Page 3 of Shifter and the Succubus (The Pack #1)

Jason opened his eyes slowly, but the light still blinded him. Damn. Where was he? He looked around the white room. And then down at the bed. One of his arms had an IV, and the other was wrapped in a blood pressure cuff.

Hospital.

And then it came back to him. He’d been shot. Before he blacked out, he’d wondered if he was going to make it or bleed to death before the team got him the help he needed.

He took a deep breath and looked for the call button. Before he could push it, the door opened and Sabrina walked inside. Her eyes flared when she saw he was awake, but just as quickly her doctor mask dropped into place. So she actually did have some emotions left under that cool exterior.

“You’re awake.”

He tried to sit up and regretted the movement immediately.

She frowned, walked over to him, and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t move around. You’re still healing.”

Even with a frown on her face, she was breathtaking. She’d tied back her long blond hair, emphasizing her amazing face and Mediterranean-blue eyes. Kyle always called her a supernatural Swedish model, but she was more than her looks—to him, at least. But he wouldn’t be sharing that with her.

“How long have I been out?”

She studied the monitors for a moment before responding. “Twenty-four hours.”

Okay, that was a bit of a surprise. “It could have been worse. To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to make it.”

Her eyes narrowed at him as if he’d cursed at her. “That wasn’t an option.”

He couldn’t stop from smiling. “Should have known you would face off with death and win.”

She looked at him for a moment before blinking and glancing over at the monitors again. She was building the walls around herself. Shoring up the cracks that had appeared for just a moment, showing her emotion.

“It wasn’t just me. Luckily the team got you to the compound in time and Dr. Jones was able to repair the damage. And we had blood to give you from some donors.”

“Who?”

“Kyle called Griffin, and both he and Bea donated blood.”

The shifter leader and his sister gave him blood.

He didn’t know what to think about that.

After Jason had found out he had shifter blood running through his veins, he’d made a point to stay away from Griffin and his pack.

A dick move on his part, but when the rug is pulled out from under your feet and you’re slammed to the ground, letting others in wasn’t easy.

Look what happened when he tried to tell Sabrina what he felt for her. Talk about face-planting.

Now was not the time to dredge that history back up again. She’d rejected him. At a certain level, he understood why. She was a Succubus demon. Rare, beautiful, powerful. And he was a human, or more of a mutt with God only knows what shifter DNA running through his veins.

Not that it did him any good. He had no powers, and he felt like half a person sometimes. A man whose human parents raised him without telling him the truth.

“Jason?”

He looked up at her. “Sorry. What did you say?”

“I asked how you felt.”

“Like crap.”

He got the ghost of a smile out of her. “Can you be more specific? Does anything besides your stomach hurt?”

He concentrated for a moment. He was sore, but not like he’d expected.

She shined a light in his eyes and then listened to his heart before asking him to take some breaths. Then she held her hands over his stomach and closed her eyes. He’d seen her do this before. She sensed energy and somehow that helped her as a doctor.

“I’m going to take a look at your wound.”

He nodded and she pushed the blanket away from his side and peeled back the tape gingerly. Jason watched her expression as she looked at his stomach. Her eyes flared again.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You’re healing.”

“That’s a good sign, right?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” he pushed.

She took her time answering. “It’s healing faster than I would expect.”

“For a human, you mean?” His heart rate picked up, and she watched the monitor instead of answering him. “Answer my question!”

She looked at him for a drawn-out moment. “Yes. The wound is healing like a shifter would heal.”

How was this possible? “Why now? I’ve been shot before. Hell, this is the third time in the last few years I’ve almost died.” Come to think of it, he really needed to find a new job. “What makes this time different?”

She looked up and to the right for a moment, which she did when she was thinking. And he cursed himself for knowing that detail about her.

“It could be that you’ve been living around supernaturals long enough now that it somehow activated your recessed shifter DNA. Or maybe the blood helped activate something.”

“Blood?”

She reached for his chart on the side table before looking at him in concern. “You lost a lot of blood. We had to give you multiple transfusions. And I had to call in Griffin and Bea, remember?”

Jason leaned back. Damn . She had just said that to him. He wasn’t thinking clearly.

