The Wolf Who Hatched an Egg (17 page)

“And of course I’ll call,” Shiloh answered, almost light-headed with relief. “Thank you, elder.”

Elder Kingston offered him a smile. “One last thing. If I could see the egg, with your permission, of course?”

Shiloh considered the request and decided it wasn’t risky. After all, he needed to go pick up his egg anyway. “Certainly. We’re going to retrieve the baby now. If you like, you can come join us.”

“We’d like to come, too, son,” his father said. “After all, we have to meet our future grandson or granddaughter.”

Shiloh nodded, pleased about his parent’s request. Liam gestured him toward the door, and Shiloh turned. His gaze fixed on Liam and they shared a long look. At last, it was all over. Soon, they could go back to living their lives and building their family.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he absolutely lost track of all motion behind him. All of a sudden, he spotted Liam’s eyes widening in horror. He registered Liam trying to tell him something, then the sound of a gunshot. Pain exploded inside his head, but it only registered for a brief moment, and then everything went black.

* * * *

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Liam knew the exact moment when the bullet knocked Shiloh out.

Their connection stuttered and, for a horrible moment, Liam thought it would disappear. It didn’t, and that was the only thing keeping Liam breathing while he lunged to catch his mate before he hit the ground.

It had been one second, one single second when none of them had been paying attention, when Charles Meyer retrieved his hidden gun and shot Shiloh in the head. Liam realized what was going on an instant before the bullet hit Shiloh.

Distantly, he registered Garth lunging at Charles and relieving him of his gun, while Charles shouted, “If I don’t have him, no one will.”

Liam wanted to kill him. He wanted to tear the swan into little pieces. But the instinct to be by his mate’s side was stronger than the instinct to kill. He leaned over Shiloh, frantically trying to figure out what to do.

Ballistic injuries had never been his specialty—hell, he was no doctor—but he knew a wound to the head could easily be fatal, even for a shape-shifter. His mind was screaming,
Oh God, Shiloh, oh God,
Shiloh
, over and over again, and he had no idea what to do.

Instinctively, he snarled when a stranger tried to approach them.

He would not let anyone hurt Shiloh further. He would protect his mate. He had to.

His hackles rose when the swan elder knelt next to him and Shiloh. “Liam, you have to move,” the elder swan said gently. “You need to let the medic see him.”

Liam snarled at the man, not wanting to allow anyone to touch his mate. Reason prevailed, however, and he slowly backed away. Even so, he kept a close eye on the new arrival, just in case the man tried anything funny.

“We need to get him to the clinic,” the medic said. As if by magic, a gurney appeared by his side, and shortly after, Liam realized a couple of assistants had carried it here.

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It was by miracle that he managed to contain himself and not lunge at them as they placed Shiloh on the gurney. He clung to the knowledge that they were trying to do the best thing for Shiloh, but it quickly faded, replaced by anger and despair.

He trembled with the need to shield his mate from everyone else, and his heart collapsed on itself when he realized his intervention could only do more harm. Lost in a haze of pain and sorrow, he followed behind the doctor and the assistants. He became aware of Shiloh’s parents joining him, but his gaze could just focus on Shiloh and his pale face, the blood staining the white of the gurney, and their connection flickering like a candle struggling against a hurricane.

The assistants seemed to be moving too slowly, far too slowly.

Every second counted, and Liam wanted to scream at them, to tell them to get their lazy asses into gear to help his mate. At last, they reached the section of the building that served as a clinic. On automatic pilot, Liam trailed after them, until the assistants disappeared beyond a pair of white doors. The doctor turned toward Liam and hastily said, “You can’t come in right now. Please wait here and we’ll come get you when we have news.”

Liam opened his mouth to protest, but the doctor didn’t give him the chance. “You have to let us do our jobs. I assure you your mate will get the best of care.”

What could Liam say? He nodded numbly and took a step back, allowing the doctor to follow the assistants into the room beyond the white doors. His eyes glued onto those same doors, he plopped down on a nearby bench and prepared himself for a long wait.

