Page 34 of Mortal Blood
“Cole,” I growled.
He blew out a sigh and uttered one word that made my heart clench in terror. “Kallan.”
I wrenched my arm free from his grip and barreled through the doors into the small medical center, then stopped dead. The small reception room couldn’t have looked further from the orderly, calm space I’d seen every other time I’d visited here. A dozen shifters were scattered around the room, some on chairs, some slouched on the floor, all of them with blood dripping from slowly healing wounds. In one corner, the smashed remains of furniture and fabric had been tossed into a pile.
“Fletcher,” Cole said, stepping around me and making for someone squatting in front of one of the injured shifters. I hurried behind him as the pack’s doctor rose to his feet andturned around, blood marring his aging face where a jagged wound was slowly healing. I swallowed a gasp; half his face was black and blue, and I could see the bruising went below the neckline of his shirt.
“Alpha Heir Cole,” he greeted him formally, dipping his chin in respect.
“Where’s my mom?” I asked, cutting over their formalities. I didn’t have time for pack politics. Because if the doctor looked like that…
“In her room,” Fletcher said, and for a moment I thought my legs would give way beneath me, and then Cole’s arm was wrapped around me.
“She’s okay?” I said, my hoarse voice barely a whisper.
“She’s…unharmed.”
“What does that mean? What happened?”
I swept my eyes round the room, picturing shifters—Kallan’s pack—tearing the place apart, smashing furniture, attacking anyone who stood in their way as they searched for—
“She’s shaken, but we were able to push them back before they could get close enough to hurt her.”
“Thank you,” Cole said, clapping one hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “Take care of your patients, and please, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
The doctor nodded, and I buried my guilt that he’d been hurt defending my mom—there were no other patients here, at least, not normally—and pushed my way through a side door, then hurried up the flight of stairs behind it. I’d know the way blindfolded, I’d spent so much time here over the summer. Andblindfolded, I wouldn’t have seen the smear of blood on the walls, or the six-inch gouge in the woodwork.
She’s fine,I reminded myself.They didn’t hurt her.
At least, not physically.
But her recovery, her hard-fought battle to cling to whatever was left of her sanity… I ground my teeth together. I was going tokillKallan.
“She needs you,” Cole murmured in my ear. “Everything else comes later.”
I drew in a steadying breath and nodded.
“But later?”
His eyes burned with the promise of violence and retribution. “Whatever you need is yours, princess.”
I touched my lips to his, tasting his vow, and my palm rested on his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heartbeat.
“Go,” he whispered against my lips. “I’ll guard the door.”
I nodded once, shakily, and pulled away. With a hesitant hand I knocked once on the door, and then a second time.
“Mom?”
“Go away go away go away.” The voice was barely a whisper, too low for a human to hear…but apparently I wasn’t one of those. Never had been. But that didn’t change anything, not for either of us. I pushed the door open.
My mom was curled up in one corner of the room, arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked back and forth slowly. She twisted round at the sound of my arrival, but I wasn’t sure she could see me.
“The darkness is here, the darkness is here, the darkness is—”
I crossed the room quickly. “Not the darkness, it’s just me. It’s Cali, it’s me.”
Her eyes fixed on me and she blinked sharply. “Callista.”