“You’re not going to say something silly right now about not wanting shifter blood, are you? Because it’s too late and I’d do it all over again to save you.”

There was that fire he loved about her. But she didn’t want to hear that from him. He’d already been shot down by her before. Wasn’t ready to be again, especially since he sported a bullet hole in his belly now.

“Of course I’m not going to say anything about the shifter blood. It doesn’t bother me that I have shifter in me.”

Her eyebrows rose at his words.

“ Now . It doesn’t bother me now. It did at first, but can you blame me? I didn’t know that supernaturals existed until I was attacked. Then rogue vamps almost killed me, and then I got shot by an egomaniacal shifter. How do you think I felt when I found out I was part shifter?”

She set the chart back down. “I understand.”

Did she, really? She had always known what she was.

Understood her place in the wild-ass cosmic world they lived in.

He was a Wisconsin farm boy who’d turned soldier.

A farm boy whose parents had never told him that he was adopted.

Did they know that he wasn’t fully human?

Now was not the time to get bogged down in family drama.

“So you think maybe their blood jump-started something in me?” His heart sped up before he finished the question, and of course Sabrina checked the monitor again.

“Possibly. We’ll just have to wait and see,” she answered without concern. Maybe the monitors were fine and it only felt like his heart tried to beat out of his chest.

“Do you think I might have an animal inside me too?” He finally voiced the elephant-in-the-room question. Elephants. Well, didn’t that just make him wonder if there were such a thing as elephant shifters.

She finally met his eyes and hesitated. Sabrina rarely hesitated. “Did you ever speak to Lela?”

He blinked at the question since it seemed to come out of left field until his sluggish brain finally caught up.

Lela was married to Misha’s youngest brother, Sergei, and she was a high-powered realm demon who now lived on earth.

She was able to actually see energy in people.

She sometimes helped Sabrina diagnose illnesses, and supposedly with shifters, the energy she saw in them actually took the shape of the shifter’s animal side.

When Sabrina had told him about it, that he should speak to Lela, he had made up an excuse and locked it away.

He hadn’t known what would be worse, her telling him she didn’t see an animal, or telling him she did and he could never shift into it.

“No. I didn’t see the point. I didn’t think I would ever have any shifter powers.” Until now.

“And we don't know if you will have any other powers manifest.”

Jason blew out a breath.

“We don’t need to talk about this now.” Sabrina’s eyes softened. “I’m going to put a new dressing on your stomach, and you’re going to rest.”

“I just woke up.”

Her mouth quirked. “Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take another nap. You were shot.”

He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “Trust me, I remember.”

She shook her head. “You are such a smart-ass. I think you should stop hanging around with Kyle so much.”

He rested his head back against the pillow. “Kyle’s got nothing to do with this. I was born with this personality. It’s been honed from years in the military and finding out the world is not exactly as it seems.”

“Don’t we all know that.” She reached for the light next to his bed and dimmed it. “Let’s see if you have some more nap time in you. Do you need some pain medication?”

He wiggled around for a moment to see how his stomach felt—not too bad—and then shook his head. “No. I’m okay right now.”

“Okay. I’ll be back to check on you later.”

She walked toward the door, and he couldn’t let her go without saying something.

“It’s good to see you, Sabrina.”

She turned around and narrowed those gorgeous eyes at him. “You don’t have to get gut shot to see me, you know.”

“I know. Thank you for saving me.”

“You’re too stubborn to die, Jason Watson.”

“And you’re too stubborn to let me, Sabrina Miller.”

Sabrina stepped out of the room and let out the breath she’d been holding. It was so good to see him awake. To see those navy-blue eyes of his dancing when he gave her grief. And his hair was always a little shaggy as if it was a show of rebellion after his years in the Army.

What was it about that male that made her so off-kilter?

She was a Succubus demon, for Fates’ sake.

A damn old one at that. Interacting with men and women had never been a problem for her.

And that was not said with ego, but with centuries of experience.

She knew she was pretty and hated it, to be honest.

Her genetics made her that way since attracting a sexual partner was imperative if she was going to survive, but that didn’t mean she didn’t wish she was normal.