When he opened the door to the room, Robert was standing near Haley. “I need to get her to the hospital, Hunter. I called an ambulance from Samsaville it will be arriving in a few seconds.”
“Hunter, are you there?” Haley’s eyes struggled to open. She appeared pale and weak. She tried raising her hand and it slumped back near her side. Hunter took her hand in his and sat near her bed.
“Don’t leave me, Hunter,” Haley said in a small voice. “If you do, I think I’ll die. If I die then I can’t marry you and take care of you.”
“None of that Haley. You’re not going to die.” He wasn’t sure if she was being melodramatic as she usually does, or if it was true that she could. He never knew Robert to be an alarmist so when he said that she was very sick he was sure of it.
“Promise me I won’t,” Haley said in a faint voice. He glanced at Robert. Robert shook his head. He didn’t know.
Hunter didn’t want to promise her something he couldn’t keep. He had to think fast and he unintentionally said, “Because if you die, then I can’t marry you.”
Haley looked up at Hunter in relief with a weak smile and her eyes closed. He showed Robert a worried look. His eyes darkening. He wasn’t a wolf to smile often, but lately there were few and far in between the next one. He didn’t remember the last time he felt happy.
He stumbled over the words about marrying her. The only person he would have wanted to marry was no longer his. He had just said that to appease a sick young girl, and give her a reason to live like he needed one, too.
“Haley, I need you not to speak to anyone who comes to your bed asking questions. You have to go to the hospital.”
Her eyes opened with small slits. “Will you go with me?” Hunter glanced up at Robert and he shook his head yes. Then he gestured for Hunter to step into the next room. Hunter followed.
“I don’t think she will make it.” Hunter’s eyes grew wide and cold and settled on the floor. Then he looked up and met Robert’s gaze.
“See that she does.” Robert pulled his arm from Hunter’s grip. Hunter didn’t realize that he had reached for Robert’s arm during the conversation. His strong hands had wrapped around his wrist and cut off Robert’s circulation. Robert stood back in surprise.
“You need to control your temper. I swear if I didn’t know better, I would think you’re Lycell’s offspring,” Robert said stepping back getting out of range of Hunter’s long grasp.
A knock came to the door and in rushed paramedics pushing a gurney. Robert pointed and they preceded to place Haley on the stretcher. She glanced up barely opening her eyes and reached for Hunter.
“You are all she has Hunter. Didn’t you say you’re her guardian, now act like it.” Robert left to get his bag.
Robert hurried into the ambulance to find Hunter already sitting with Haley, her hand in his. Haley’s eyes closed. Her hand limp. Her body cold.
Chapter 4
It took ten minutes to Samsaville traveling on the new road constructed for the convenience of Adrienne for shopping purposes. The hospital where the ambulance was transporting Haley to was furnished with the latest equipment.
A new wing of the hospital had just opened. It had a trauma and cancer research center. Robert recruited young doctors to work with some of the older more experience doctors. As a team they would treat and find cures for diseases that plagued werewolves and humans.
It took one minute for the ambulance to pull up to the state of the art research hospital and stop at the emergency entrance. There were no hospitals as advance and none as unknown to outsiders as the Samsa Medical Center. Hunter’s grandfather had built it and the town when he established his pack back in the day when no one knew there were shifters or cared.
“I’ve never seen the town lit up like this on a Saturday night. Everything has changed, I remember when this place had no more than a thousand people and they were all humans,” Hunter said climbing out of the ambulance. “Just look at the cars.”
“That’s because of all the shifters coming here to get protection. Wilder and Devin are responsible for turning this town into a haven for every kind of shifter. I never knew there were bear shifters,” Robert said to Hunter.
Hunter laughed. He had never seen them either. He could have met some in Alaska and never known what they were. Maybe they guarded their secrets more than us, Hunter thought.
