Cold stole through her, and she shivered. Shock, she knew. She’d been a nurse in a war. She was a cop. She recognized the signs. She’d lost too much blood, and her body was going into shock. Forcing what little magic she had toward the wounds, she continued to try to staunch them. Her body simply wouldn’t move, no matter how she strained. The iron bullets.
“Selina!” Jack’s beloved face appeared in front of her. “Ah, God. Jesus, baby. Hold on. Just hold on. Help is coming. You’re going to be fine.” The desperation in his voice was enough to break her heart.
“Grim?”
“Peyton’s got him. He’ll take him to the vet.” He moved his shoulder so she could see her familiar. The wolf had stripped off his shirt to wrap it around Grim. He picked up the dog, cradling him like a baby, and rushed down the hall to get to a car.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered. She had to say it, had to put it into words. If she could give Jack nothing else, she wanted him to have the truth. The whole truth for once. No hiding, no secrets, no protecting herself.
“What?” He leaned closer so he could hear her.
“You were right. I don’t want to die.” She coughed and tasted her own blood. The iron in it burned her tongue. A laugh tripped over a sob. “You know the real difference between Heather and me?”
“What?” He was so near, she could see the gray striations in his blue eyes. She tried to memorize the contours of his face, to lock in the memory of him. Just in case.
“I would never willingly leave you. I want to stay with you, do the whole marriage and kids thing. I wish I could. So much. I love you.” And then she couldn’t fight the darkness anymore, and the cold closed over her head in a great wave. She struggled against it, tried to hold on to Jack, to stay with him.
“I love you, too, Selina. You’re not going to die. Not now. I won’t let you.” His hands moved over her body, frantic, and it hurt when he tied off the wound on her leg, when he pressed down all his weight on the hole in her shoulder.
She welcomed the pain. It meant she was still alive.
17
Two weeks had gone by and they hadn’t gotten anything settled yet. It was getting on Jack’s last damn nerve. It didn’t help that he’d been pulled on to the Karsen case, which just got to be a bigger and bigger media circus by the day. Someone was leaking information to the press, and it was skating dangerously close to requiring a telepath go and adjust some Normals’ memories.
He pulled into a parking space in front of Sugar Rush, where Selina had insisted that she get the chance to show Peyton what real congolais tasted like. His cousins Holly and Erin had been thrilled to host Selina’s first post-shooting outing, Erin promising the best congolais she’d ever made.
Peyton and Tess climbed out of the car behind him. As Jack suspected, most of his family had shown up for the event. Thanks to the miracle of Magickal healing, she’d been officially cleared to go back to work the following week, so using the excuse of watching over her recuperation wasn’t going to keep her in his house much longer.
They needed to get things hammered out. Tonight. He was tired of this going back and forth to fetch stuff from her place bullshit. He wanted her to move in permanently. She hadn’t wanted to be in her house since Isaak left his evil stench behind, but if she changed her mind and wanted to live there, or if she wanted to find something new together, that was fine. Whatever. As long as they settled on some permanency. She’d said she wanted to get married, and he wasn’t waiting around for a year like Merek had. A trip to the local courthouse would suit him just fine.
“Quite a crowd,” Peyton observed.
“Yep.” It wasn’t just his family gathered on the patio. No, that was Delta sitting between Selina and his parents. Luca stood nearby, a glass of wine in his hand, blatantly flirting with Jack’s human cousin, Erin. Then there were Millie Standish and Alex Nemov, as well as Merek and Chloe, newly returned from their honeymoon. And a whole boatload of animals. Selina’s dog, Chloe’s cat, and a bunch of others he’d never seen before. What the hell was this?
Tess made a sheepish face. “I, uh, may have mentioned to Chloe that we’d be here tonight. I didn’t know she’d invite herself.”
“And the whole neighborhood, too.” Jack motioned the others ahead of him.
Peyton moved with the caution of a man unsure of whether he’d be fried alive. He kept a wary eye on Chloe but let his hand settle at Tess’s back, which was as close to a public display of affection as Jack had seen from the two. Luca took in the gesture, and his expression went carefully blank. Erin glanced between Luca and Tess. Her eyebrows arched, and comprehension dawned on her face. Well, good. At least Jack wasn’t going to have to have a chat with her about getting involved with Luca. He’d rather not have his cousin turn a love triangle into a square.
Jack dismissed the exchange from his mind and stepped up behind Selina, set his hands on her shoulders, and bent to kiss her cheek. “Hey, you.”
Reaching over her shoulder, she patted his cheek. “Hi.”
He had that rush of gratitude that he’d felt every time he saw her, alive and whole. It could have gone so much worse. He’d come so close to losing her, to losing everything. A few seconds later and he wouldn’t have been able to stop the bleeding in time. If Gregor hadn’t shown up, Isaak would have finished her off. If any one of a dozen things had gone the other way, she wouldn’t be here now. Thank God. Thank God.
Grim walked up, healthy and still the biggest attitude on four legs. One kitten rode on his back, another dangled from his collar by one paw while swatting at the German shepherd’s identification tags. A third kitten attacked his tail.
Jack arched his eyebrows. “Okay. What’s with the petting zoo?”
“Ophelia wanted to come. Which meant her kittens wanted to come. Which meant her new manpanion came along, too.” Chloe gestured to two adult cats peering down from a windowsill. One was a dainty chocolate-point Siamese. The brute beside her was the biggest orange-striped tomcat Jack had ever seen. He had a few scarred-over bald patches and a flattened ear.
The kittens were a strange mixture of the two. One was a big, fluffy marmalade with two white paws. Another looked just like Chloe’s familiar. Slim, elegant, chocolate-point Siamese. The third was probably the most gorgeous cat he’d ever seen. It was Siamese in coloring, but its points were orange-tabby striped.
Millie reached down to pat that one on the head. “Pretty, isn’t she? It’s called flame-point. It only happens when you mix a Siamese with non-Siamese. A purebred can’t be that color.”
“Whose familiar is he?” Jack tipped his head at the big, scarred tomcat.
“He’s a stray.” Millie sniffed disdainfully. “A plain, old alley cat. Not a familiar. She went slumming.”
Jack nodded to the cat. “Good for you, Ophelia. Some of us non-Magickal types are just fine.”
Tipping her head back to look at him, Selina winked. “I think so.”
The flame-point kitten hopped up on the table, scooted to the edge, wiggled her butt for a moment, and then gave a death-defying leap toward Peyton. Only his lightning-fast wolf reflexes kept the kitten from hitting the floor. He lifted her up until they were eye level.
“I think she wants you, Peyton. Ever had a familiar before?” Tess stroked the kitten’s head.
Casting her a disbelieving glance, he tried to hand the cat to Chloe. “I’m a wolf. I can’t have a cat familiar.”
“A pretty, dainty, Siamese she-cat familiar, even.” Darren chortled. The big wolf lounged in his chair. His recovery had been slow, but he was starting to bounce back. A dark mark still scored the flesh above his collarbone—even his werewolf healing hadn’t been able to get rid of it. “The pack is going to love this.”