Tameka's Smile (14 page)

Lulu left her client, came and placed her hand on Tameka’s forehead. “Child, you’re burning up. No wonder you’re hot.

Rosa, go into the office, get the Tylenol and bring a bottle of water.”

A wave of pain radiated out from her stomach to encompass her entire body, knocking Tameka to the floor. She felt her eyes roll up in her head as her body began convulsing.

Someone shouted, “She’s having a seizure!”

“Call Alex. Tell him to get somebody over here,” was the last thing she heard before darkness claimed her.

* * * *

How dare that bitch hang up on me! She doesn’t deserve
that land. It should be mine. It should always have been mine
along with everything else denied me. Let’s see how she likes my
next little surprise. Bet she won’t be so cocky then.

* * * *

Chad parked the truck haphazardly, shoved the gear into 90

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park, and jumped out of the vehicle while it was still rocking. He left the keys in the ignition and the door open as he ran toward the entrance of the Mountain View Emergency Clinic, the private medical facility owned by the pack and operated by Alex.

Damn it! They’d called hours ago and he was just getting here. If only he hadn’t gone for a run. He’d felt so good, he decided today was a good day to let his wolf out to play. Tameka wasn’t scheduled to be off until later this evening and he was off from work. Why not? It had been too long since he’d gone wolf and just had fun.

He burst through the doors of the small, state of the art facility, glancing around wildly before rushing to the reception window. “Where is she? Where’s Tameka?”

“Chad, over here.” Carol Johnson, head nurse and the Raven pack’s second-in-command, waved him over to a door that read
Authorized Personnel Only
.

He was on her heels as she strode rapidly down the hall.

“What the hell happened? She was fine with I left her this morning. Where is she? I want to see her!” Carol paused by the nurse’s station. “You can see her in a minute. Let me go and get Alex. He wants to talk with you first.” She turned and walked off.

Forget that. He wanted his mate. Needed to see her now. He looked around and noticed that most of the examining areas were empty. Of the six, there were only three with the curtains closed.

He went to the first one and pushed the curtain open. A man lay on the bed in traction, a cast covering his right leg from foot to mid-thigh. He looked up at the interruption.

“Sorry,” he muttered and moved to the second one.

Chad shoved the curtain aside. Another wrong room. The part of him that wasn’t focused on finding his mate felt sorry for that patient’s family. Whoever was in that bed was at death’s door. There were tubes and wires everywhere, hooked to machines that alternately beeped and hissed. No need apologizing. This one wasn’t even breathing; the machine was doing it for them.

He turned to continue his search when he got a whiff of Tameka’s scent above the strong, antiseptic, hospital smell. It was coming from the room behind him. No, it can’t be. He 91

TAMEKA’S SMILE

stiffened and turned back. This time he looked past the tubes and wires to the person to whom they were attached.

Tameka! God, no!

Chad took a stumbling step forward, and then fell to his knees. A mournful howl rose out of his throat. He lost it. Simply lost it. “Nooooooo!” He couldn’t lose her. He’d just found her.

Damn it! He had to do…something…anything. He couldn’t just…

He lurched forward, intent on doing he didn’t know what.

Hands grabbed at him, preventing him from getting to his mate.

He fought, trying to break free. They held him fast. A growl rose out of his throat as his wolf rose to the surface. “Mate!”

“Chad! Chad!”

The smell of pack surrounded him. He didn’t want the pack.

He wanted his mate. He struggled harder.

A stinging blow rocked him back, and then glowing, gold eyes that swirled with power filled his vision. “Chad! Leash the wolf! She’s not going to die.”

Chad barely heard Alex. He gazed past him at Tameka, muscles tensing to launch himself forward again.

Alex grabbed him by the face and forced him to look at him.

“Chad, she’s in a medically induced coma. She’s not dying. I won’t let her. I promise.”

Alex’s voice finally penetrated the fog of grief he was in.