“They are creating problems for Wilder and your uncles. You have young humans who get drunk and drive back to San Francisco, or where there are local motels, they tear up the place with crazy parties and then get into wrecks on the highway. This is happening too frequent and the townspeople can’t handle all the ruckus and carnage. We had to hire more doctors on a Saturday night because of all the drunk young shifters and their human girlfriends,” Robert said casting an unapologetic and unsympathetic look at Hunter.
“I guess you don’t approve of my brother being with Katie?” Hunter said walking along with Robert to the front desk.
“Wilder asked me to give a hand to the local doctors because the new hires knew little or anything about shifters. We had them sign a nondisclosure before they were hired. Not that they would divulge what they knew but we had to be careful all the same. These young doctors and nurses want to work, and at the high salaries Wilder is paying them, they are dedicated to their work and to this place.”
When they reached the front desk, Haley had been put into a private room in the children’s wing especially reserved for the Samsas.
The head nurse gave Hunter directions to Haley’s room. “I’ll meet you there after I talk to the doctors,” Robert assured Hunter.
Hunter ambled to Haley’s room and to Haley’s bedside. He noticed that she lay unusually still. He whispered her name, but she didn’t respond. He looked at her and sat down near her bed, held her hand, and stayed with her. A nurse came into the room an hour later to see Hunter sitting near Haley. His head down and face wearing a grim sad look. Hunter’s blue eyes dark, his face a ghostly pale color.
“Are you her father?”
“No. I’m her guardian.” She smiled at Hunter.
“I didn’t think so. You’re a little too young to have a teen age daughter.”
“How do you know?”
“When you walked out earlier she woke and said she was nineteen. She looks about that age, and the development of her body puts her around nineteen. What are you? Twenty-one. See you couldn’t be her father,” the young nurse said grinning shamelessly at him.
He had never noticed Haley’s body. She looked to him like an annoying twelve or fifteen year old child. To him she was no more than fifteen, but she acted as if she was twelve. It was her constant annoying rhetoric of her insistence on marrying him, where he thought she was much younger.
Most young girls have crushes on older men. He laughed when he thought of himself as older. He had just made nineteen when he first met Katie, and now he was twenty-one. Old for a werewolf.
Glancing down at Haley, his thoughts rest on Katie. Hunter wished Katie had said the same thing to him that Haley said. If he hadn’t promised her father to take care of her, he wouldn’t be in the hospital now. He could be out making the most of his young life, trying to get Katie back from his brother. Now he’s tending to a girl he doesn’t know and she’s complicating his life.
The nurse walked out after taking Haley’s temperature and blood pressure and saying, “Don’t worry Mr. Samsa, we’ve never lost a patient and because she’s young, I doubt that she will be here more than three days, then you can take her home.”
That was the last thing he wanted to do. He thought about asking Katie to keep her for a while until he could figure something out. Then he could have a reason to see Katie. Hunter stood glancing at Haley sleeping peacefully after the nurse gave her meds.
She’s not going to miss me, he thought. On his way out of the hospital room he met Robert. “I should be back before she wakes. I have something to take care of.”
H
unter didn’t wait for a reply. He walked down the corridor and took an elevator down to the first floor. On the elevator, the young nurse was walking in the direction of the exit. Hunter didn’t recognize her because she had her hair down and she had changed her clothes.
When they both arrived at the front door, he stepped aside and opened the door for her.
The nurse paused. “Thank you, Mr. Samsa. You don’t recognize me do you?”
“No. I don’t.”
“I’m the nurse for the teenager you brought into the hospital. My name is Christine. She held out her hand and he looked at it for a moment and he shook her hand. “You certainly have a strong grip.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. My name is Hunter.”
“You didn’t hurt me. It would take more than that. I have to lift patients most days.” Christine’s smile was engaging and warm. Her voice mild and interesting. It had been a long time since Hunter had a conversation with a woman. Human or werefemale.
It had been even longer since he had sex and he thought of sex all the time, especially since the moon was full.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Hunter said tilting his head to the right. His blue eyes charming and his half smile engaging her.
