Head Hunter (City Shifters the Pack #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,89

him forever for taking ‘normal’ away from her… at least she’d be alive to hate him. He could survive if he knew she lived. It wouldn’t break him the same way her death would. She could find happiness with someone else, if it came down to it. That was what mattered.

He had to clear his throat a few times before he could get the words out, still feeling like it was a betrayal of her trust. “I can give her blood without it turning her right away. Two bags won’t turn her but it might save her life.”

“It’s a start,” the alpha said, and shoved Dodge into the room. “Blood donor. He’s universal and her mate. Hook him up.”

“She’s human,” one of the nurses said. “It might not be enough unless it’s a full change.”

“Start with two bags,” Evershaw said. “Then drain him if you need to. The rest of the pack will donate. I’m next if you can’t get enough from him.”

Then Dodge was shoved onto another gurney and straps tightened around his arm, needles shoved into veins, going directly into hers. He squeezed his eyes shut. Let everyone think him squeamish about blood. It didn’t fucking matter. He knew he couldn’t see Persephone’s slack expression without it haunting him forever.

He breathed through the feeling of his blood draining away, listening to the nurses talk about whole units, ratios, and blood oxygenation and other shit that he’d heard far too many times in field hospitals and emergency evacuations on helicopters.

He focused on Persephone and all the ways he would make up for what he’d done, as soon as she regained her strength.

Chapter 41

Percy

I didn’t recognize the room when I woke up. I hoped it was Dodge’s room in Deirdre’s house, somewhere cozy and warm where I could hide out and get over the awful migraine that clamped around my head. But the walls were white and there wasn’t any furniture. The awful fluorescent lights had been dimmed a little but not enough.

And then there was all the noise. Beeping and cheeping and a steady tick-tick-tick that threatened to drive me out of my mind.

Everything hurt but kind of distantly, like it wouldn’t flare up as long as I didn’t move. Or as long as they didn’t forget to give me more pain killers. I vaguely remembered being in the tiger enclosure and a massive wolf flying over the fence, but everything after that blurred into a gray fog that didn’t offer any hints on where the fuck I was.

It took way too much effort to move my head so I could see more than just what was right in front of me – my legs hidden by white sheets and a blanket – but I managed to tilt my chin to see where some of the beeping came from.

Wires and tubes connected to me and linked to other things behind me that I couldn’t see. I stopped caring about all that the moment I saw the broad shoulders occupying the chair immediately to my left. The dark hair and the scar on his shoulder where his t-shirt gapped and the tattoos made it clear who it was, even though it was impossible.

Dodge had died, been shot by the fake cop at the door to my apartment. He was gone. My mind just tormented me with everything I would never have.

My lips parted, though they were dry and cracked and tried to stick together. Maybe I could ask him whether he’d been the wolf in the tiger enclosure and why he was haunting me. If shifters and witches were real, then surely ghosts could also be real?

My thoughts drifted as I tried to hold onto the right words, but I knew I wanted to touch him.

His arm rested on the mattress next to my head, his face pressed into the crook of his elbow. If I could just touch him…

My left hand twitched. It took forever for my brain to tell my arm to move. For a looooong moment, I wondered if I’d been paralyzed and no longer controlled my limbs. I blinked a few times and eventually my hand moved and drifted closer to where his hand rested on the mattress.

He felt warm and solid. He felt real. My eyes narrowed as I tried to think through the pudding in my brain. I didn’t want to think too hard about it. I felt better with him there. I felt safe and secure, and knew everything would be okay because