Around him, he registered all sorts of activity. Some other persons appeared around him. At one point, Brody’s familiar voice tried to reach out to him, but failed. He knew Shiloh’s parents and friends were also in the area, but couldn’t bring himself to care.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, his body frozen in the same position, his mind desperately trying to catch any change in Shiloh’s
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condition. At last, the doctor emerged from the room beyond the white doors.

Liam shot to his feet, spurred into motion by the man’s appearance. One look at the medic’s carefully neutral expression told him what he needed to know, though. “Is he going to die?” he asked, his voice trembling.

“We’ve managed to stabilize his condition,” the medic answered.

“The injury was severe, the bullet penetrating a sensitive section of the brain.” Liam swooned on his feet, his world going dim around the edges. “In these conditions,” the doctor continued, “a human would have died. However, we did extract the bullet successfully. From this point on, we can only hope his shape-shifter abilities will facilitate his recovery.”

“H–How is he now?” Liam stammered. His heart was beating a million miles an hour. He needed to trust Shiloh’s strength. His mate would recover. Liam could not accept any other alternative.

“Still under anesthesia, but stable,” the doctor answered.

“But that’s a good thing right?” Shiloh’s mother asked from behind Liam.

The medic looked hesitant. “What is it?” Liam prodded. “There’s more?”

He had a feeling he didn’t even want to know the answer, and his suspicion was confirmed moments later, when the doctor added, “You have to know that even with the help of his abilities, there is a chance that the bullet might have damaged the patient’s nervous system beyond repair. Even if we did manage to save his life, he might never wake up.”

* * * *

A few weeks later

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Liam stared at the pale figure of his mate and offered Shiloh a small smile he didn’t really feel. “Hey, baby. How are you this morning? Look who I brought to see you.”

Unsurprisingly, Shiloh didn’t answer. He never did, although Liam never ceased hoping that one day, he would. His eyelashes didn’t even flutter, and he gave no sign that he’d heard Liam at all.

Liam sighed and sat next to Shiloh on the bed. Cuddling the egg in his arms, he continued to speak. “I hope you’re feeling better. The egg is due to hatch any moment now. You wouldn’t want to miss that.”

No reaction. Liam’s heart hurt, and he closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm down. The doctor told them that if Shiloh didn’t wake within a week of the shootout, his chances would start to dwindle. With each passing day, it became more unlikely that Shiloh would wake. But no matter what the man said, Liam would never lose hope.

When he opened his eyes again, the sight of his mate’s figure still came as a shock. Truth be told, other than the close-cropped hair already starting to grow back, and, of course, all the medical equipment around the bed, Shiloh could have very well been sleeping.

Even so, there was something missing. Shiloh didn’t seem really there.

Shiloh had been so full of life, so quick to laugh and to burst into anger, that it was difficult to accept all the energy had been drained in one terrible moment.

He turned to look at Carson, who’d been waiting in silence on the chair next to the bed. As soon as he’d learned of the shooting, the lamb took his kids and came to the city. Brody was in charge of Clark and Angel now, while Carson, Nicolas, and Daniel took turns in helping Liam with Shiloh’s care.

“How is the egg?” Carson asked.

“Should be coming any day now.” Liam sighed, wondering how it had all gone so wrong. “Shiloh should have been the one hatching it.”

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But Shiloh had been robbed of that privilege, among many other things. Liam could only hope Shiloh would eventually wake. In the meantime, the care of the egg had fallen onto Liam.

Skylar had offered to keep it at the agency, but Liam refused.

He’d already made a decision. No matter what happened with Shiloh, he would still take the egg in. It was as much for Shiloh as for himself. The egg belonged to them, and Liam knew Shiloh would want him to do this. Thankfully, with the help of Shiloh’s friends, he could care for the egg and for his mate at the same time.

Carson looked pained. “Brody called,” he whispered.

Liam blinked in surprise. He hadn’t heard the sound of the phone ringing. “When?”

“An hour or so ago,” Carson replied. “They found Charles dead.

Someone killed him.”

Shock and anger coursed through Liam. Charles had been imprisoned by the swans shortly after the shootout, and Liam had been unable to get to the man and punish him like he deserved. He’d sworn he would deal with Charles as soon as Shiloh got better.

