It wasn’t sexual. It was close.
He needed to be close to Justiss.
It was a thought that ran rife around his mind. Like scurrying mice chasing after cheese, it pervaded every synapse until he realized this was probably one of the prices the Goddess had meant.
Proximity.
He would have to be close to Justiss.
Not just have to, would need to.
He could feel it. Justiss was no longer just a buddy, not a brother by choice as well as a brother in his Shifter Clan and MC. He was in his bones. The sacrifice Graver had made linked them in ways that were usually shared between mates and only rarely between anyone else. Now, he guessed that made sense, because in a mate bond proximity was never an issue. Hell, mates could never get close enough. But brothers? Yeah, that could be a problem.
He dragged a hand through his hair, only now feeling the pounding at his temples. Blood loss. It made him feel weak, a little nauseated, and the added insult, a migraine that felt like it could slam through his skull.
Jesus.
“Graver?” Kiko called out, concern in his tone.
“Yeah. I’m okay,” he replied, voice croaky. “Where is everyone?”
“They’re on their way.”
By bike, came unspoken.
“You are well?”
Graver reared back in surprise at the new voice. It was tinted with Slavic tones that he knew could belong to one person only: Mischa, Kiko’s new mate.
He hadn’t seen her, hadn’t even sensed her presence. Fuck, that hollered at him how out of sorts his senses were. He should have known she was there.
Still, there was no point in crying over spilled milk. He was allowed some semblance of weakness after having donated blood to a dying man and speaking with the Goddess who had created them. “Yes, Mischa, I’m okay.” He smiled at the pointed face, the beautiful features shrouded with blond hair that tumbled over cut-glass cheekbones, which peered around the side of the chair to study him.
She wasn’t a small woman, but in the huge ass bucket seats of the pickup that shouted wealthy redneck, she looked like a doll.
Not that she’d have appreciated the comparison.
“I’m not a doll,” she snarled, and Graver reared back a little as his thoughts collided with her angry retort.
Kiko cleared his throat then quickly murmured, “Graver, buddy, we’re getting you both to the hospital. Major, as per fucking usual, isn’t at the MC. Where the fuck he goes, I have no idea, but it’s getting on Mars’s last nerve. It wouldn’t be a problem if he wasn’t the only fucking healer we can trust!”
He rattled on, his anger at Major honest and legit, but Graver knew the ramblings were meant to cover up Mischa’s words rather than be a blast of annoyance at their MC kin. He was too exhausted to figure out why though, and his head started to pound in time to Kiko’s words.
Graver grimaced. “Kiko, it’s okay. Chill.” His words broke into the second-in-command’s diatribe, and he took advantage of the silence to say, “I’m fine. Let’s get to the hospital though, eh? My head is killing me. It’s like it’s splitting in fucking two.”
“Sorry, bud,” Kiko murmured, his voice a quiet rumble. Graver sensed the attention on him from both the driver and his mate; Mischa was still peering around the seat, and Kiko kept flashing glances at him from the rearview mirror. He ignored their attention, tilted his head back, and tried to rest, but it wasn’t easy. The roads in this part of Houston were busy.
The Nomads’ clubhouse was deep in Channelview, close to the train tracks but far away from everything fucking else, including a medical center. Plus, they couldn’t go local. So, without asking, Graver knew they’d have to head into the city for anonymity sake.
Humans knew Shifters existed and they even had treatment centers at some of the bigger clinics for their kind. It wasn’t that they weren’t accommodated, but it was a fact that no one liked revealing their identity to humans. So much so that there was usually one of their own who could deal with the few injuries that being a Shifter with ‘magic blood’ didn’t cure.
In this instance, theirs, Major, was AWOL.
Since the days when Shifters had come out of the closet, the same time as Hitler had started assfucking Europe, they had learned to be discreet about their identities.
As a race, they’d determined that revealing themselves was the singular way to stop Hitler in his tracks, their intent to pad the regular troops with soldiers who were any government’s idea of a Captain America on ‘roids.
