steady.
She jerked her head up and looked at Max, shocked to see his eyes open and clear of pain, a warm smile spreading across this face. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words would come. Her body was full of so many emotions right then, she couldn’t think clearly enough to talk.
“Hey there,” Max said, his expression turning serious. “I hope you’re not crying over me. I’d die if I thought for a second I’d done something to make you unhappy enough to cry.”
Lana was about to tell him that of course she’d been crying over him, but instead, she threw herself forward and buried her face in his neck, crying even harder now.