Chad latched onto the only two words that made sense. “Not dying?”

“No,” Alex confirmed.

Chad slumped in their arms and did something he hadn’t done in public since early childhood—cried.

Alex caught him in a bear hug. He could hear Carol whispering in his ear as she hugged him from behind, “It’s alright. She’s okay. You’ll both be fine.” Other voices chimed in. “We got you, Chad.” He was enfolded and surrounded by pack—his pack. For once, the words meant something.

When he finally managed to pull himself together, he pulled back, embarrassed at his emotional display. Carol handed him something to clean his face, and with one last gentle stroke of his head, left. Others did the same until only he and Alex remained, 92

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kneeling on the floor by Tameka’s bed.

“You with me now? Ready to listen?” Alex asked him.

He heaved a deep sigh. “Yeah.”

Alex stood and held out a hand. Chad took it, allowing him to help him to his feet. He leaned against the side of Tameka’s bed, as close to her as possible. She had an IV in one arm. Taped wires stuck to her chest and temples, and tubes down her nose and more that disappeared under the covers. There was even one of those blood pressure monitor things on the finger of her opposite hand.

He reached out to touch her, needing to connect with her in some minor way, but stopped short.

“Touch her. It’s okay. You won’t hurt her.” He glanced at Alex for reassurance, then reached out and held her hand, the one that didn’t have anything attached to it.

His beast immediately calmed. “Why is she like this? What happened?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. Lulu said she complained of being hot. There was some dizziness, and a complaint about her stomach cramping right before she dropped to the floor in a grand mal seizure. They brought her in when she lost consciousness. Once here, she had three more despite our attempts to stop them. As a final resort, to prevent brain damage we induced a coma. What I need to know is what triggered it.

Did Tameka ever mentioned being epileptic? Was she on any medication that you know of?”

Chad shook his head. “No, no medications that I noticed, and she didn’t smell sick.” Shifters could sense when something wasn’t quite right about humans. Tameka never smelt “off” to him at all.

Alex sighed. “That’s what Lulu said, but
something
happened.
Something
made her body go haywire. We just need to find out what that something was.”

Chad stiffened, feeling dread grow in the pit of his stomach.

God, if this was his fault…

“You’ve thought of something?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I hope not. If I’m responsible…”

“If you think you did something, I need to know what it was. I doubt, whatever it was, that it caused this,” Alex assured 93

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him.

“I did what you told me to do,” Chad haltingly confessed.

Alex arched one brow. “What
I
told you?”

“Well, yeah, not exactly told me to do it, but you said the more of me she had in her, the quicker she’d accept me as mate.” Chad never took his eyes off of Tameka’s chest; the steady up and down movement was the only thing that assured him she was still breathing.

“What—exactly—did you do?”

He shot a quick glance at Alex. The way Alex was looking at him made him hunch his shoulders. Chad felt his face flush and knew he was turning red.

“I know you didn’t hurt her on purpose.” Chad’s shoulders relaxed. “But if something you did caused her immune system to go crazy, I need to know what it was.”

He looked at one of the monitors so he wouldn’t have to see Alex’s face as he admitted, “I bit her—all over—and packed the bites with saliva.”

“You flooded her system with your DNA?” Alex sounded like he was trying not to roar.

Chad finally gave Alex his full attention. “I wanted her to accept me. I didn’t know it would cause problems.”

“You didn’t know…” Alex broke off, rubbed his face with his hands before reaching back and pulling on his hair. Then he pinned Chad with a look that said “You just screwed up big time but don’t understand so I can’t yell at you like I want to.”

“The problem here is that you gave her too much too fast.

Her body didn’t have time to adjust, so it treated your DNA like a foreign invader and tried to attack it. This explains the high levels of antigen in her system. That’s what shocking her system.” Alex spoke slowly, like to someone hard of understanding. “You could have killed her trying to force a conversion.”