Of course, humans being the dickwads they were, had taken advantage of Shifters and generally had made it so that not a single one of them wished they hadn’t stuck to the shadows as they had done for a thousand years.
Still, at times like these, when healers were out and about doing whatever the fuck it was that had them out of the MC all the hours Godsend—Graver had also noticed Major was never at the clubhouse these days, so it was handy that clinics with Shifter healers were close by.
Justiss’s head was a heavy weight on his lap, one that only made itself known to Graver when J rolled it a little, moaning in his sleep.
It felt weird to do what he was about to do, but he could only imagine how much pain the other man was in if he felt like he’d been run over by a steam roller. Like his mother had done to him when he was a boy—fuck, she’d done it to him two years ago when he’d broken two ribs and gotten a concussion in a bike crash—he ran his hands through J’s hair, gently rubbing the temples and trying not to feel weird as shit as he did it.
The man instantly stilled and ceased moaning.
Graver froze, stunned by the reaction to a simple touch. He heard a gasp, looked up, and saw Mischa was watching, that she too was surprised. He gulped, feeling vulnerable at her attention. It felt imperative that he state he wasn’t gay, that he wasn’t touching him with any sexual intent, but before he could stir up the courage to say the words, she murmured, “It’s okay. It’s fine, Graver. Help him. He’s hurting.”
He cleared his throat, an involuntary gesture that had him wincing with the pain it stirred in his skull, and returned his attention to Justiss. The man’s hair was white gold in places, dark gold in others. As Bear Shifters, they tended toward tawny—lots of blonds and browns, very few brunets. Graver was a rarity with his blacker than black hair. Justiss wasn’t.
Weird thing was, the silken strands he sifted between his fingers felt good. Good enough to ease some of the pain in Graver’s own head. Not that it made much sense, if any. Why should running his fingers through another man’s hair make Graver feel better? But there was no denying it did.
Maybe it was the connection? It was something Mars and Annette referred to and which the Goddess had labelled more as a price, rather than a gift.
Mars had spared his mate’s life by blood sacrifice. A stray bullet from the cartel at war with the MC had ricocheted into their bedroom during a firefight and had struck Annette. To save her, Mars had had to make a sacrifice, and they were crazy close now.
In fact, he’d seen them together and apart and knew that even if they were in the clubhouse, if not in the same room, they weren’t as content as when they were near one another.
How did he know that?
Graver had been tending bar for a long time. It was a great way to earn cash, and he’d been in and out of the MC ever since his siblings had passed on. The Nomads were his Clan though. His bear needed them, so he never tried to live long in the human world because it drove him insane. But when he did, he tended bar, and he’d gotten really good at reading people.
When Annette and Mars were close, their faces were relaxed, like micro-expression relaxed—lips, chin, and jaw soft. No tension brackets at the nose or pinching between the eyebrows. Their eyes were calm, content. The muscles soft. But when they were apart, it was the complete opposite. Graver had seen Annette when Mars had gone out on club business one evening. The usually calm and collected journalist had been shrill, tension maki
ng her usually fluid movements jerky, her face loaded with stress until it had been uncomfortable for him to see. Of course, she might have been in a shitty mood, but moments later, when Mars had returned and swept her up in his arms, it had been like she’d been dosed with fucking Valium or something.
Was that a fate that he and J would have to endure?
How would that work? They weren’t gay. That was a fact. Graver liked chicks, and he knew Justiss did too. He was younger than J, but he’d experimented enough to know that pussy was his meal of choice, and he got the feeling J did too the way he eyed the club bunnies when they were around. No man who appreciated a woman’s ass as much as J did was gay or bi.
Which meant what?
Things were going to get difficult if suddenly two Alpha males had to start living together, if their moods soured if they were apart, and if they were stressed and miserable if one left the clubhouse on business.
