Head Hunter (City Shifters the Pack #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,88
even if they hadn’t called being mates the same thing. Dodge couldn’t breathe as his eyes burned with emotion and nausea surged in his guts.
He’d already lost his family and everyone he loved. He’d lived alone for so long it numbed him to even the possibility of loving and trusting another person, even within the pack, and then Persephone… Then Persephone knocked down his walls and dragged him back into the light.
He couldn’t go back to the dark. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t survive it again.
But could he send Persephone into her own darkness, knowing she would hate what he made her?
A keening noise escaped and drew a sharp look from Evershaw. The alpha muttered, “Think about it, you crazy bastard, and have an answer by the time we get there. They’ll have to do the transfusion immediately to have the best chance of her pulling through.”
Dodge nodded, already feeling the numbness settle around his heart. Persephone would hate him for changing her, for taking her normal life away forever.
“No one would expect you to live without your mate,” Evershaw said. “The very fact that you’re hesitating makes me wonder about your fucking mental capacity, because this should be an easy choice. This is the easiest choice. She’s dying. You can save her. Save her.”
Dodge choked on the words. “She wants normal.”
“Then she’ll find a new normal.” Evershaw growled to himself and stepped on the gas more. The radio crackled and they started to pick up the conversation between the guards who’d arrived at the hospital with Persephone and Deirdre.
Dodge stared out the windshield as the city streets opened up in front of them. The seconds ticked away. Could he risk losing her by making the choice for her and turning her? She might walk away from him forever, but at least she’d be alive to make the choice. Or would he lose his mate just days after he found her?
Chapter 40
Dodge
They’d taken Persephone to the hidden shifter hospital, since her injuries would have been impossible to explain at the human emergency room without getting the cops involved. Dodge had been there a few times after breaking up a few brawls, though he followed his senses rather than his memory as he searched for where they’d taken his mate.
Dodge hardly noticed the grim shifters – wolves and lions, even one of the bears who’d trained as a medic – and Smith as they lined the hall to where he heard calm doctor voices and machines blaring warning tones.
He couldn’t breathe. He wanted to run away, to hide from the awful sounds that dragged him back to the night his father died, the night Dodge’s whole world changed and fell apart. Seeing his mother lose her mate… His vision blurred as he remembered the way his mother screamed, the raw grief excruciating, when his father’s heart stopped.
Evershaw held him back from charging into the room where a team of people in scrubs worked over Persephone. Bags of clear fluids and medications and even blood hung on poles all around her. It looked like just as much had spilled on the floor. Dodge saw almost nothing of Persephone except one arm where it flopped off the side of the gurney, her fingers curled delicately but still stained with blood and dirt.
A knot constricted his throat and made it more difficult to breathe as he remembered how she’d fought to live. She’d fought the bastards who hurt her, fought back when the tiger tried to hunt her, and she’d been dragging herself to safety when he finally got to her to carry her the rest of the way. Surely that meant something. Surely that meant her will to live would carry her through or at least justify turning her. She wanted to live.
He gulped for air and tested the words aloud, ignoring that the alpha remained at his right. “She fought to live. She wanted to survive.”
“Fucking right she did,” Evershaw said. He didn’t move to push Dodge into the room, but he tensed. No doubt the alpha was prepared to incapacitate him if Persephone died and Dodge lost his fragile hold on control. Dodge didn’t know what the wolf would do if their mate died, if she went so far beyond him…
He didn’t let the worst case outcome drag him down. Dodge gripped the door jamb as he stared at the medical professionals tossing supplies to each other and calling for another cart and more blood.