Page 10

Stephen

Our sleek black car glided effortlessly along the freeway, the hum of the engine vibrating through the luxurious leather backseat where Lina and I sat. We were on our way to LaGuardia Airport, riding a wave of adrenaline from our early morning run-through for the pitch.

She’d delivered her part of the presentation with confidence, captivating me with her sharp insights into profit margins and cost analysis. “I can’t believe how quickly you found that solution,” I said, meeting her gaze.

“Thanks, but it’s just good analysis. We’re leveraging our strengths against competitors,” she replied, the faintest smile warming her lips. I marveled at how that small gesture radiated charm, igniting a warmth within me that seemed to grow every time we worked side by side.

“Unbelievable,” I murmured, struck by how she was downplaying her solution. By sharing our supplier for Lenidex with Haldon, the percentage difference in production costs alone should convince them to come back to us.

I knew at the pitch tomorrow she’d command the room in her crisp white button-down, open gray blazer, and gray cropped trousers paired with Louboutin heels. She looked every part the razor-sharp businesswoman she was, but I had the sudden urge to pull her into my lap, wanting to see her with tousled hair, her lips bruised. My yearning for a connection beyond the office flared.

In the back here, the sensory overload accompanying Lina’s presence was intoxicating. The sweet, wild scent of jasmine intertwined with the faint hint of greenery from the plants on her desk. I’d started to suspect she’d bought those plants as a barrier against my lingering gaze, which only made me want to enjoy the unimpeded view I had of her now.

You shouldn’t be having these thoughts.

Not about your co-worker.

Not about your future stepmother.

Not about the fated mate you were forced to give up.

As Lina angled her profile toward the window, I allowed myself a moment’s indulgence. Her golden blonde hair caught the morning light like spun silk, her gracefully upturned nose lending a girlish charm to her face, offset by her plush, full lips.

“We can show them the projected market expansion for the East Coast,” I said, trying to force my thoughts back to the upcoming pitch with our client in California tomorrow.

“Good idea. The projected growth rates will be attractive too,” Lina agreed, that same small smile on her lips. Warmth spread through me as I honed in on those luscious lips.

So attractive.

God, work wasn’t doing anything to distract me from her closeness.

I want this car to be bigger.

No, if I’m wishing for things, I want it to be smaller.

God, I don’t know what I want.

“The pitch could be stronger if we considered what our competitor might offer Haldon to retain them,” she said.

Lina was digging for information about the company that had poached Haldon. My father had warned me of our shadowy competitor last Friday and had explicitly instructed me not to share that tidbit with Lina.

“Our offer is strong enough to resecure them,” I said, deflecting her inquiry.

Her fierce gaze brushed over me, reflecting the same tenacity she brought into every boardroom, and I wished I could confide in her. But duty as Magnus’s right-hand man shackled my truth.

Just as she was about to speak, our driver abruptly shouted, “What the—” and in an instant, the screech of tires clawed at the air, metal crunched, and I was thrown forward. My seatbelt jerked me back, forcing the air from my lungs as the car careened violently to the right.

Time slowed, and blood thrummed in my ears. As my head smacked against the headrest, I sat dazed for a few seconds. Then, the realization pounded through me: we’d been struck by another vehicle.

“Lina?” I rasped, turning to check on her. My heart hammered in my ribcage. She was on the left side of the car, the one that had been hit. My gaze darted over her, scanning her for injuries.

She winced, hands clutching her head.

Urgency spilled through me as I gripped her shoulders. “Lina, are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” she replied.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, but my relief was cut short.

Outside, the sound of a door sliding open set off my protective instincts. I peered out her side to see the black van that had rammed us.

“Lock the doors, Chuck!” I shouted, but my stomach lurched as I saw that he was slumped forward with his head on his chest, unconscious and bleeding. The driver’s side, where the van had hit, was crumpled and mangled.

Adrenaline thumped through me. I needed to get Lina to safety. I unbuckled her seatbelt before tearing open my door and pulling her out my side—farthest from the threat.

Crouching down, I commanded, “Stay down.”

Instinct screamed for my wolf to surface, but I fought against it, acutely aware of the humans surrounding us. The sound of the collision had drawn nearby pedestrians and curious drivers to stop and stare.

I edged around to the front of our car. My heart pounded as I assessed the scene—three masked figures poured out of the van with guns in their hands.

I darted toward the front of the car, opened the passenger door, and kept low to find the gun in Chuck’s holster. It was customary for Blackthorn drivers to carry one, although I’d never had to use one before.

Carson, one of our packmates, had taught me to shoot a gun at a firing range when I was a teenager, though. I’d never been more grateful for that training than right now.

