The crow flew off the desk, papers surfing the air, and stabbed her beak into Dexx’s arm, the one holding the pistol.
Wolf Man side-stepped Karl swiftly, grabbing Dexx’s other arm. He lifted Dexx and bit him just under the ribcage.
Dexx howled in pain. His revolver exploded as he reflexively shot off a round.
Karl spun, her face fully shifted into fox form, a long, red tail flicking the air behind her. She barked once.
The shifters stilled just as suddenly as everything had started.
Dexx breathed, rocking slightly in place, his green eyes wide. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Then, he swayed and fell to the floor.
Paige rushed to Dexx’s side, kneeling beside him. “Karl, call 911.”
“Already on it,” the sheriff said behind her. “Yeah. John. We need you at the station.”
Dexx’s skin was clammy. Thick, dark blood oozed from the bite wound at his ribs. The same area that had been wounded in Louisiana.
At least, this time, he was breathing. Shallowly, but he wasn’t fighting for air.
However, he wasn’t awake.
Paige removed her jacket and her button-up shirt. The jacket wasn’t going to absorb anything, but the shirt should. She wadded it up and pressed it against Dexx’s ribs, thankful she’d worn a tank top underneath.
The panther officer knelt on the other side of Dexx, fully human once more. He glanced at her, his eyes wide in horror, and pressed his hands against Dexx’s shoulder.
She wanted to tell him to fuck off. She couldn’t afford to, though. She had to ask questions first. React later. “Are you in control of yourself?”
He nodded curtly, keeping his attention on the wound beneath his fingers.
That only left the arm.
Jakobs had shifted back to human form as well. Blood stained her lips. “Aaron bit him?”
Panther nodded.
Paige could hear Karl talking to Wolf Man—Aaron—and Buffalo Boy in the front, but they sounded calm. For now.
The door opened with a swoosh and a male voice demanded, “Where is he?”
Paige looked up and saw the doctor’s head above the desks and the front counter. “We’re over here.”
He caught sight of her and hurried around the desks. He pushed Paige out of the way, setting his black bag beside him. “How long ago did this happen?”
“Minutes.”
“And did an alpha bite him, or just betas?”
Jakobs held Dexx’s legs. “Aaron.”
John looked at her in confused alarm. “Aaron? He refuses to bite.”
“He wasn’t in control, John.” She shook her head. “You should have felt it. It was awful.”
“Must have been the moon,” Aaron said, his tone low.
“The moon,” Jakobs said harshly, “has never felt like that before.”
John raised his eyebrows, but returned his attention to Dexx. He pulled Paige’s wadded up and bloodied shirt away. “I’m going to need water.”
Jakobs stood and disappeared in the back.
Dexx’s breathing became shallower, his skin paler.
Her heartbeat quickened. She couldn’t lose him. What would she trade for his life this time? After only a week.
“This probably wasn’t what you were expecting when you came here today.” John looked at Paige out of the corner of his eye.
“No.” Last week he’d fallen from a second story landing onto his back on a concrete floor. He’d cracked his ribs and punctured a lung. That had all been healed by Sven when she’d given him the key to the Gate of Hell. “I thought you were safe.”
“We are. Normally.”
Jakobs came back with a coffee mug of water.
John took it and used Paige’s shirt to wipe away some of the blood around the bite wound below his ribs. “Lately, though, something has been different. I don’t know what, but I can tell you, I don’t like it.”
Why was he going so slow? “Shouldn’t you be patching him up to move him to your clinic or something?”
John shook his head, revealing the wound. “I need to see what the bite did first.”
“What do you mean?”
“He means,” Wolf Man, aka, Aaron said, walking up to them, his dark green eyes filled with worry and pinched with shame, “that he needs to see if the spirits will grace your friend with favor or decided to ignore him.”
Paige rose on her knees to see Dexx’s bite. How had that slipped her mind?
He could be saved and she wouldn’t have to do anything. He could be accepted by an animal spirit. He could become a shifter.
