“Michael, please explain to me what the hell is going on, and why my shifter is lying here on the table not recovering like she should be,” Hann said, rage and sadness in his voice.
Grant couldn’t imagine how he felt. Hann, as an alpha of so many, almost saw his pack as his children. He didn’t do well when said children die in battle, and Grant saw how devastated he was after Kaiser’s attack first hand. Hann alone helped Grant through his mother’s death, and seeing how bent out of shape Hann was from the shifters who died, though it was a small number, made Grant realize just how much his alpha cared about everyone – which was such a rare feat in this day and age. Grant knew stories about alphas in other places that, quite literally, don’t care and don’t have much to do with the pack.
Hann was completely different. And he was loved by every single shifter in the Moonlight Pack. Hell, he was loved by other shifters around the world, even ones who didn’t know him. The man was an icon. A legacy.
So, it was weird seeing how broken he sounded and acted right then and there as he took in Britta lying on the table and Lukas’s own unhealed wounds. There were so many unanswered questions. And he wanted answers. Now.
“There is something else at play here,” Michael began, talking to everyone in the room using the mental communication link. It was weird, though – even in their heads, the Elder still sounded like he was whispering loudly to all. It was such a weird paradox. “Britta is not healing normally like shifter should. And for that matter, neither of Lukas. Britta obviously had the most wounds here, sadly.”
“But how is this possible?” Grant jumped in, still confused. This has never happened before – so why is it happening now? Things didn’t make sense, and no matter how hard Grant tried to make the situation clearer, he couldn’t.
“I think there was something in their claws and their teeth,” Lukas said after a slight pause.
Everyone looked at him in confusion, as well as surprise.
“What do you mean?” Ethan asked. Grant had almost forgotten he was in the room. He was near the back, giving the pack the space they needed to mourn and figure out what was going on.
Grant looked at Britta and hated the way she was breathing uneven in pain.
“I mean, there had to have been some type of poison or magic or something that they coated their claws and teeth in before they attacked us,” Lukas said, and then jumped into why he thought this. “When I was surveying the area, before this all happened, I was hearing rogues say how this time they were finally ahead of the rest of the shifters. They finally had something where they could beat us. I thought they were talking about Gabriel, and how having an Elder on their side was going to change their losing streak. I think they were talking about this, instead, now that I’ve seen the consequences.”
“I have to agree with Lukas on this matter,” Michael added. “My own healing methods don’t work on this poor child now. It refuses to be healed by anything shifter or magic. She has lost so much blood that she can’t shift. But, as you can see, Lukas did shift and those wounds transferred from his wolf body to his human body. This is new territory, and the only way this could happen is if shifter magic is at play. And I believe that Gabriel is helping them with that.”
“So, there’s no way to heal her?” Grant asked, his heart breaking.
“Only the old-fashioned way,” Michael told him comfortingly. “The way that humans heal themselves, that is. Through long, hard work, and prayers. But I have a feeling she is going to be okay. This one doesn’t just give up the fight when it’s just started.”
Grant sat himself, still in his wolf form, right next to Britta, but out of the way of Michael and Lukas so that they could do their work. He couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like his worst nightmare was coming true, and he couldn’t do anything but watch. She could die.
He refused to think like that. Now, he would just think of positive things. He imagined her waking up, better than ever and ready to go for a run with him in the woods. He imagined her being able to shift in her human form, and then laughing at how it was just her luck that she was brutally injured on her first mission.
He imagined her okay. That was all he really wanted. For her to be just okay.
“Michael, if this is true, this is worse than we thought,” Hann told Michael, who solemnly nodded his head. “If all of those rogues out there have this magic, this poison, whatever this is, then they can really harm us. More so than before. And there’s already more rogues than we thought. This could turn out to be a slaughter – and we’d be on the losing side.”
No one in the room knew what to do. Hann had never talked like that. Hann was always the easygoing, laid back alpha that laughed with people and said that everything was going to be okay. To hear him talk like this now, and to sound so bleak and negative about their potential fight that was to happen soon, was crazy.
But he was right. He was being realistic. And everyone in the room had chills like never before.
This wasn’t going to turn out okay. Even if Britta pulled through and was fine in the end, those rogues were still coming for them. And nothing would ever be the same again.
CHAPTER 23
Britta felt like a garbage truck had ran her over again and again.
When she slowly opened her eyes, she shut them quickly again from the bright light that was all around. Was she dying? Was this what “follow the light” meant.
One more look out into the world proved that no, she wasn’t dying, and the white light that was killing her head was just a bedroom light that faded as her eyes became accustomed to the light. Her head still pounded in pain though.
Britta slowly took in her surroundings. She was in some bed, in some type of house, and Grant was sleeping in a chair next to her, his head resting on the bed by her. She smiled when she saw him, and her heart leapt with joy. What was he doing here?
Better yet, what was she doing here?
