by Grey, Aspen
“If you don’t keep your hands over that wound, he’s going to bleed out!” the man yelled from the front seat, doing his best to maneuver the car while sliding into a white button-up shirt. He’d managed to scramble into a pair of jeans after carrying Sasha to his car, but the two of us were still completely naked.
“I know, I know!” I shouted back, dripping with sweat and panic. “Just hurry up and get us there!”
We were on our way to the hospital obviously, and I was slightly concerned with the fact that we were both still naked, but I was more concerned with whether or not Sasha was going to make it. I didn’t know what I would do without him. We weren’t really lovers. We weren’t really friends. We were something else, but all I knew was that without him I’d be lost.
“J…Jace…” he murmured, barely conscious.
“Take it easy,” I told him. “We’re on our way to the hospital. You’re going to be fine, okay? You’re going to be fine.”
“Mmmmm,” Sasha groaned in a way that made my heart break. I glanced up at the driver, who was gunning it through the streets as fast as possible, weaving in and out of traffic with incredible precision.
Who was this man and why had he saved us? Why was he helping us? And why was I so attracted to him…?
His arm was bleeding horribly, and with each thump of his heart (which was getting slower every minute), I could feel more and more of his life slipping away from him. My adrenaline was coursing, causing my body to quiver, and the slickness of Sasha’s arm was making it difficult to hold onto him. But finally, I heard the man in the front seat shouting.
“We’re here!”
“Bring us around the front!” I yelled back, but he was already there. The bright lights of the emergency room flared in my vision as he screeched to a halt and leapt out. He came around to Sasha’s side and opened the door.
“Give him to me,” he said firmly as he seized Sasha around the waist. As he lifted him, I slid out of the seat too, my hands still clasped over the terrible wound. I no longer cared about the fact that I was naked, or what people would think when we came racing in. All that mattered was Sasha and I realized at that moment just how much he meant to me and how lost I would be without him. I understood my feelings, but my mind was still trying to grasp the concern of the complete stranger beside me.
“What is your name?” I asked him. When he looked at me, I almost lost myself in his blue eyes. They reminded me of the sky and sparkled just as brightly, so much so that I was taken aback and almost gasped.
“Arnold,” he told me. “My name is Arnold, Jace. And I’m here to help you.”
Jace? He knows my name?
“We need some help over here!” Arnold cried out. Instantly, several nurses in scrubs raced over to us shouting medical jargon that barely even registered in my mind. Something about needing blood, a bed and a doctor, but my head was spinning.
“Let go, sweetie,” someone said from beside me. I glanced to my side and saw a kind-looking nurse with a tourniquet trying to get my hands away from Sasha’s arm.
“Are you hurt?” someone asked me. The question barely registered. All I was thinking about was Sasha and I tried to follow him through the doors into the back rooms, but was stopped by a nurse.
“Wait right there!” she told me, pressing her palms against my chest.
“I’m going with him!” I shouted and watched as they let Arnold race past me and follow Jace in. “He’s my boyfriend!”
Did I just say that?
Sasha wasn’t really my boyfriend—he was my friend…or something…
The trauma of what had just happened to us had driven feelings to the surface, feelings I didn’t even know were there until now, and I felt as though a sheet of fogged glass had been removed from in front of my eyes.
“You can be with him soon,” the nurse told me. “But we need to take care of that.”
She pointed down to my ankle and as the swinging door in front of me swung closed, I looked down and saw that my wound was actually a lot worse than I thought and I was losing blood myself.
“Get him in here!” a voice shouted, and I looked up to see Arnold waving frantically towards us.
“We have to get him—”
“Just get him in here!” he bellowed, racing towards me and grabbing me beneath the arm.
“Sir, you need to let us handle this,” she protested.
“I’m a police officer!” he snarled. “Detective Arnold Irons and these two men are the victims of an attack. Now stop arguing with me and get him in here!”
Chapter Six
Arnold
That was close…too close…
My angels. I almost lost them.
I looked down at my hands. They were still red despite having washed them countless times in an attempt to get the blood off.
Their blood…
The nurses had managed to stop Sasha’s bleeding first, but he needed a few units to replace what he’d lost. Jace’s injury wasn’t as severe, but he’d still needed stitches. They were shifters though, and would heal more quickly than their human counterparts, but that did little to calm the rage that had taken hold of my heart.
The killer. I’d seen him. Not only that, I’d fought him and let him get away.
After Sasha had lost consciousness, I’d attacked, but the son of a bitch just turned tail and ran. He knew I wasn’t going to follow him—not with Sasha bleeding like that. All I could do was watch as he disappeared into the night.
“Damn it!” I growled under my breath as I sat in a chair in the hallway outside of my angels’ room where they were both resting. I hadn’t wanted to leave the room, but didn’t want to wake them either, so I’d brought this chair over where I could see and smell them. We were safe here in the hospital, of course, but I didn’t want them out of my sight.