“Hell no. A stiff drink would do me fine.” He tilted his head to the left and looked down at her. My kind of woman, he thought.
“Where would you suggest we get a stiff drink?” Hunter questioned.
“Don’t you know? It’s your town.”
“I’ve been traveling abroad for two years. This used to be a small town. Now I don’t recognize it with homes and businesses and neighborhoods cropping up everywhere.”
“Just follow me.” She led him to the parking lot and opened her new Honda Civic. Then she opened the door on the passenger side and Hunter slid in the car with her.
“Thanks to your family I have a job and I got my nurse’s license about three years ago. I volunteered here when I was in high school. I’m doing great now, got me this new car and a nice apartment that your father built.” She smiled broadly.
Christine started the keyless ignition and they were off and driving to Main Street. She’s a pretty blond with brown eyes. Maybe bleached blond, but Hunter didn’t care. It was the night of the full moon.
Hunter knew she wasn’t a werefemale because the last time he was home, none were in his town, none but Katie. And none were working at the family businesses, and he could smell her. She didn’t repel him; she had that smell he had grown used to in female humans—soap and flowery shower gel.
And werefemales didn’t work. They were too busy taking care of the weremales, cooking and cleaning, and giving sexual favors to the Alphas in their packs. Because of a disease that they contracted, the young werefemales were barren, and rarely any young pups were born, except for the Samsas. There seem to be a heap of them now. It appears Wilder finally got the family and the pack he wanted and needed.
When Christine finally stopped her car, they were in front of the club Devin and Katie were hanging out in. Cars of all kind were parked all around the bar and in the large parking area out back. As she was cruising looking for a parking space, someone was hurriedly pulling out and Christine pulled in and stopped. Hunter jumped out in a second and he was standing near her door. He opened the car door for Christine.
Surprised at how quick he was and courteous she said, “Why thanks, Mr. Samsa.” She swiveled around and took Hunter’s extended hand. Getting out of the car her short dress exposed her toned thighs. Hunter took notice.
“Call me, Hunter. Mr. Samsa is for strangers. I plan on knowing everything about you tonight.” He shot her a striking dazzling white smile.
“Hunter it is,” Christine said returning a smile of equal brilliance as her brown eyes twinkled because of the sexual tension between them.
Hunter stopped at the door. “Have you been here before?”
“No, but I heard that it was the place to be on a Saturday night if you’re looking for danger and looking to have a good time,” Christine said raising both eyebrows at Hunter and shooting him a mysterious smile.
“Do you know what I am?” His face changed and he became reserved. The lights at the door glimmered over his handsome face. Christine liked what she saw. Hunter’s features are perfect and rugged.
“Yes. Everyone in Samsaville know who the Samsas are. And I don’t care if you don’t mind being with a human.” A wide smile came over Hunter and his eyes lit up and he felt like himself again. He opened the door and the bear shifter at the second door smiled and said:
“Go on in Mr. Samsa. Your brother is in the back.” Christine glanced up at Hunter.
“I like traveling with royalty.” The music and sound of grunts and moans resonated throughout the bar over the loud music of guitar solos.
“We’re not royalty.”
“The hell if you’re not.” She tucked her hand under his arm. As they walked in the dim lit room it appeared smaller than it actually was. The façade on the outside of the bar was unassuming, but once you walked inside, the area away from the bar was a dance floor with hundreds of people and shifters of all kind dancing to music from Rap to Rock and Roll.
The atmosphere in the room was of happiness and pleasure because some shifters had boundless energy. The werewolves were dancing and jumping and howling as the music boomed throughout the place.
The shifters could dance all night and never stop, as well as drink all night and never get drunk. The lights were spinning around and the colors were changing every second. The DJ a known shifter lover was spinning the music, and when he tired of spinning, he attached an IPod with endless songs of all types playing nonstop. But the look on the faces of the humans and shifters, they loved it. Or it could be the drinks, or whatever they had consumed had them stoned.