And then, the last few moments that she remembered before waking up in a strange house and a strange bed came flooding back to her, all at once. The fight with those three rogues that somehow recognized and followed Lukas. Her killing of one, but then her weird feelings as she fought the other one. Her wounds that wouldn’t heal.
Remembering those wounds, she had the weird desire to look down at her body. Which was crazy, because she was in her human body. She wouldn’t have those wounds. But low and behold, there those wounds were. The cuts, jabs, and scraps that those rogues gave her where still very much in plain sight.
Which was crazy. Impossible. Never heard of.
Why were these wounds, that she gained as a wolf, still on her human body? That… never happened. Britta’s heart beat in her chest a bit faster as she tried to make sense of everything else. She remembered falling to the ground, but she obviously didn’t die. She didn’t remember anything else at all.
She wondered how long she had been out. She hoped it hadn’t been too long. And where the hell was she? Whose house was this?
She didn’t want to wake up Grant, mainly because she knew that he was a cranky person when he hadn’t gotten his sleep, but also because she knew that he would tell her everything that had happened. And something about the truth scared her. She didn’t know if she wanted to know the truth.
She gave up and realized that she had to learn what really happened, so she gently nudged Grant awake. She felt pain crawl up her arm from the pressure, and she had to bit her lip so that she didn’t yelp in pain. She felt horrible. The fact that she could even move was crazy.
Grant slowly awoke, as if he was in a dream at first, but when he realized that Britta was up, in her human form, and smiling down at him, he snapped out of his dreary state immediately.
“Hey, you,” Grant said, a huge smile forming on his face as he took in her face, her body, every ounce of her. “You’re up. How are you feeling?”
“That was a shit question,” Britta laughed, rolling
her eyes where she lay in bed. “I feel horrible. What happened?”
“I’m gonna get Hann so that he can fill you in,” Grant told her before he quickly left, returning with their alpha. Grant gently clasped her hand, and only squeezed it in comfort when Britta squeezed him, letting him know that it didn’t hurt.
“Hello, Britta,” Hann said as he sat down on the other side of the bed and smiled at her. “It’s good to see your awake and in your human form again.”
“Human form?” Britta asked, confusion in her eyes. “Could I not shift back to my human form earlier?”
“No, dear,” Hann replied, shaking his head softly. “You were too injured. When we put you in this room to rest, you were still in your wolf form. You must’ve shifted when you were sleeping.”
“Hann… What happened?” Britta had to know. Her curiosity was killing her.
And then Hann jumped in with the story of everything they learned, including what Lukas learned in Michigan as a refresher. Britta nodded and agreed that the magic poison, or whatever the hell it was that the rogues possessed, seemed to do the trick and make her incapacitated. This would definitely give them the upper hand in the battles, sadly. Britta couldn’t believe that Gabriel would go to these extremes, though. He obviously really wanted to bring about destruction and the downfall of the society that’s trying to progress without him.
“I don’t think I have any broken bones, though,” Britta told him, confused. She was fairly certain that she would’ve gained at least one broken bone in her fight with those rogues, though she felt no broken bones in her body. She felt horrible, of course, but she knew that she had nothing broken.
“Michael and I have been talking about it and throwing out some theories,” Hann said. “And your new state helps us prove one of the theories we’ve been talking about. I believe that the magic poison, or whatever these rogues have, doesn’t just stop the healing process in us. It definitely slows it down, though. For example, if we hadn’t stitched you up and stopped your wounds from bleeding, you would have died because your healing process had been momentarily slowed down. Maybe when you shifted into your human form, it helped speed up the process in regard to your broken bones. Also, it’s been a few hours – and time always helps.”
“And Lukas had wounds when he shifted into his human form as well?”
“That’s correct.”
“Hann… This isn’t good. How are we going to defend ourselves if they have an added incentive to kill us? They can really cause damage with this.”
“I know, my friend. But trust me. We will find a way to end up on top. We always do.”
And with one more smile and a wink, Hann got up and left, leaving Britta in a state of bewilderment.
Britta looked back over to Grant, who had the strangest look in his eyes. She couldn’t decipher it.
“Come here,” she motioned to him, indicating that he should climb up and cuddle with her in the small bed she lay in.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said tentatively, hesitating as he took in her bruised body.
“You won’t.”
Grant climbed into bed, and Britta helped him slide under the covers. He wrapped his arms around her, and Britta instantly felt warm and safe. The cold air of uncertainty was gone now, and she had Grant to thank for that. She had missed him so much. She was so happy that he was here with her. Where ever here was…
“Hey, where are we exactly?” Britta asked finally as she rested her cheek on Grant’s strong chest. She loved the way he felt. She loved his strong, steady heartbeat that threatened to lull her to sleep.
“Some house in New York that Michael and Hann use as a safe house or something, I guess,” Grant told her as she softly stroked her hair.
“Grant?”
“Yes, babe?”