The reality of my affections for them was starting to solidify even more having now been in their presence, and I was beginning to feel something tugging at the inside of my chest like a fishhook embedded in my heart.
As I looked at them both, sleeping soundly, their beautiful faces twisted towards each other across the room, a strange thought came over me: if only I was in there between them.
Of course, that would mean I’d have had to been injured as well, and of course I didn’t want that, but sitting outside in the hallway…I somehow felt left out. Maybe it was because I’d been watching them for so long and knew they had already formed a bond that I wasn’t a part of.
They knew each other. They’d lived together—survived together. I was just an outsider to them. What could I expect when they woke up? Did they feel the same thing that I felt? That string of destiny doing its best to tie us together? Or would they simply run from me, back to the dangers of the street?
No. I thought, oblivious to the sounds of the hospital around me. I won’t let that happen. They’re staying with me now.
My place in Serra Mesa wasn’t incredible, but it was in a safe, quiet, secluded neighborhood with only two ways in or out. There was no way they were going back to the streets—not now. It had been hard enough for me to watch them do what they had to do to survive, but I knew that was the only reason they had done it. These weren’t bad guys, they were just victims of life’s unfortunate circumstances, and I was here to change all that.
“Officer?” a doctor said, breaking me out of my stupor by placing a hand on my shoulder.
“Detective,” I corrected him.
“Detective,” he apologized. “There are some men from your precinct here. They’re waiting outside in the lobby.”
“Send them in,” I told him. They would want to talk to me about what had happened, of course, and I’d have to let them know that I let the killer go. I’d have to make something up about why I was even there in the first place, but as I was lead detective on the case, that wouldn’t be too hard. As long as I didn’t say, “Oh, I was just stalking my fated mates like I normally do at night,” I’d be fine.
As the doctor walked away, I looked into Jace and Sasha’s room and wished more than anything that I could fix this moment—just this moment and take away all their pain. I hated the fact that I’d done all I could do and they were still lying in hospital beds with their attacker still out there on the prowl.
I have to do something, I thought. But for now, I had to be here for them. They’d wake up soon and I didn’t want them alone in a strange hospital with doctors and nurses as their only company.
I also had to know.
I had to know if they felt the same way I did.
Chapter Seven
Sasha
I woke with a strange, throbbing pain in my shoulder and a mind full of fuzz…that cotton stuff that comes out of an old couch cushion when the owner has let his dog tear it to pieces.
“Wha…” I grumbled.
My eyes hurt, despite being closed. I heard beeping sounds and slowly opened my eyes and squinted to get a view of the room I was in.
A hospital.
Images of my night came flooding back to me.
The guy in the Lamborghini. The alley. His two hundreds.
My heart leapt.
The killer!
“Jace!” I muttered, pushing myself up with the elbow on my arm that hadn’t been hurt. “Jace!”
“I’m here, Sasha.” His voice came from beside me and I turned to see him standing beside my bed, a hospital gown draped over him. “You’re in the hospital. We were attacked. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” I muttered as the cotton in my brain began to thin out. “Are—are you okay? Why are you in a gown?”
“My ankle,” he replied, glancing down. “It was hurt, but I’m all right. You got it worse than me.”
He took my hand. It was strong and firm and his scent was incredible and exactly what I needed. But there was another scent…not in the room but close by, and as I sniffed the air and it slid into my nostrils, I remembered.
My fated mate! The one who saved us!
Suddenly, the noise of the hospital seemed far away. The pain in my shoulder seemed nonexistent. The only thing my senses seemed to care about was finding the source of that scent…like a warm, comforting, crackling campfire.
“Where is he?” I stammered. Jace misunderstood.
“They don’t know,” he began to explain. “He got away when Arnold rescued us—”
“No, not him!” I blurted out as my eyes, as if on their own, followed the scent to the hall where a man was standing. “Him…”
He was an alpha, and that much would have been obvious even if I’d had the world’s most monstrous cold and hadn’t been able to pick up his incredible scent. He was well over six feet tall, and had short, dirty blond hair that had probably been combed back earlier but now hung loosely across his brow.
He was wearing a pair of jeans with no shoes and a white t-shirt that someone had given him. He reminded me of Brad Pitt in that twisted movie Se7en, which seemed fitting as he was in the middle of speaking to several police officers.
“He’s the one that saved us,” Jace said, as though it wasn’t obvious already. He was saying something to the men, probably telling them about what had happened, but when he nodded in my direction, and our eyes met, I felt the air escape my lungs.
Holy shit…
Even with him standing outside of my room, I could see the bright blue of his eyes that gleamed like the sky at noon. They held me firm like a tractor beam, as though they had a strong gravitational force that was threatening to pull me in.
In that moment, I felt bad for humans who would never know what it was like to truly experience love at first sight. It was just something you knew deep down in your bones. When I looked at him and saw the way he stood, the way he moved, smelled and looked at me, I just felt a piercing knowledge, a realization that our stars had aligned. It was like a warm hand around my heart letting me know that everything would be okay.