How would they have any kind of relationship if he became a shifter?
The treaty.
It was one thing to not tell Alma about Nederland.
But to hide Dexx’s shape-shifting abilities, as well?
What about holidays? What if she wanted to bring Dexx to see Leslie’s baby?
If she chose to help the paranormals on her own, that was one thing. But to bring it home with her?
She swallowed, the reality of the situation resettling around her. Mortality? Possibly not an issue.
Being together? With this man?
Fuck. “What’s so special about Aaron?” Paige asked, her voice quiet. “Everyone seems to be overreacting to him biting someone.”
“I’m an alpha.”
“I gathered that.”
He licked his lips and rubbed his dark beard. “My bite invites the spirits to accept another into our pack.”
Again, she’d already figured that part out. The pack thing? They’d just have to figure that out. “So?”
“He’s never chosen to bite anyone.”
“Then why are there so many shifters?”
“He is not the only alpha.” Karl held out her hand, palm down. “Let’s see if the spirits choose to heal Dexx. Okay?”
What should she wish for? That he be healed and off-limits? Or dying?
That wasn’t even worth answering. Healed. Off-limits? They would figure something out. She was there. In Nederland. No one had restarted the war yet.
John sat back on his heels, her shirt in his hands. “He’s healing.”
Karl raised her face to the ceiling and sighed, a mixture of relief and worry relaxing her eyes and twisting her lips.
Paige pushed Panther’s hands out of the way and peered at the wound on Dexx’s abdomen.
The skin re-stitched itself before her eyes.
Relief released her tightly held muscles. “What now?”
“Well.” Karl clasped her hands. “Now, we wait. The spirits have received Aaron’s request. Now, it’s up to Dexx. Does he accept the spirits? Does he reject them? Is he strong enough to accept them? And which one does he bond with?”
“That’s a lot of questions.”
“Yes.” Karl pushed herself to her feet. “John, take him to the clinic and keep an eye on him. Aaron, Rory, in my office.”
Aaron and Buffalo Boy—Rory—followed Karl into her office somewhat reluctantly.
Paige moved to help the doctor.
He waved her off. “You have better things to do than to watch him sleep.”
“But—”
He cut her off, his blue eyes piercing hers. “Go. Do your job. And believe me.” He glanced behind him before rearranging Dexx’s arms. “Aaron wouldn’t do this. He might be an alpha, but he’s doesn’t believe in reaching outside the natural born.”
Paige nodded slowly and rose to follow the sheriff.
Jakobs stopped Paige. She held out her hand, hovering over Paige’s arm, then retracted it. “I wasn’t in control of myself.”
Paige narrowed her eyes. “Okay. Well, why don’t you and Panther join us.”
Jakobs nodded and gestured to Panther to join her. “Fielder. Come on.”
He licked his thick lips and followed.
Karl’s office was packed with all of them.
Aaron leaned against the exterior wall, his back to the window.
Rory
sat in the chair in front of the desk, his head hung in shame as he gnawed at his thumbnail.
Jakobs rubbed her arms, pacing in a two-step circle at the back of the office.
Fielder stood just inside the door.
Paige closed the door and rested against it. “Someone want to tell me what happened out there?”
Fielder shook his dark head. “I had no control. I tried fighting it. I just couldn’t.”
“What drove you?” Karl asked, folding her arms over her chest and perching against her desk.
“I—” Fielder stopped, his mouth open. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, tipping his head. He opened them looked at Paige. “I needed to bite you, Detective.”
“What?” Paige glanced at Karl, then at Jakobs. “Me specifically?”
Jakobs stopped pacing and faced Paige. “Yes. My bird pushed at me and the only thing I could think of was biting you. I had to turn you.”
“But,” Karl said, holding up a hand, “the only one who could turn her is Aaron.”
Jakobs shook her head. “I don’t know. I felt awfully sure I could do it, that all I had to do was call the great spirits and they would answer.”
“That was me.” Aaron scrunched his lips and pounded the wall behind him. “I knew it was too good to be true. It had to be.”