The shifters and humans had worked hard for the Samsas and now they were playing hard, Hunter thought, as he pushed passed them on the crowded dance floor in search of his brother and Katie.
As Hunter and Christine made it through the crowd, his sharp ears could hear Katie’s voice over all of the hundreds of voices in the large arena. Then Hunter looked to the right of him and there sat Devin and Katie. Devin spotted him and waved. Hunter took Christine’s hand, and led the way through a multitude of human young men and women, and male and female shifters.
When Devin saw them, he slide over. Devin sat on the end and Katie positioned herself in the middle watching carefully at Christine, taking in her long blond hair, the bright red color of lip gloss, as well as her short thin dress, and a pair of cowboy boots. Hunter stood aside looking at Katie. Their eyes met and the desire for Katie was too strong for him to resist, so he let Christine slide in next to her. When Hunter was seated, Devin raised his hand and a young woman dressed in a fox costume came to the table.
“What will you have, Mr. Samsa? Her eyes shot to Hunter and then to Devin. “You didn’t tell me you had a twin.” Katie looked at Devin in surprise.
“And I didn’t tell you that Katie is my fiancée.” Devin took her hand and looked in Katie’s eyes and kissed her palms. Devin’s voice cracked through nervousness. He tried to stop the waitress before she said something embarrassing. Like they had been intimate.
The tiny waitress wearing a skimpy fox uniform cut low in front showing a pair of impressive breasts, a pair of faux fox ears on her head, and a large ass, possessed the arrogance of a former lover or maybe a present lover, and Hunter knew that all too well.
Chapter 5
The fox shifter waitress’s costume appeared as if it was her skin. The fur on it smelled real to Hunter. However, her breasts exaggerated when pushed up, and the costume did more to make her look sexier than she may have been. Her outfit tight around her waist, overstating a beautiful hourglass figure, and it’s cut up the sides to her hip bone. It looked like a Bunny costume, only she had a fake red fox tail hanging behind her. Devin’s excited eyes watched at her ass when she turned and waved at a
man entering the club.
The way the tail hung to the side the stitching was coming undone because of the pawing and pulling at it by the regulars. She appeared to be popular. It looked like she tried without success to stitch it on, and then pin it to no advantage.
“What do you want to drink, Hunter, and who is that lovely girl you’re with?” Devin asked his eyes shining with lust.
“My name is Christine,” she says looking across at Devin.
“I’m Devin and this is my fiancée Katie.”
“Yes. I’ve heard about you and your fiancée,” Christine says eyeing Katie. Katie just sat and drank her margarita.
“I have what you’re having,” Hunter said. Devin raised an eyebrow.
“Margarita it is,” Devin looks at the waitress. She orders it from an IPad.
“And what do you want pretty lady?” Devin asks.
“Her name is Christine,” Katie interrupts. Her tone is harsh. Katie raises an eyebrow and looks annoyed at Devin.
Christine sensing Katie’s hostility, holds on to Hunter to his surprise, and says, “I’ll have one drink. A Tom Collins. I have to work tomorrow.”
“So where did you meet my brother?” Devin questions looking at Hunter.
“At the hospital. I’m a nurse in the intensive care ward.” Katie and Hunter exchange glances as Devin talks across Katie to Christine. The waitress stood patiently tapping her high heels, waiting for them to complete the orders.
“Sorry, bring another round.”
“Anything special for you, Devin?” All eyes fall on Devin. He glares at the waitress and she turns quickly to get the drinks.
Devin tries to apologize. “They love me here. Don’t they Katie?” He pulled Katie to him and kissed her. He dropped his tongue down her throat and sucked her tongue wildly. When he let her go, Hunter was staring in an anxious and restless way. He jumped to his feet.
“Let’s dance, Christine.” He pulled her up by her arm and headed in the direction of the dance floor.
Insatiable: Moon Tide Book 6 Page 3