From behind the crumpled hood, the three figures strode toward us, their movements unnervingly coordinated, guns clenched tightly in their hands.

Their scent wafted through the air—a pungent blend like pine sap. Shock crashed over me: they were shifters. Why were other shifters targeting us? We shifters were more likely to have showdowns in the boardroom or in the privacy of our own gated communities so that we could fight things out in wolf form. Were these the rogue wolves who had kidnapped Lina?

As one of the assailants leveled his weapon toward us, protectiveness surged through me. “Keep low,” I ordered Lina, angling my body in front of hers just as the crack of volleys resounded, slicing through the metal of the car and setting off the smell of burnt propellant, sharp and acrid.

With a pounding heart, I waited for a moment of silence before darting up to fire back at them. One of the gunmen shouted, falling to the ground. Adrenaline raced through my veins as another of the gunmen stopped firing, pulling back the injured one toward the van.

I ducked lower as the remaining gunman fired at us again. The sound of glass shattered above me, and I covered my head, but pain cascaded over my scalp and face as the car window exploded above us, raining down slivers of glass. The warm trickle of blood on my face and neck told me I was bleeding from multiple places. I turned back to check on Lina, only for my heart to still.

In horror, I watched her fall onto the ground, curling in on herself as she clutched her shoulder. Shock reverberated through me as her light grey blazer and the white shirt became tinged with crimson. That wasn’t glass embedded there. She’d been shot.

Urgency, like never before, spiralled through me, and I wanted to shift so as to take care of our attackers once and for all. But just off the freeway, on the streets of Queens, with the sound of screams and yells from other drivers who had stopped farther back witnessing this shootout, I couldn’t risk it. The need of my wolf mingled with my own; we needed to protect our mate.

I pressed Lina’s hands to her wound, telling her, “Keep the pressure on. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Keeping low, I waited for the gunman to stop firing. Then I dashed up, focusing my aim with razor-sharp precision. I fired. I heard his shout as my bullet hit him in the shoulder. With adrenaline coursing through my veins, I slid over the crumpled hood of the car, dashing toward him where he’d fallen on the road. I knocked him out before kicking the gun out of his hand and away from him.

The uninjured gunman was sheltering behind the door of the van, and I pointed my gun at him as I backed away. I wanted to fire at him, to take him out, too, but I needed to get Lina out of here.

Finally, I was back with her. She was pale. Her hands were still pressed against her shoulder, and her skin looked clammy. Although we shifters were affected by blood loss, we weren’t usually so quickly affected. The sheen on her face had me stooping down and examining her, placing my hand against her forehead. She was burning up.

Fuck.

I didn’t know what this was. Had the bullet hit a major artery? The thought of her hemorrhaging internally had my heart beating in a frenzy.

Horror pounded through me. I gathered her up into my arms, laying her in the back seat. My voice was low as I said, “You’re going to be all right, Lina.”

I closed the back door. Then, unbuckling Chuck’s seatbelt, I gently hefted him over into the passenger seat, fastening him in, before running to the other side of the car, still pointing my gun at the gunman who hadn’t ventured out of the van again. I climbed into the driver’s seat.

Silently, I prayed that the car would start. Otherwise, I was going for the gunman again—for his van. As I turned the key, the engine roared to life. In a moment, I revved the engine and careened down the road, urgency pounding through me. I needed to get Lina to a hospital with a shifter unit.

We were in Queens, and the nearest hospital with one was in Elmhurst. The fifteen-minute drive was one of the longest of my life. I couldn’t see Lina’s face from here in the front and had to content myself with forcing words out of my mouth, “Keep the pressure on. We’re not far now. We’re almost there, Lina.” But then, as I glanced in the rear-view mirror, I saw that her arm had fallen away from her shoulder, dangling in the footwell. Panic thumped through me.

I glanced at Chuck, whose chin was slumped on his chest, still out cold. The iron tang of his wound filled the air. I swallowed hard, fighting the growing sense of urgency threatening to steal my concentration from the road, forcing myself to concentrate.

I screeched to a halt outside the hospital, bursting from the car before I even shut off the engine. I bundled Lina into my arms, her frame suddenly feeling so fragile as I lurched toward the shifter ward. There was a medic out front, looking toward us, and I yelled, “We’ve been in a crash. Can you help the man over there?”

The medic ran toward Chuck, and I hurried into the shifter entrance of the hospital, the air laden with antiseptic and a faint hint of herbs.

A sharp-eyed nurse met me, her movements brisk and efficient. “We need to get her on the table, now!” she directed, guiding me through the sterile corridor illuminated by fluorescent lights that buzzed in the silence.

“Lay her down here,” a shifter doctor said as I approached the surgical room, urgency saturating her tone.

“She was shot! She’s burning up!” I blurted out, breathless with urgency.