The Goddess was right. They would be paying a steep price to keep J alive, but Graver knew he would have no regrets. Sure, when J was awake and understood the situation, that would probably change. There would be arguments, and undoubtedly they’d say nasty shit to help them shuffle their ruffled feathers, but no matter what, Graver would never regret saving J.
No price was too high to keep this man alive. That was a fucking fact—one he’d just have to remember and keep at the forefront of his mind when the bastard fucked him off.
Which would very likely be the instant he opened his eyes.
And Graver would never, ever not be thankful the moment he did.
Chapter 2
Antonia Juarez rubbed the back of her neck and wished she could remove her clogs and rub her feet instead. She was on shift for another hour, and those sixty minutes were far fewer than the hundreds she’d started out with this morning, but still, she wanted home.
Stat.
It had been a shitty night. She was used to the worst, had dealt with many, and would deal with thousands more before she retired, but still. This had been shittier than most.
Halfway through her shift, the victims of a car crash had been rushed in. Two joyriding idiots had smashed into a family sedan. The selfish bastards had survived with minor cuts and bruises, but the family sedan, which had been shepherding a mother, father, and three children, all under six, hadn’t been so lucky.
If the father walked again, he’d be fortunate. Maybe if his healthcare coverage extended to some epic physio, he’d rehab better, but she’d seen the clothes they’d had to cut off to access his wounds. There was no way this guy was an exec with the best kind of insurance benefits. The mother was in a bad way; she’d been in surgery since registration. Only the kids were doing fine. By some miracle, broken bones and mild concussions were the worst of it, but emotionally? They were as bad as the parents.
Even down here in the restroom, a good hundred feet away from where the kids were being tended to, terrified grandparents at their sides, she could still hear their sobs… their terror. She couldn’t blame them. How could she? She’d lost her parents when she’d been a little older than them, and to this day, she could feel that horror, the fear of being alone, of having her entire world ripped apart, never to be sewn back together again.
Those feelings were slamming her square in the gut and had been since she’d started working on the family’s case. It was why she was here in the restroom, taking a time out when the ER was jam-packed and crazy, desperately needing more hands on deck. But Toni knew when to back off, knew when she needed space and a few moments to breathe, and now she needed it more than ever.
Leaning over the sink, she gripped the edges and stared into the mirror. Dark circles rested under her eyes thanks to a shitty sleep schedule. She’d been on nights for the past two weeks, with a further two weeks still to go. Her manager had shoved her on this roster as punishment for two reasons: one, for not putting out—it never ceased to astonish her that he could get away with harassing her, and her complaint could still be ignored by the upper administration—and two, because there were four members of the night team on staff this month.
She hated nights. Always had. During her residency, it had been a nightmare working once dark hit. Because the truth was, thirty-four or not, Toni was terrified of the dark. She hated it. With a passion. She hated looking out of the windows and seeing pitch black. She liked being at home, curtains tightly closed, hiding her from the oppressive blanket of night.
Here, on the rare occasions she had the chance of looking out onto the parking lot, she saw nothing but that.
True, she started and ended before night fell and as morning broke. But that didn’t stop her from falling prey to the darkness around the hospital. When she took her break, it was in the window-encircled canteen. When she had to run outside to grab a gurney from an ambulance, she had to go out and be in the dark.
It was crazy. She was too old for such a ridiculous fear, but that was the insanity of a phobia. It was irrational. It made no sense to anyone else. And it could and would overtake every other part of a person’s life.
She rarely dated because most people wanted to date at night. Sure, a few guys were content to start dating at lunchtimes, catching up for coffee meets and the like. But eventually, they wanted longer than an hour with a prospective partner. Then, when she explained why that wasn’t a possibility, unless they came around to her place with no expectation of her putting out, they usually laughed at her. Or stared at her in astonishment.
Sometimes, she couldn’t blame them.
She wasn’t four and afraid of the monsters under the bed or in her closet. She had three decades on that but still feared the night could swallow her up whole, as it had done her parents.
