Head Hunter (City Shifters the Pack #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,96

circled back to the possibility that he’d been protecting me. He’d stood over me in the bed, then charged at whoever tried to get into the room. Maybe if his wolf side took over... I shook my head and concentrated on staying upright as one of the nurses brought in a wheelchair.

They were discharging me, finally. I still wasn’t sure what day it was, but Deirdre assured me it had been two weeks since that night at the sanctuary. It felt like it should have been longer, based on how my bruises looked. Mercy, the bright-eyed younger wolf who’d nearly steam-rolled me with hugs at Deirdre’s house, bounced along beside Deirdre to help me get dressed in the new clothes they’d brought. My sides ached by the time I finally maneuvered my stiff limbs into a sweatshirt and amazingly soft yoga pants, then crawled into the wheelchair.

I thanked all the nurses for taking such good care of me, and tried not to react to seeing more of their pack in the hall, apparently guarding me. Still more lingered outside the hospital on the way to the doors. They drifted away to other vehicles once Deirdre helped me into the sedan that idled at the curb. Outside, it finally occurred to me that the hospital wasn’t one that I recognized from the city. We were definitely in the city and it was definitely a hospital, but it was smaller and not well-identified as such. I craned my neck, trying to sort it out, but then the car pulled away and Deirdre cleared her throat to get my attention.

Todd drove the sedan and Mercy sat up front, so it was Deirdre and I in the back. The witch held out a small pouch. “A gift for you, Percy. Just a small token of my appreciation for helping figure out how to help Silas.”

“Is he – is he fixed? I mean, is he back to normal?” I peered into the pouch before spilling its contents into my palm. A delicate silver linked bracelet slid cool and solid against my fingers. A few charms glittered in the sunlight that gleamed through the window. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks,” she said a little absently, her attention on the bracelet. Deirdre reached out to tap one of the charms with the tip of her finger. “Silas is at least in his right mind, though his form is still stuck as the wolf. I think we’ve found a way to fix that, as well, but it has to wait until I can figure out the right spell. In the meantime, I wanted you to have this. If you press the oak leaf between your thumb and forefinger, it will send a message to me that you need to talk.”

I lifted the bracelet to examine the charms more closely. “How?”

“Magic,” she said. It didn’t even sound sarcastic when she said it. Deirdre helped put the bracelet on my wrist, then leaned back in the seat. “I’ll know where you are and can either come immediately myself or send someone in my stead.”

“Wow.” I glanced out the back window at where the hospital had long since disappeared, and gnawed my lower lip with worry.

“What’s wrong?” the witch asked, dark eyebrow arched. “Do you need your pain medication already?”

“No, it’s not that.” I took a deep breath. “It’s just... that was a private hospital, wasn’t it? And I was in a private room and they did tons of tests and... It must be really, really expensive.”

The last came out in a whisper as I struggled to find a way to say outright that I couldn’t afford the bill, whatever it ended up being. I knew with a hundred percent certainty the cut-rate health insurance I paid for wouldn’t help at all.

Deirdre must have sensed my concern because she waved the comment away absently. “Don’t worry about it, dear. Miles has a standing retainer with the hospital to cover the injuries that inevitably happen in a pack. There’s no cost to you.”

“That’s impossible,” I said, shaking my head. “I was there for weeks, in a private room, and from what you said, they had to give me a few whole people worth of blood just to keep me alive.”

My voice broke and I had to stop talking so I didn’t free the tears that threatened every time I thought too much about how close I’d come to dying. It was something I couldn’t think about without feeling like I might be sucked back into