Promises to Keep - By Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page 0,13

and it had stopped him from helping the woman.

She can’t go home if she dies here, he thought.

He lifted her gently in his arms. If he couldn’t keep her warm with his magic, he had to find another way. He wished he hadn’t locked Xeke’s door behind him. He arranged her in the backseat of his car, wrapped in an emergency blanket. He wanted to call SingleEarth’s healers for advice, but his cell phone was still dead. The best he could do was turn on his GPS and ask it to take him to the closest SingleEarth Haven, which was #2.

Perfect; his cousin Caryn Smoke worked at the clinic attached to #2. Caryn was twenty, just a year older than Jay, and hadn’t yet finished her formal medical training, but she was already one of the best magical healers he knew. He had recently received an engagement announcement from her, though he couldn’t remember who she was marrying, or when. Hopefully it hadn’t been a Christmas wedding. He wasn’t sure what would become of the shapeshifter if Caryn wasn’t there to help.

CHAPTER 6

HE REACHED SINGLEEARTH shortly after dawn, while the winter sky still had that gray-and-purple tone, as if it weren’t sure if it wanted to stay dark, get bright, or catch on fire.

After pulling up to the main entrance, Jay left his car running while he went inside to get help. The shapeshifter’s body temperature had returned to normal during the trip, but he still hadn’t been able to wake her, which meant this was a case for doctors and witches trained in healing, instead of a hunter with a rudimentary knowledge of magical and mundane first aid.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked as Jay looked around, hoping to find Caryn loitering conveniently nearby.

“I have a woman in my car out front,” he answered. “She’s a shapeshifter, she’s unconscious, and I can’t wake her.”

The receptionist pressed a button on her desk and said, “Medical needed at main entrance.” Two of SingleEarth’s EMTs appeared within moments. The receptionist echoed what Jay had just told her, looking at him only to ask, “What breed?”

“Not sure. You need a witch to look at her, though.”

“Bring her in,” the receptionist told the EMTs. To Jay, she added, “We have plenty of trained doctors on staff. If it looks like she needs magical care—”

“Where’s Caryn?” he interrupted. Jay had napped a couple hours at Xeke’s place, but he still needed real sleep, of the variety that he liked to regularly engage in for six to eight to twelve hours. He didn’t have patience for a bureaucratic runaround from a receptionist who normally dealt with things like shapeshifter obstetrics, minor human injuries and illnesses, and non-critical mystical mishaps.

Winter Village, her mind answered, as she said, “Ms. Smoke is not—”

“Never mind.” Though few shapeshifters and fewer witches celebrated Christmas, enough SingleEarth members did that Haven #2 had set up a “Winter Village” in the events hall.

Sure enough, Jay found Caryn there, arranging brightly wrapped presents around a half-dozen evergreen trees whose piney scent had filled the large room. While Caryn meticulously adjusted wrapping and ribbons, her mind raced through thoughts of schedules, dance lessons, and food. Something about a caterer and cake.

“Caryn?”

She turned with an expression that was half smile and half frown. “What’s up?” she asked.

“Medical needs you,” he said.

“They haven’t paged me.”

“Trust me.”

“Jay …” Caryn shook her head and bit back an explanation of why the triage process Jay was trying to circumvent existed. Caryn was the only witch regularly at this haven. If she were called for every skinned knee and headache, she would never have time to sleep or eat. “Fine,” she said. “What’s the issue?”

She followed him toward the medical wing as he explained.

“Was she with the others you called in earlier?” Caryn asked as she waved aside the triage nurse and started checking the shapeshifter’s vitals. Pulse was steady, though slow. Breathing even. Temperature slightly elevated for human norms but well within most shapeshifter norms.

“No. I went to a Christmas party and stayed with a friend after.” And Kendra’s house was … hmm. The name of the town was on the tip of his tongue. “Well, I found her in the woods, a bit ago.”

“Which woods?” Caryn asked.

Behind the apartment complex, which had been named … nope.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” he answered.

Caryn took a deep breath, mentally counting to ten, before she said, “Well, she’s in good hands now. Why don’t you go get

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