She needed answers, not half-spoken sentences that made no logical damned sense. “What was?”
Aaron raised his hand to the back of his neck. “The implant.”
“Yeah.” Rory rolled his head, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze. “Dude said it would help us control our beast.”
“And it did.” Aaron’s dark gaze was distant as he stared at the floor. “It did.”
“Until today, man.” Rory pushed back in his chair, stretching his back. “The thing just took over.”
Paige narrowed her eyes. Anything they could tell her might lead her to Sven’s plan with the shapeshifters. She knew his ultimate goal. How did the shapeshifters tie into it? “Why was Jakobs affected? Was she chipped?”
Aaron shook his head. “I think I am the reason she shifted. I am an alpha.”
“Not her alpha,” Karl said.
“No, but it doesn’t always matter.”
Interesting. “What did you feel? What did you hear?”
“It’s what I saw.” Aaron gripped the windowsill behind him and bit his lip. “I saw you. I just saw you. I knew exactly where you would be. I knew exactly how to draw you out. All I had to do was get you away from Sheriff Karl.”
“Why?” Karl asked, her face folded in confusion.
“Because,” Paige said softly, “you’re a protector. You keep everyone in line with the power of your fox. It’s lovely and gorgeous. You can subdue other people’s animals.”
Aaron flicked his eyebrows. “Goodness knows you’ve done it more than once with me.”
Rory sighed. “All I got was this voice. Sounded real weird, like, not from around here.”
“Accent?” Paige asked.
“Yeah. But a weird one. Heard it on some movie. Ah! Um, Boondock Saints. That one. The two dudes who shot the cat.”
Of all the things to remember about that movie, it had to be the cat. Although, it was pretty funny in a morbid sort of way. “Okay. What did he say?”
“Just that I had to get to you. I told him I don’t bite. I’ve got horns, but my teeth ain’t good for much. It was all Mission Impossible and stuff.”
Sven had opened the demon door inside her soul for a reason. She understood that now. But why would he want her to house an animal spirit as well? Would an animal spirit even accept her? She was a witch. “You stopped and attacked Dexx instead. Why?”
Aaron cleared his throat and thought about his answer for a moment.
The room filled with waiting silence.
“My wolf showed me what would happen if the animal spirits were awakened in you through a bite. And it wasn’t good.”
Paige didn’t know how to take that. “How?”
“It just—” Aaron licked his lips and glanced at Karl.
She glared at him, like a mother pulling information from a teenaged boy.
He flattened his lips and raised an eyebrow. Tipping his head to the side, he continued. “Imagine it. A witch. Who can control us. Inside our boarders because she’s one of us. Knowing the power of the shift.”
“Yeah?” Paige said. “You’re assuming I’m evil.”
“I didn’t. My wolf did.”
“Well, your wolf is wrong.” She couldn’t believe she’d just go on a murdering spree. Unlike a lot of other people, she had been pushed to the point where murder—the act of it, not just the thought—was rationally acceptable. When she’d summoned that demon to kill her mother, she’d made the conscious decision. Murder, in that instance, was good.
So, she knew what it would take for her to get to a point where murdering people, random people, was rationally acceptable.
She couldn’t do it.
“Also,” Aaron said to Sheriff Karl, with a stop-looking-at-me-like-I’m-an-idiot look on his face, “if she was chosen, she wouldn’t be limited to one shape. She would have them all.”
Karl blinked and loosened her arms. “That’s not—no. That’s impossible.”
“That’s what my wolf showed me.” Aaron sighed. “But the drive to bite was too strong. Someone had to be bitten.”
Paige rubbed her temples with one hand. So, she could be bitten and survive? And she’d have the ability to shift into any shape? That seemed…impossible.
But what if that was the way to heal the door in her soul?
How? Magick, obviously, but magick was nothing more than science conducted by will. If she couldn’t figure it out, if it wasn’t logical and didn’t make sense, it likely wasn’t possible. Maybe Sven thought that giving her an animal spirit would fix the door.
