Page 37 of Shifter and the Succubus (The Pack #1)

Sabrina held up her hands as Jason’s animal tried to take over. “Jason, it’s okay. Listen to me.”

“Fascinating,” Lucas mumbled as he looked between Jason and the monitors.

Jason turned his glowing-eyed gaze to Lucas and bared his teeth.

“Lucas, leave the room. You’re not his favorite person right now.”

Lucas backed out and stood watching through the side window in the outer room.

“Jason. Everything is okay. I’m right here. I’m fine.”

His animal sniffed the air and leaned toward her, growling when the wires attached to him stopped his movements. Her heart sped up. She didn’t want him to hurt himself or trash the room.

Sabrina grabbed the trigger out of her pocket and pushed it. He shook his head and slowed, his actions sloppy, but it didn’t knock him out. “The sedative isn’t working.”

“Will he let you touch him?” Lucas said.

“I don’t know.” She held her breath as she reached out slowly and his animal watched her. “I’m going to put my hands on you. It’s okay.” She rested her hands on his chest. “That’s it. You’re okay.”

“Give him some of your energy,” Lucas said.

“Lucas—”

“Do it, Rina!”

She concentrated and called for her energy.

It tickled under her skin, and she let it coalesce in her chest for a moment, circling until it gained momentum.

She pushed the energy up into her shoulders and down her arms and through her hands into Jason’s chest. Jason flinched for a moment before the warmth appeared to soothe him.

“Does that help? Are you ready to let go? I’m safe. I don’t need protecting.”

Jason’s animal blinked and after a moment the light faded and his blue eyes returned to normal. His confused navy eyes, until something clicked. “I hulked out again.”

“You did.”

He looked down at her hands still resting on his chest and then back up again. “I’m sitting up. I could have hurt you. Why didn’t you sedate me?”

She would tell him later that she’d tried. He didn’t need another shock right now. “I was able to talk you back.”

Lucas stepped inside the room. “How are you feeling?”

“Confused.”

“I want more blood.” Lucas quickly drew more vials before speaking again. “What do you remember?”

Jason’s eyebrows pulled together as he concentrated, and then he stiffened. “You made some sort of deal with her. You can stuff it, asshat. She’s not going anywhere.”

Lucas didn’t blink at Jason’s outburst. “We have data to review from your newest episode.”

Sabrina started removing the wires from the electrode patches applied to him while she tried to collect herself. “Jason, we’ll talk about this later. Okay? You and me, alone.”

“When?” he asked as he yanked off the patches.

“Soon.” She helped him before shooting off a quick text to Kyle that Jason had another episode. “I promise.” She turned to Jason. “Let’s get you back to the house.”

By the time they removed all the patches and he pulled on his shirt again, Kyle, Misha, and Jean Luc walked into the outer lab. Kyle glared at Lucas even though Sabrina hadn’t told them what happened. It was as if Kyle had a sixth sense when it came to Sabrina's brother.

“Are you coming?” Jason asked.

“I’ll be along in a little bit. I need to speak with Lucas first.”

Jason looked like he wanted to argue, but he finally nodded and walked out with the team.

If he told them about what happened, they would all come rushing back to protect her, so she didn’t have much time.

And she loved them for having her back. However, she had made the deal and would stand by it if it meant helping Jason.

But first she needed to have a word— several words —with her brother. She found him in the outer lab preparing the blood for testing. She walked up to him.

Lucas didn’t look up as he stood in front of several machines. “You had described his aborted transitions, but seeing it in person was illuminating. How fortuitous that he changed while connected to the monitors, was it not? And now we have blood immediately before and after to compare.”

Sabrina took a deep breath. “Fortuitous. Is that what you’re calling it?”

Something in her tone must have registered with him, and he looked up at her. “What else would I call it?”

“Did you provoke him to see if he would change?”

“How?”

“Don’t insult my intelligence. You talked about our deal in front of him. Did you honestly not think he wouldn’t ask about it?”

Lucas placed the blood sample in the analyzer.

“I didn’t realize that our deal was a secret.

You just spent hours riding in a van with your teammates; I assumed you would have told them you agreed to come back to the clan.

” Lucas crossed his arms. “But then you didn’t tell me the truth about his transitions either. ”

“I told you that his animal responds to stress and danger.”

“But you didn’t tell me that it was in direct correlation to you. Of course that makes sense now that I see you two are in some sort of relationship.”

Her stomach bottomed out. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t insult my intelligence. He just learned that both of his biological parents were killed and his animal didn’t respond.

Yet he finds out you are leaving and his animal responds within seconds.

I’m not surprised that he’s attracted to you, of course.

But imagine my surprise to find you care for him.

“So much so that you were willing to reach out to me and ask for my help. And you knew I would ask something of you in return. You had to have connected the dots.” He chuckled.

Her stomach soured at his laugh. “What’s funny?”

“All the humans and supernaturals you’ve known in your lifetime, and you fall for a thirtysomething part shifter who can’t even change into an actual animal. And you know the danger of bedding any short of shifter.”

Heat surged through her body, and she barely kept it in check. “Don’t! We’re not sleeping together.”

Lucas looked at her with disbelief. “You aren’t sleeping with him?”

“No. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

Lucas’s eyes widened. “You love him.”

She loved Jason.