“I think something horrible is going to happen. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know when it’ll be. But the atmosphere there? It was horrible. They’re planning something big, and I’m scared that we won’t all make it out. We need to be prepared.”
“We will be. We’ll go back to Maine and we’ll train like never before. We’ll make our whole pack get their asses in the gym to practice. We’ll be prepared, babe. We just have to be confident and realistic.”
“Who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend? You know, the guy that is negative about literally everything? Where the hell did all of this optimism and positivity come from?”
Grant laughed as Britta smiled up at him. She felt her eyes soften with drowsiness, though she was determined to stay awake for a little while longer.
“I think, when you were asleep for a while, I began to refuse to think of all of the negative things I was thinking. I couldn’t bear it. I was going crazy waiting for you to wake up and say you were okay, so my mind naturally went to the most horrible thing I could think of. I decided that that line of thinking wasn’t helping anyone – especially me. So, I simply stopped, and I just filled my brain with positive things.”
“I love you.”
There wasn’t anything else Britta needed to say other than those three words that she felt with all of her heart.
Before she fell asleep in the arms of her loved one, she heard him say “I love you” back, making her smile before she crashed.
CHAPTER 24
It had been a week since everything happened, and Grant still felt like his life could change at any moment. He kept on having thoughts that Britta’s condition could make a turn for the worse, which was crazy because Britta was almost completely healed now.
They were back in Maine, and Grant was taking over Britta’s lessons at the gym so that she could rest. Lukas was also trying to get back in the best shape possible, and Michael made it clear that they would both make a full recovery. Thank god. Grant didn’t know what he would do if Britta didn’t.
Britta, for her part, turned out to be the worst patient in history. She kept on wanting to go out and run in her wolf form, or Grant would come home and find her cooking in the kitchen. She wasn’t supposed to be on her feet at all in the beginning, but no one could seem to get her to stay put. She was staying at Grant’s place so that he could take care of her, something they were both more than a little nervous about when they first decided it. However, they both loved living together. Grant hated her as a patient, of course, but he loved her and he would put up with her crazy BS any day of the week.
Grant knew that Hann and Michael had started spreading the information to all the other packs about what the rogues were planning – and, more importantly, the magic that they had on their claws and teeth that made it fairly easy to take down their opponent. They were telling the packs to try and keep it tight lipped, though. They didn’t want a rogue or a sympathizer to hear and then to go running to Gabriel or someone else and then tell them that everyone knew about their plans and their new weapons of choice. Michael wanted to try and trace Gabriel still, and he felt like he could if everyone just laid low and pretended to be oblivious.
Though everyone knew that once those bodies of the rogues Lukas and Britta killed were found, questions would be raised and Gabriel and his rogues would be on high alert. They probably already were on high alert. Michael and everyone had to tread very carefully.
“Hey, Grant,” Finn called to him from across the room. Grant had just finished up teaching a small class about different defensive maneuvers. Grant and Finn were now fine in every way possible, and Grant was, surprisingly, beginning to see him as a friendly face.
“What’s up, man?” Grant asked him as he walked across the room to talk to him as everyone else in the class began to leave.
“I was just wondering how Britta was doing,” Finn told him, sweat beading from his head. “I heard that she’s doing better, but I just wanted to know if I could do anything to help her out.”
“She’s doing better. But there’s nothing you can do. All we can do is wait. She says that she’s great and she
plans on being back here next week to start her classes up again, so you guys won’t have to deal with my shitty teaching anymore.”
Both Grant and Finn laughed at that. Grant was a good teacher, but he was no Britta. And he knew that.
“Well, that’s good to hear. I can’t wait to hear her shit on me, time and time again. Can you believe I miss that?”
“The woman has everyone missing her – even the people who hate her. She considers it her gift.”
They both laughed again at the love that everyone seemed to have for Britta before Finn waved goodbye and left. Grant couldn’t believe everything that had changed in the last few weeks. He had started off hating Finn, for selfish reasons, of course. Now, he actually found he had a soft spot for the shifter from another pack. He never thought he would.
He never thought that he would be in love with Britta, either. And he sure as hell never thought that she would be in love with him.
Things had changed so much in such a short amount of time, but he wasn’t going to complain. He was in love and his girl was healing. He couldn’t ask for anything more than that.
CHAPTER 25
“A war is brewing, my friends,” Michael told the little group in Hann’s living room. Britta was with the usual alpha group (Kato, Ethan, Ross, Hann), but Hann had included some others (Lukas, Annie, Grant) because they were directly involved with the situation that had unfolded a week ago.
Britta was fine now. Hell, she was more than fine. She still hurt a little, sure, but she hated being cooped up and told to not do anything for 24 hours straight. For a whole week. She was ready to get back out in the world and do some good. Teach some shifters. And she couldn’t contribute to the war that was going to come if she was stuck in bed.
The Uprising (Moonlight Wolves Book 3) Page 11