The door he’d forced on her.
Because he was a demon who couldn’t get back to Hell? What was really going on there?
“And then your friend just—he glowed, Sheriff. I can’t explain it any other way. He glowed. Blue. Fire. And he just, somehow, spoke to me. It was like he had an animal spirit in him already and it just needed to come out. It was weird.” Aaron shrugged helplessly. “So, I bit him. Because it was okay.”
Karl closed her eyes, shaking her head for a long, quiet moment. Finally, she looked at Paige. “I’m not going to book them. This is a paranormal community and ‘turning’ isn’t against the law until the bitten wakes up. If the bitten wants to press charges, I will. Otherwise…” She shrugged.
This wasn’t their fault anyway. This was Sven’s and he was there because of her. “I know who’s to blame.” She pointed to Aaron. “But that chip needs to come out. Now. Because Sven is a demon, Aaron, and he’s using it to control you. Like you’re a puppet.”
He nodded once and moved to the door. He stopped, his hand on the knob. “He’ll pull through, Detective. I know it.”
Paige raised her head and eyed him. If that was the only thing she had to worry about, her day would have been brightened. “How’d you know I was a detective?”
He shrugged. “The same way I knew what you looked like before I saw you. The animal spirits see you and they know you.”
Right. But what did that mean?
Jakobs let Paige borrow a spare shirt. She sat in the conference room.
Dexx would pull through. He was tough. The animal spirits would certainly find him worthy.
Then what?
She had to be real. She hadn’t made any emotional investment in the man yet. She hadn’t promised to get pregnant and take care of him for the rest of his life. If she had to, she could cut and run.
Yeah. Her heart twisted. No. She couldn’t.
Well, if she had to.
She didn’t want to, though. She wanted to keep him in her life. She’d just been introduced to the way her life could be with him in it, and it was amazing. Normal. UNO-playing normal. Snuggling-on-the-couch norm
al. Dissecting-TV-shows-while-watching-them-together normal. Working-on-her-kind-of-cases normal.
She needed him.
Being honest with herself, her life was out of control. She’d just had her gifts reopened. They were different. More powerful. She had a door to Hell housed inside her soul. She was probably going to start another war just by helping the paranormal community with their disappearance cases.
He made all of that…easy to handle. Like eating an elephant. One bite at a time.
But he did more than that.
When she was in his arms, she felt at home.
Fuck.
She really needed him to remain alive. She just did. She would figure out a way to keep the Eastwoods at bay. She’d find a way to stop the war, but she wasn’t giving him up.
He was her home.
And, hey, plus. If he did change into a shifter, all the paranormal romance novels stated they were the best lovers. Never any questions asked. Furry was better.
Should she really be thinking of that while he lay almost dying? Probably not, but she refused to believe he’d die.
She put Sven’s name on a piece of paper and taped it in the middle of the map-covered wall.
What was he up to here?
Louisiana was the next paper, off to the left. Demons. Trap. Possession. Spell.
She wanted to put in more detail of “spell,” but this was more for her.
Breaking the summoner.
Hmm. She bit her nail and stared at the wall, her mind racing.
Someone stepped through the open door and set something on the table before stepping quietly out.
Paige twisted to see what it was. The paper coffee cup Kris had brought her only moments before. A ball of red string. Scissors. Tape.
She took the tools and sipped the now-cold latte. Sven and Louisiana had to be connected, so she cut a string and taped it up.
Next, she wrote down Denver and taped it up on the right. Shifters. Troubles controlling spirits. Chip. Remote control. Removing animal spirit.
She sat on the table, careful to perch more toward the end with the leg than in the middle. She wasn’t stupid. Her weight could break that thing.
Doorway to Hell.
Staring at that sheet of paper, she recalled some of the things he’d said in Louisiana. He’d needed her help to open the gate. But for what? Was he looking to take over? Did demons even think like that? Maybe had a woman over there, a family? Who knew?
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