Page 33 of Legally Mated
“Right,” the officer said. “You can go. Someone will be by to find you and take your statement. You might want to get cleaned up beforehand, though, you’re a bit of a mess. You sure you don’t want me to have someonedriveyou?”
“No, no, I have someone.” Laine pulled out his phone and dialed the pack house. He only fumbled the number twice, his fingers twitching and shaking. Why couldn’t he stop shaking? He walked away to have this conversation in relativeprivacy.
“Hello?” It was Duke. None of the other shifters at the pack house had that deep, reverberantvoice.
“It’s Laine. There’s been an accident.” He winced—this had been about as far from being an accident as was possible. “Garrick’s being taken tohospital.”
“Whathappened?”
Laine swallowed, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t go down. “Someone—I had this case, I lost, his brother got it in his head that I’d done it on purpose. He had a gun, or got one, I don’t know. He was yelling…” Shut up, Montague. That’s got nothing to do with this. “He came looking for me, but he got Garrick instead. He was…bleeding.” Cold, plain words that came nowhere near describing the absolute heroism it had taken for Garrick to do whathedid.
A sudden banging noise filled the air behind Duke’s voice, like someone smashing their fist into a wall, or trying to get someone’s attention. “They won’t have blood there for him.” Then he could hear Duke talking to Bram and Bram’s voice rising in concern. “I’ll call the pack,” Duke said. “Thankyou.”
“Duke, wait!” Laine took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m at the circuit court, the cops don’t want me to drive. Can you…pick me up?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were the wrong ones. His relationship with the pack was unpredictable. Jason liked him, the other omegas were reserved with him. He was pretty sure at the moment that Holland hated him or would soon, and he had no idea what Quin thought. This had probably beentoomuch.
“You don’t think you’ve done enough?” Duke snapped, confirming hisfears.
Bram said something in the background, sharp and demanding. Duke snarled, a genuine wolfish-sounding threat, then, “Fine. Wait there, we’ll be by in a few minutes. Bram’s on the phone to Holland right now, he’ll get donors sorted out and meet us at the hospital.” Then the line went dead and Laine was left standing there, watching the police interview the passers-by and feelinguseless.
Chapter26
It felt like hours,but by Laine’s phone it was only fifteen minutes before the van pulled up at the curb and Bram leaned out the window. “Get in,” he said and Laine, usually the one in charge, jumped to obey. He didn’t even have time to get his seatbelt on before the van was moving again and Bram was shoving a cell phone at him as soon as he was buckled in. “It’sQuin.”
Great. Just what he needed. He took the phone and put it to his ear. “Alpha?” The word fell easily from his mouth, though he wasn’t pack. He sometimes wished he was, if only for the blessing he and Garrickwouldget.
“Whathappened?”
It was easier telling it the second time. “Brother of one of my clients wasn’t happy with the judgment and came after me. Garrick pushed me down, but the bullet hit him. He’s at the hospital, we’re on our way there now.” That seemed succinct enough, while still getting all the major pointsacross.
The line was quiet a moment, until Laine almost couldn’t take it anymore, then Quin said, “Holland will come down with some donors to make sure they have enough blood. I doubt, if he’s bleeding a lot, that they’ll have enough on hand and Adelaide tells me saline isn’t goodenough.”
“No, I don’t imagine.” Laine glanced out the window—they were pulling into the parking lot now. “You know I’d rather it had been me, right? I never dreamed anything like this would happen because of…” His voice trailed off, at a loss for words, which was stupid because he always had somethingtosay.
“It was always a risk. Just one you never understood.” Quin’s voice was firm, giving Laine nothing to grasp, no hook of meaning to latch onto. “I can’t tell you to go home and let us deal with it, but Duke will keep me informed until Holland gets there. Holland will be his medical proxy.” And the linewentdead.
Well, now he knew what Quin thought of him. He handed the phone back to Bram with a quiet, “Thank you,” and got out of the van with the twoshifters.
Ironically, it was him everyone spoke to once they were in the hospital. “Garrick Mercy Hills,” Laine explained, over and over, until finally they were following a corridor down to a quiet room, filled with other families waiting for news of theirlovedones.
Bram went over to the desk and had a low-voiced conversation with the woman sitting behind it. She gave him a sharp look then picked up her phone and spoke into it for a few minutes. Laine watched helplessly as Bram followed her through a door intoanotherroom.
“Where’s he going?” heaskedDuke.
“To give blood. We can’t use human blood.” Duke didn’t appear happyaboutit.
Laine opened his mouth to ask why Duke wasn’t donating, when he realized that shifters likely had different blood types too, and the Grand Canyon-esque size of his ignorance hit him like a wall. He sat back and shut up and promised himself that he wouldn’t take any of this for granted anymore, that he would take the time learn the things about the pack that he didn’t know, even if he had to be an ass and force the issue. But not right now, not with Duke sitting there like a volcano ready to erupt at any moment. Better to pick someone who couldn’t break Laine without even straining, justincase.
Bram came back nearly an hour later looking wan and tired, and curled up next to Duke with his head on his mate’s lap. Duke shrugged off his jacket and laid it over the young shifter. “You okay?” herumbled.
“Yeah. Just, they took a lot. I’m not allowed to give any more. Hope Holland gets here soon. They said to drink lots of juice and eat red meat.” Bram sighed and stared off intospace.
“I’ll make sure you get plenty of both.” Duke stroked Bram’s hair with hands that were surprisingly gentle given his size. His determined avoidance of me felt likeawall.
The police came, thankfully, at that very moment and Laine let himself be ushered away to answer questions. By the time he got back, Holland was walking through the door, looking every inch the fashion model he was despite the baby hanging in a sling in front of him, and trailing a half-dozen other shifters who looked ready to jump out of their skins. Bram sat up immediately and went to him, and Laine found himself irrationally jealous of the two shifters’ comfort level with each other. Maybe if he’d spent more time in the enclave, instead of constantly coaxing Garrick outofit…
Holland leaned over the desk to speak to the nurse, who immediately stood up and ushered the nervous shifters through the same door Bram had gone through earlier. Holland stayed behind and frowned at Bram, who didn’t appear the least bit disturbed by it, though he still looked paler than he should have. Laine couldn’t make out what they said to each other, but then Bram came back to gatherupDuke.
“We’re going home.” He looked over at Laine. “Do you need a drive or are youstaying?”