But then, a sudden sense of guilt invaded my mind.
What about Jace?
I forced myself to break away from the hypnotic stare of the alpha in the hall to look at the omega who’d been at my side, unquestionably, and was the only real rock I had in this world—the only person I’d been able to rely on. And I knew we weren’t really together, but there was something going on between us that we’d never really spoken about, and after the attack, I was feeling closer to him than ever.
He must have seen something in my face, though, that let him know what was on my mind, as he slowly nodded and whispered, “I know. I feel it too.”
Chapter Eight
Arnold
“There’s nothing else you can tell us, Irons?” the uniformed officers in front of me asked, referring to me by my last name as was customary in the force. “Distinctive markings? Body language?”
“I know deal, kid,” I growled. The nerve of this guy—acting like I didn’t know the important things to go over after witnessing a crime. “I’m a detective, for fuck’s sake. I’ve told you all I know, and now I have to deal with something else.”
Leaving it at that, I stepped away from the conversation and back into the room where Jace and Sasha were now awake and both looking over at me. I tried to wrap my mind around what I was feeling, to put in rational terms the emotions racing through me at the sight of my fated mates.
I’d been protecting them for a while now without them knowing, and felt as though I already knew them. I knew that Sasha relied on Jace in an almost brotherly kind of way, but I also knew there was something else going on between them, even if they didn’t know or acknowledge it.
There was a tension there as though both of them understood the potential of what there was between them, but something was missing. And I knew what that something was: me.
“How are you feeling?” I said, addressing Sasha for the first time. “My name is Arnold. Arnold Irons.”
Sasha’s lower lip quivered. I tried not to acknowledge the fact that he was blushing.
“S-Sasha,” he replied.
I know.
I reached out with my hand, and he instinctively raised his to mine. I took it and felt its warmth and held it gently as though I might break him. I wanted to raise it to my lips and kiss it, but that was probably too much, especially given the fact that this was a hospital setting and I was here as a cop.
“I…am a detective,” I explained. Surely he was confused as to how I’d come to their aid in the alley. “I’ve been tracking the man who attacked you for some time. When I saw you in trouble—”
“Thank you!” Sasha blurted out. I felt his hand tense in mine and felt an overwhelming urge to sweep him into my arms and comfort him.
He was such a sweet boy and I could see that life had dealt him a horrible hand and he was still recovering from whatever had happened in his past. All I wanted to do was fix that for him—give him the life he deserved. He was just one of those people that needed a chance. I could see it.
Let me give that to you.
“You’re very welcome,” I smiled, wishing more than anything that I could kiss his hand.
Let me help you.
“And you’re Jace,” I said, breaking my eyes from Sasha and locking them on the other omega in the room who smelled just as sweet and was just as easy on my eyes. “How’s the ankle?”
“Fine, thanks,” he replied, playing it tough. Of course it hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as Sasha’s shoulder.
“My shoulder isn’t that bad either,” Sasha said. I couldn’t tell if the joke was directed at me or Sasha, but it made me smile anyway.
Yeah, you’re tough, Sasha. Tougher than you know.
His raspberry pie smell had me salivating, and his thin, beautiful body had things beginning to stir inside my jeans. Jace’s sweet cream smell mixed with it so perfectly that I couldn’t ignore it. Was it possible, somehow, that both of them could actually be my fated mates?
I didn’t think that was how it worked, and in all my time on the earth I’d never me
t anyone who’d ever been in that situation themselves. Of course I’d met the kinky swinger types or the polyamorous humans, but never a fated mate shifter relationship of two omegas and an alpha, or any other combination you could think of. But…maybe it was possible?
Under normal circumstances, these working boys would have been nervous as Hell around a cop like me. They were probably steaming about their lost money from tonight, but neither of them seemed on edge at all. In fact, they seemed as infatuated with me as I was with them, and I wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip through my fingers.
“Is there anybody I should call?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Friends? Family?”
“No,” Sasha replied quickly.
“No one,” Jace added. “Just us.”
“Why don’t I get you out of here and take you home?” I asked them. “As long as the doctors say it’s okay?”
Jace glanced over at Sasha, the more cautious of the two, but Sasha responded instantly.
“That would be great!”
Jace turned back to me and nodded. “As long as it’s okay with the doctors.”
“Oh,” I replied. “I’m sure it will be.”
Chapter Nine
Jace
As we got into the backseat of Arnold’s car, a civil war was raging inside of me.
On one side were the intense emotions screaming out to me that this man was my, our, fated mate and that it was perfectly fine to be going home with him despite the fact that we didn’t know him from Adam. And on the other side, was my street-boy side telling me that this was just another crazy stalker who was going to take us back to his home and kill us and eat us after playing the good guy and saving us. All part of his twisted game!
Relax, I told myself, holding Sasha’s hand tight as Arnold sped away from the hospital. But as we got on the freeway, I saw he wasn’t heading towards Mission Beach where we live, but was instead heading east. I felt myself instantly tense up.