But she sure wouldn’t be saying that out loud for the first time to her brother of all people. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

He scowled. “How could you? You left me and the clan.”

His retort battered her. “I couldn’t stop Robert from dying. I tried.”

He slammed his hand on the table. “Do not say his name.”

“I loved him too! I couldn’t stay and keep reliving it with you. I could see it in your eyes every time you looked at me. You were never going to be able to move on with me there.”

“Move on?” He slashed his hand through the air. “There is no moving on.”

“Then why do you want me to come back to the clan when you hate me?” she asked, tears threatening.

“The only reason I am on this earth is to cure this wretched illness. You can help me with some new testing I am running. I have to do this, and you damn well shouldn’t have to be bribed to come back and help.”

Tears ran down her face now. “All you had to do was ask.”

His face reddened. “Says my sister who reached out only because she needed something from me.”

Sabrina felt what was left of her heart crack down the middle. “You’re right.”

He opened his mouth as if to launch a rebuttal until he seemed to realize what she had just said. “What…”

“I said you’re right. I reached out to you because of Jason.

I asked you to help him because you were the one person I knew might have an answer.

I should have reached out before then. I thought about it so many times, but I kept seeing you that day you told me to never return, and I couldn’t get myself to do it.

I was a coward. I will come back with you.

But I need to make sure Jason is okay first. And I need your help to do it. ”

Lucas gaped at her for a moment before he pulled himself together and nodded. “Let’s figure out how to help your shifter, Sabrina. I am going to run a gamut of blood tests and look at the readings that were recorded during his change. We can review the results tomorrow.”

She was exhausted and needed to go find Jason, but she had to ask him one more thing. “How did you know that my energy would calm him?”

“Something I saw on the monitors when you were speaking with him. I need to review things and then we can talk more about my hunch.”

Sabrina dried her tears and washed her face before she left the hospital, bracing herself for the tirade she expected from her teammates. Instead silence greeted her. She walked into the living room to find Jason sitting in a chair staring out at the backyard.

“Where is everyone?”

“I sent Misha, Jean Luc, and Kyle home. Told them I needed to rest, and Bea assured them she would watch over me. She and Matthew are throwing together a quick dinner. Bea’s not saying much, but she’s worried about Griffin. He blew a gasket earlier when I told him about what we learned today.”

Sabrina sat next to him. “I’m not surprised. He’s a good male, and I’m sure he took the news personally.”

Jason turned to her, and she stopped herself from gasping at the hurt on his face. “Yeah, he is. But then you are too, right? Taking the weight of the world on your shoulders. The weight of my messed-up animal, when I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t have to ask me. I couldn’t sit by and do nothing.”

“So you sacrificed yourself?”

She shook her head. “That’s a bit extreme. I’ll be going back to my clan.”

“And I might be fine with that, if you weren’t being forced to do it because of me.”

“I’m not being forced to do anything.”

“So you want to leave me then? You told me you wanted to be together; was that a lie? Did you know you were already going back to the clan when you told me that?”

Sabrina reached for his hand. “No! I didn’t know that Lucas wanted me to come back to the clan until we spoke earlier today.”

He wrapped his fingers around hers and held on. “But when you asked him to come here for me, you knew he would ask you for something. ”

“I did.”

His gaze tightened on her. “You’ve been crying.” He sat up straighter. “What did he say to you?”

So much for trying to tamp down her emotions. “We both said a lot of things to each other. Things that were long overdue.”

“Did you tell him you aren’t going with him?”

She braced herself. “No.”

“Damn it, Sabrina! Why would you agree to anything with him? So what if I can’t turn into my animal. I can learn to live with it this way. Hell, you can just keep sedating me if needed.”

She wished more than anything that it was as simple as that.

“Listen. I haven’t had time to talk to you about what Lucas and I spoke about earlier.

The issue isn’t just that your animal won’t emerge.

Your blood work is showing that your cell count is off.

It’s like it’s fighting off your animal as if it were an infection and it’s getting worse. ”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means we need to figure out how to help you before you get really sick. Lucas is trying to find out how to stop it. His background in hematology and genetics is the best chance to figure this out. He already came up with a suggestion that helped.”

Jason frowned. “What suggestion?”

“Earlier you asked me why I hadn’t sedated you. I tried and it didn’t work.”

His eyes widened, and she squeezed his hand.

“You got sluggish, but you were still awake. Lucas suggested I touch you and share some of my energy with you. It worked. Your animal retreated.”

“A lucky guess?” Jason said.

“Lucas told me it was a hunch, but I think it was based on what he’s started to put together about your case.

He’s brilliant. We’re going to meet tomorrow and go over all the tests and results he is running from your blood work and what he recorded from the EKG and EEG tests he ran on you. We’ll figure this out.”

“So you can cure me and then leave.” He dropped her hand. “What is he going to do if you don’t go with him? He’s not some dictator.”

“I gave him my word.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

Her heart sped up at his declaration. “I don’t expect you to do that.”

Jason let out a harsh laugh. “Well I didn’t expect you to give up everything to help me, but you did it anyway.”

Sabrina couldn’t imagine Lucas liking that idea, but she wasn’t going to bring that up tonight. Her body bordered on exhaustion, and Jason didn’t need to keep going down this path or his animal might try and make another appearance.

He was angry now, but he didn’t understand that his condition would get worse. And she would do everything, fight anyone, and promise anything to save him.