Shuddering, Toni lifted a hand and rubbed at her eyes with pointer finger and thumb. They were gritty, aching, and when she grasped the sink again, she winced at the sight of how bloodshot they were. Sleeping through the day went against everything she stood for, which was why she hadn’t been sleeping great since she’d started on night shifts. But today, something was going to have to give. She needed rest. ASAP.
Wondering if she should pop an herbal remedy or down a couple of shots of whiskey, she splashed some water on her face then patted it dry with some toilet tissue she grabbed from a cubicle. Her silver-streaked black hair was still tight and neat in her high bun and her green eyes were as bright as they could be after the shock of the cold water, but tension bracketed her nose and mouth, making her look a lot older than thirty-four.
She wasn’t a vain woman, but that shit stunk.
Who wanted to look older than their years? And all because of restless sleep and a stupid phobia that paralyzed her world.
She pinched her cheeks, dragging some color into them, rubbed at the lines either side of her nose and mouth in dismay, then swiped on some lip balm she kept in the pocket of her lab coat.
Toni didn’t look much better, but she felt it. A little. At least she’d tried.
Grimacing and discarding the fact that pinching her cheeks was a temporary measure and that the paleness of her naturally tanned skin was down to fatigue, nothing else, she headed out of the restroom as a gaggle of nurses walked in. They immediately stopped chattering when they noticed she was there, but she was used to that. The staff didn’t like her because she was anal retentive and a control freak.
The irony of her life was that her inability to control her fear of the night made her hyper-controlled everywhere else.
They called her the ‘Robot.’
Not the most original of names, but it had stuck hard and fast.
She heard them whisper it as she nodded at them in greeting then continued her retreat to the ER. The instant the door closed, she jolted a little in surprise when she saw the corridor was empty. That was unheard of. The place always heaved, but this little pocket of paradise was wonderful. She took time to head down the hall, spying through the glass inserts in the doors at the bottom of the corridor that the quiet was coming to an en
d.
An hour.
That was it.
Just another hour to go.
The cacophony of noise had her grimacing when she walked into her station, but she ignored it and headed toward a cubicle that had been empty when she’d gone to the restroom but was occupied now.
A nurse waited there, clipboard in hand, notes already jotted down. She smiled in relief when she saw Toni, which had her jolting again in more surprise. People rarely smiled at her. Certainly not in relief. If anything, they groaned under their breath in irritation at having to work with such a stickler.
Toni knew her reputation and wasn’t ashamed of it.
Better to be known for being too damn good at her job than sucking at it.
The nurse, Betsy, passed the clipboard over, and Toni took it, scanning down the case history. Her brows rose in bewilderment, and she glanced over at the cubicle’s occupants for the first time. The minute she did, she understood why Betsy had been relieved at the sight of her.
Six men, all of them huge, were crammed inside the small cubicle. One of them lay on the gurney, unconscious, and another, a younger one, sat at his side in the only chair.
“Are these all relatives?” she asked Betsy.
“Yeah. We’re brothers,” one of the blondest guys she’d ever seen said.
“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait outside.”
Betsy cleared her throat. “They’re unhappy with that suggestion. Quoted Article 45 of the Shifter-Human Ethics Treaty.”
Toni frowned, scanned through her memory for the article, then winced. “You’re only going to get in the way,” she tried to compromise, then realized her words weren’t exactly conciliatory. So, she tried again. “I mean, it will be detrimental to…” She scanned the sheet again. “Justiss’s recuperation if you’re all hanging around. I need space to examine him.”
“Look, you know the article, you know our rights. We’re not moving.”
The youngest there cleared his throat but kept his gaze trained on the supine man. “Mars, Kiko, back down. You guys don’t need to be here. Only I do. Let the healers do what they gotta do. Let’s not get in her way. Then we can go home.”
Justiss And Graver (MC Bear Mates Book 4) Page 2