“Sounds like wolfsbane bullets,” the nurse interjected, her eyes flickering back to me before her focus returned to Lina. Her words blasted through me like ice—Wolfsbane was a manufactured poison that could be lethal to us shifters.

In a moment, the doctor ordered, “I need the room clear.”

“Please! Let me stay with her!” I protested, but the nurse’s firm hand on my shoulder steered me away. Sometimes, the shifter doctors and medical staff in these infirmaries were more like the healers of old, letting loved ones stay with patients, but more often than not, they were like human doctors, and I was ushered out of the room while the doctor removed the bullet.

As I looked back, the doctor was already working with quick, methodical precision, cutting away her blazer and shirt, revealing her soft skin marred by blood and the wound that still oozed crimson. A leaden weight settled in my chest.

My lungs seemed to burn as the nurse closed the door. Time felt suspended, and the sting of antiseptic mingled with the one at the back of my throat as I waited and waited.

After what felt like hours, the nurse returned, her face a mask of professionalism softened by a hint of empathy. “The antidote’s working.”

A wave of relief crashed over me, making my heart feel too big for my chest. “Thank you!” Before I knew what I was doing, I’d seized the nurse’s hands, squeezing them as gratitude colored my voice again. “Thank you.”

She nodded, her expression compassionate. I had no further words as the torrent of what could have been swirled in my mind as I let go of the nurse’s hands.

After the doctor had left, I sat by Lina’s bedside, her soft breaths mingling with the beeping of machines. I felt immense gratitude rush through my veins as the sound of her breaths and the sight of her chest rising and falling ever so slightly centered me in a way I’d never known before. The overwhelming realization of how much Lina meant to me confronted me. My chest felt too full, and I knew that Lina had nestled even more fully into my life—and heart—than I’d been willing to admit until now…Until I’d almost lost her.

Just the thought had me laying my hand on her arm again, needing the feel of her soft skin and her warmth to soothe my edgy wolf.

The nurse had stayed behind and was cleaning and dressing the wounds on my face and neck where the glass had cut me. The distinct antiseptic smell filled my lungs, and despite the sting and burn of some of the deeper wounds, I felt only immense gratitude.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor behind me, and I stood up. Something about the heavy tread told me it wasn’t the doctor’s gentler footfalls. My hand fell from Lina’s arm.

The door opened, and Magnus stepped inside. His expression was tight, clearly annoyed. “I received a call from the hospital, Stephen, telling me Chuck and Lina had been admitted to the hospital.” His voice was sharp.

I realized in my absent-mindedness, as my thoughts had been too full of worry about Lina, I’d forgotten to phone him.

My father’s clipped tone turned to the nurse. “Leave us,” he commanded.

Unwisely, the nurse said, “I still need to treat some of these—”

Magnus interrupted, “My son will be fine. Leave us,” he ordered, his tone becoming a growl.

“It’s fine. Thanks,” I said to the nurse, although I knew some of my wounds still had glass in them, their prickling feeling telling me they did still need tending to. She left the metal dish, tweezers, and antiseptic wipes she’d been using. At least I could tend to them myself.

As soon as the nurse had exited, Magnus launched into his lecture. “Your attackers were members of the shadow company. The van was traced back to a leased deal through a company name we’ve linked to them previously,” he informed me.

Shock spilled through me. So far, I’d only ever felt secretly pleased with the shadow company that had picked away at Blackthorn Corporation and sabotaged my father’s dealings. I’d always felt like I had a secret ally working away at ruining him, too, as if our goals aligned. But now, with what the shadow company had done to Lina, now that they’d almost taken her from me, hatred for that organization burned through me.

“Really, Stephen, I expected better performance from you,” Magnus continued.

His words felt like a slap. All the warmth of gratitude shattered, replaced with frustration and anger. All I wanted was to hold Lina’s hand again and bask in the relief of knowing she was safe, but I couldn’t in front of Magnus. The walls closed in on me, igniting rage within.

I clenched my jaw, battling the tension while Magnus continued to dissect my failure. The weight of my emotions was in danger of bubbling up, but as usual, I had to bury them. But never had my mask of dutiful son been as hard to maintain as it was now. My hatred burned toward him for intruding on my relief and on my moment with Lina. Lina needed her rest and didn’t need my father’s abrasive words to disturb her.

I suggested, “Let’s go next door into the waiting room outside so that your intended can rest.”

Your intended.

Those words seemed to burn like wolfsbane through me as I tried not to let how much she meant to me show once again. I took the metal dish, tweezers, and antiseptic wipes out with me, feeling as if I’d rather suffer a thousand lacerations with these slivers of glass burrowing in than face the wrath that I knew was coming.