Apparently, he would not get the chance.

“Killed?” he repeated. “How?”

“Officially, no one knows.” Carson gulped and looked away. “But off the record, an unknown e-mail address sent pictures.”

Carson retrieved a tiny netbook from the nightstand and turned it on. It had been on standby, Liam realized, and in a few moments, it loaded the images in question. They were quite gruesome. It seemed someone cut off Charles’s arms and pushed him off a high point. He noticed Carson didn’t even look away, an unusual thing given the lamb’s sensitive nature. “Seems swans really do take care of their own,” Carson murmured.

Liam nodded. A part of him wished he’d have been the one to do it. He still blamed himself for not killing Charles when he’d had the chance. He’d known then Charles represented a threat to Shiloh’s life,
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and yet, he’d hesitated. Because of that moment, Shiloh paid the price.

Still, judging the current circumstance, he didn’t think he would have been able to deal with Charles for quite a while. Perhaps it was better this way. He didn’t know how he’d have told the cygnet that he’d killed his or her father.

All that faded to the back of his mind when he felt something stirring in his arms. His heart fluttered as he realized the surface of the egg was slowly cracking.

“Baby, look,” he told Shiloh. “It’s our egg. It’s hatching.”

On impulse, he placed the egg next to Shiloh, took his mate’s hand, and placed it on the cracking shell, his own palm pressing over it. His vision blurred as he reached out to Shiloh through their strained connection.

“Come on, baby. We need you. I need you. I can’t do this alone.”

A shock of something passed through him, and into their bond. He almost sensed their cygnet reach out for Shiloh the same moment he did. The burst of energy was like a wave that swept away the barriers keeping Shiloh’s consciousness from Liam.

Liam choked, astonished at the new life that was now breaking into the world. As he blinked away his incipient tears, he watched in shock and awe as a little cygnet emerged from the egg. His happiness soared as he watched his mate’s eyes slowly open. From the bed, Shiloh smiled at him. “Beautiful, isn’t he?”

Liam couldn’t believe it. A part of him had thought he’d never see that amazing smile again. “Shiloh…Oh, baby.”

Shiloh wrapped his arms around him, enveloping both Liam and the cygnet in a tight embrace. “It’s okay, Liam. I know. I’m never going anywhere again.”

Between them, the cygnet honked, demanding attention. Shiloh laughed and broke away from Liam. “Seems our little one has needs.”

His expression sobered. “Thank you, Liam. Thank you for caring for our baby.”

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The way Shiloh said those words made Liam realize something incredible. “You could hear me when I spoke to you.”

Shiloh nodded. “Sometimes. Most of all, I could feel you and the egg. You two saved me, Liam. And I’m sorry for ever doubting you.”

A choked voice drew Liam’s attention. “Oh, Shil,” Carson said. “I can’t believe it.”

Liam had completely forgotten about the lamb’s presence. He took the cygnet in his arms and allowed the two friends to hug. His heart felt like it would crumble under the weight of so much overwhelming emotion. His mate had recovered and they had a child.

Liam held onto the new life in his arms, the beautiful baby swan who’d helped bring Shiloh back, and smiled. At last, at last, they had a chance at the happiness they’d been denied for far too long.

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Sitting on the shore, Liam watched Shiloh swim in the pond, followed by their cygnet. He still couldn’t believe his mate had recovered from the gunshot wound. According to the medic, the energy from the egg’s hatching had boosted Shiloh’s abilities and brought him back to Liam.

Now, watching Shiloh with their son, Reed, it was hard to believe that mere weeks before, Shiloh had been lying on a bed, motionless and on the brink of death.

“
Don’t think about that
,” Shiloh said through their connection. On the water, he switched his direction and headed back toward Liam, the cygnet obediently following. “
I’m fine now, and that’s what matters
.”

As the two swans reached the shore, Shiloh shifted to human form, while Reed wobbled on the grass on his little cygnet legs. Reed was too young to shift into human form. It would take him a year or so until he would gain that ability. Chuckling, Liam took his son into his arms. “Come on, son. Let’s go home.”