Chapter 17
Security! Security to 5L immediately!”
Hank tensed but he didn’t move. It was the third security call today, this time to a hybrid four rooms down. Didn’t these people have noses? Couldn’t they tell the hybrid was about to pop? There was always an extra pulse of stench before the monster went TA—terminally aggressive. That’s what Hank called it. That moment when the thinking mind ended and the adrenaline kicked so high that the animal creature inside everyone went wild. At that point, rabid dogs were more sane than the poor people who finally succumbed to the poison.
Hank peered out Brittany’s hospital room window to the commotion in the hallway. The curtain was still drawn for privacy. Even though it had been five hours since Abby had drunk the poisoned water—with no obvious effect—they didn’t want someone watching if she did pop. But he and Cecilia had stayed in the room because her change was coming. It was just a matter of time and possibly more water.
As he looked out from behind the curtain, he could see two security officers run down the hall, guns out. Then there was a crash inside the hospital room and a man screamed in terror. He knew about the patient in there. A guy in his twenties just starting to make his way as a chef when someone decided to poison Detroit. Hank hadn’t seen him, but Cecilia had showed him the chart. The guy had shown up in the ER with a wolf’s snout after biting the arm of his sous chef. The cops had managed to restrain him and bring him here in handcuffs. That was two days ago, and the guy’s brain scans revealed steady deterioration.
Beside him, Cecilia straightened up from her seat in the corner. When it was clear that Abby wasn’t going to shift immediately, Cecilia had brought her work into the hospital room. She’d been nose deep in her tablet, but now headed toward Brittany’s door as if she could help the hybrid down the hall.
He grabbed her arm and shook his head. No way could she do anything at this point, and the resignation on her face said she knew it. The bitter condemnation in her exhausted gaze also told him she was furious—not at the bastards who had created the poison—but at herself for not curing the disease.
“Maybe if we tried—” she began, but her voice abruptly cut off when three gunshots rang out in rapid succession.
Gunshots on a hospital ward. The thought made him want to vomit.
Behind him, he heard Brittany “Eep!” in surprise. He turned around, ready to grab her if she went hybrid in her fear. Fortunately, her father was there, gently stroking her face.
“It’s nothing honey. Probably something on the TV.”
It wasn’t, and everybody here knew it. But since there was nothing she could do, Brittany nodded at her father and picked up her phone with shaking hands. Hank never thought it would be a good thing for a teenager to spend more time buried in her phone, but at the moment, he’d take it. Anything that kept the kid calm.
Meanwhile, Cecilia was as tight as a bowstring, her face and her body aimed toward the hallway.
“I should…” Her voice trailed away, and he arched a brow at her. What could she do now? The young chef was dead. His story was over, and there were a dozen medical personnel handling the aftermath. Cecilia’s gaze took on an angry, determined look. “I should solve this fucking problem,” she said under her voice. Then she softened as she focused on him. “I can’t thank you enough for being here. You’re the only one keeping us calm, and you haven’t wavered an iota.”
He felt his insides still at her words, and his breath caught as the meaning sank in. She saw him. She knew that he was doing everything he could to keep the situation from spiraling out of control. Abby was about to do her first change, and that was never a safe thing. Her daughter was a new hybrid, and her husband didn’t know about any of this. He couldn’t imagine a more volatile situation. Hell, he’d spent the last five hours prepared to leap into action at the first hint of a problem. Most people didn’t notice how alert he was. He was so quiet, sometimes people forgot he was even in the room. But Cecilia saw him. Cecilia knew his strength, and he couldn’t be more pleased.
“I’m here,” he said, the words pushed through his tight throat. “Whatever you need.”
“I know. And I’m grateful,” she said as she gave him squeeze. Then she put on her game face and went back to what she did best. She returned to her tablet and the pages of data there. Her brain was working a million miles a minute to solve this medical disaster, and she was absolutely determined to do it or die trying. In the face of an overwhelming problem, she had found her battleground in science and taken her stand.
He admired the hell out of that. Especially since he’d long ago given up fighting and just accepted the world’s ills. Which gave him peace but no satisfaction. While she had no peace and, at the moment, no satisfaction.
But she still took the time to see his value.
And so he fell. He gave up resisting and fell totally and completely in love. It might be the magic, it might just be hormones, but suddenly he didn’t care. He loved her for who she was, and inside he felt the bond to her strengthen from “compelling interest” to steel chains ofI will always be hers.
He tried not to hate that part. This bond didn’t say anything about her belonging to him, only that he was locked in to her. That no matter where he was or what he did, all she’d need to do was crook her finger, and he would be there for her. To protect, to love, to do whatever she wanted.
He was forever destined to love her. Zen detachment was gone. If she hurt, he would hurt. If she was frightened, he would destroy what scared her. If she was happy, then he would throw confetti and cheer as if she stood on the gold medal platform at the Olympics.
He was hers. Forever. Whether she wanted him or not.
His knees went weak as he started to see the ramifications of what had just happened. He understood now why there were stories of bonded shifters who went crazy. His body, mind, and soul abruptly depended on her. He could not have peace unless she was at peace. He would not experience joy unless she was happy. He could not exist except in a space where she too lived and thrived.
His breath shortened as he adjusted to the chains. His mind, however, still reeled. What if she didn’t return his affection? What if she saw him as a big, dumb black guy and ditched him tomorrow? What if she was kind now, but then left when the crisis was over? When the Detroit Flu ended and she was sent off to somewhere else to fight a different outbreak? What then?
He didn’t have many friends and no family nearby, but he still had a life here. If she left, he would go with her. No question. He’d abandon his home, the people in the building he cared for, and he’d walk away from the Griz—his shifter clan—without even looking back. He had to be near her. He had to be able to give her anything she wanted, whenever she wanted. And he would be grateful for her attention. A slave to her for the rest of his life.
His hands shook, and he had to grip the doorknob for support. He was a man, damn it, not a lapdog. A powerful man with a strong mind who had always forged his own way. He’d gone through his shifter adolescence with a measure of control that his brother hadn’t found. He’d gone to war and seen such destruction there, but had found Zen peace in the midst of atrocity. And even back here in Detroit when Nanook had compelled him with a special mind-fuck ability to go on drug runs, he had found his own thin road through. He never killed anyone, only stood there as an apparent threat. And if Simon hadn’t defeated Nanook, then Hank would have made his own run at alpha. In truth, he’d been prepared to attack on the very day that Simon showed up.
He was slave to no one!
And yet, he was to her. And that thought brought him to his knees.
“Hank?”