“I wasn’t trying to turn her into one of us. I just wanted her to mark me, to recognize me as her mate.” Alex muttered some succinct curse words under his breath.

“This is my fault. I didn’t get a chance to fully explain what true mates were before we were interrupted. It’s not the exchange of fluids that causes the mate bond to kick into place. When she 94

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accepts you for who you are and acknowledges your position in her life—that’s when the bond kicks in. It’s not a physical thing, but a mental and emotional one on her part.”

“So when she marked me last night, it had nothing to do with what I did?” He wasn’t a stupid man by any means, but this whole true mate stuff was confusing.

“I’m not saying it didn’t help, but unless she was willing, it wouldn’t matter what you’d done.”

“I see.” And he did. A goofy grin rose up on the inside.

Tameka really did want him.

“There’s really nothing I can do but give her fluids and keep her under until her body finished transitioning,” Alex was saying.

“Does that mean she’ll be a shifter when she comes out of it?” Chad wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He liked Tameka just fine the way she was.

Alex picked up her chart and made a notation on it. “I really don’t know. I’ve never heard of anything like this before. I didn’t even know this could happen. We’ll have to wait and see.”

* * * *

Three days later, Chad was firmly ensconced in a chair by her side, holding her hand when his phone rang for the fourth time that day. They had moved Tameka to one of the few private rooms that the clinic possessed. Pack members had been dropping by and calling his cell phone, checking on him and his mate. Plants with cards and balloons filled every available corner.

“Yeah, Bull. What’s up?” Bull, especially, had been keeping in close contact, running by his place to pick up items and generally keeping an eye on things for him.

“I drove your mate’s car home like you requested. There’s something here you need to see. I’ve already called Rome.” Since crime in Refuge was almost non-existent, Chad wasn’t overly concerned. “What is it?” Whatever it was, he doubted it was serious enough to require his leaving. He hadn’t moved from her side since he’d arrived and didn’t plan to now.

“I know you don’t want to leave your mate, but this is 95

TAMEKA’S SMILE

important; not something to discuss over the phone.” Bull disconnected the call.

Chad cursed. If Bull says it’s important, then it was. He wasn’t one to exaggerate.

He leaned over and kissed Tameka. “I have to go to your house to check out a few things. I’ll be back as soon as possible.

You concentrate on getting better.” He didn’t know if she could hear him, but talking to her made him feel better. As a result, he’d talked so much his voice was getting hoarse.

Chad stopped by the nurses’ station on the way out to let them know he was leaving, but that he’d be back as soon as possible and to call him immediately if there was any change in Tameka’s condition.

It was twilight when he pulled into Tameka’s yard. He’d made a quick stop at his house to pick up some more clothing and personal items. The clothes Bull brought him needed washing. Bull, Rome, and the Crime Scene Technician van were there, parked off to the side near one of the trees in the yard.

Rome met him as he exited the truck. “How’s Tameka?”

“Still heavily sedated. What’s going on?” His wolf was crawling under his skin, demanding he get back.

“Someone left a little present for your mate. Bull, bring that letter over here.”

Bull took something from Chuck, the nightshift’s Evidence Technician, and came jogging over. He handed a sheet of paper, already encased in a gallon-sized plastic Ziploc bag to Chad.

“This was pinned to the tree.”

BEAST LOVER. GO BACK WHERE YOU BELONG.

It was spelled out in letters cut from a newspaper and glued onto the paper.

Chad handed it back to him. “Any prints, or recognizable scent?”

Bull shook his head.

“Whoever did this knew what they were doing, or what they were dealing with,” Rome informed him.

“I don’t like what this note implies, but I don’t see why you couldn’t just tell me about this over the phone.” He was 96

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impatient to get back to his mate; felt like his presence was somehow needed.

“If it were just this, I wouldn’t have called. I’d have taken care of it and told you about it later. It’s the other that has me concerned,” Bull assured him.