by JC Holly
Still, even if becoming a shapeshifter would cure him of his injuries, what else came with it? Would he start howling at the moon? Would he have to shift each month or was it optional? Hell, would he have to start shaving more often? The answers wouldn’t answer themselves. There was only one way to find out.
“Hudson?”
He kept his voice intentionally low, so that a regular human would never hear him through a closed door. It would help prove Hudson’s claims, even if Micky was almost certain that the man wasn’t lying already.
Sure enough, the door opened and Hudson stepped inside. The man may have been physically fine, or close to it, but his expression told a different story.
“Do you need a nurse?”
Micky shook his head. “We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“What do you think?”
Chapter Ten
For six plus hours, Hudson had sat outside Micky’s room, and the time had taken a toll on his energy reserves. The moment Micky called him inside he was wide awake again. He tried not to take Micky’s sarcastic snap personally. After all, the man had been through more trauma in the last twelve hours than some people go through in a lifetime.
He closed the door behind him and stood near the foot of the bed. “Whatever questions you have, I’ll answer them.”
Micky nodded. “I appreciate it. First of all, explain what a shapeshifter is. In simple terms.”
Hudson chewed the inside of his mouth as he thought. “We are humans who were bitten by a shapeshifter. That’s how it’s spread.”
“So it can be spread by accident?”
“No. The bite has to be intentional, and the shifter has to want to pass it on.” He rolled his sore shoulder. “Other than the ability to change into another animal, in my case a wolf, we are considerably stronger and faster than humans. Our senses are heightened, even in our human form, and we are more resilient to harm. We can still be hurt, though.”
“So you’re not indestructible?”
Hudson shook his head, and then lifted his shirt to reveal several large bruises. “These are from my broken ribs.”
Micky winced. “Sorry. Seeing you walking around made me think you were fine.”
“I will be,” Hudson replied, lowering his shirt again. “In a day or two it’ll be like I was never hurt.”
“That soon?” Micky swore under his breath. “Why aren’t you guys running the planet?”
“Because we don’t want to, for the most part.” Hudson smiled. “We may be a little more instinctual at times, but for the most part, we’re still just regular people.”
“And the shifting itself? What’s that like?”
“Hard to put into words. The shift itself hurts, I won’t lie. In fact at first it hurts like nothing you’ve ever felt, and there’s no getting around it. You will have to shift.”
“Every full moon, I assume?”
Hudson smiled and shook his head. “That’s a myth, much like the half-human, half-wolf thing. We become the animal entirely, and are indistinguishable from any other.”
“So when do you shift?”
“Usually only when we feel like it, but if we go too long without shifting, the urge builds and builds until you have to do it. Like an addiction, only there’s no nicotine patch, or cold turkey.”
“And is there a cure?”
“If there was, I’d have already told you.”
Micky nodded once more. “I see. So my choice is a life in a wheelchair, with a slim chance at a partial and very painful recovery, or a life as a shifter.”
Hudson nodded. “I wouldn’t have even offered if I thought there was another way.”
“I know.” Micky smiled, though it looked forced. “And what about lifespan? Does a shifter live as long as a human?”
“Much longer. The aging process is affected by our healing, as best anyone can tell, so we age at a very slow rate. We can live centuries, even millennia, in theory.”
“And how old are you?”
Hudson smirked. “Sure you want to know?”
Micky met his eyes and smiled genuinely. “I do.”
“Five hundred and seventy-eight.”
Micky blinked, then swallowed hard. “I…what?”
“Yup.” Hudson moved to sit in the chair by the bed. “I’m old enough to be your great, great, great, great, great—”
Micky stopped him with a laugh. “All right, I get the picture. And Bill?”
“You figured out he was one, too, huh?”
“Wasn’t hard. Now that I think about it, you were using him to soften the blow, weren’t you? Talking about him being different, and all that.”
Hudson nodded. “I didn’t want to rush into anything. Believe me when I say I’ve destroyed many relationships that way. And Bill’s four hundred and change. Or at least that’s what he told me last time I asked. It varies, so who knows. We’ve been friends for a couple of centuries, though.”
Micky quirked an eyebrow. “That’s quite the friendship.”
“We’re close, yeah. Even when we’ve been apart for a few decades, like this time, we just start up where we left off.”
“And if I changed, I could live just as long?”
“Yeah. With the added bonus that you’d have been turned by an old and powerful shifter.”
“That’s a bonus?”
“A hell of one. The older the biter, the more powerful the bitee will become.”
Micky snorted a laugh in response, then fell somber once more. “I need to think about this. Even in my current state, this isn’t something I’m going to jump into. Even if I could jump,” he added, sourly.
“Of course.” Hudson reached over and placed his hand gently on the man’s arm. “And no matter the decision, I’m not going anywhere.”
He’d decided upon that during the wait outside the room. Micky was special, and he wasn’t going to give up time with him, regardless of whether they were walking the world as shifters, or he was pushing a wheelchair.
“I love you, Micky,” he said, his throat closing from emotion as he did.
Micky put his hand over Hudson’s. “I love you, too.”
* * * *
A week passed, and Micky spent most of it in his bed, deep in thought. Hudson remained by his side the whole time, often going without sleep for prolonged periods. Even when forced to nap he slept in the chair, waking to full alertness whenever someone came into the room.
The guys visited every day, and Laura often had Bill on her arm. He was as friendly as ever and refused to let the others become morose, spurring them into smiles and laughter with his infectious personality. Micky could see why Hudson got along with the man so well and for so long.
Each day the physiotherapist came in to move Micky’s legs and feet in the hope of encouraging healing in the spine to no result. Micky was becoming resigned to the fact that he’d never walk again. Unless he consented to Hudson.
Despite the situation, their relationship had only strengthened, and each day the idea of becoming a shifter seemed less and less of a worry.
By the tenth day, he turned to Hudson and said, “Okay.”
Hudson frowned. “Okay?”
“Okay.” Micky gestured to his legs. “I’ve made my decision. I want you to make me like you.”
“You’re certain?” Hudson squeezed his hand. “I don’t want you rushing into this.”
Micky smiled. “To an old-as-dirt wolf, ten days might seem like nothing, but to a man confined to a bed it’s a lifetime. I’ve made up my mind.”
Hudson nodded once. “I need to make some calls.”
“Calls? I thought it was just a bite?”
“It is, but I need to get you out of here first.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed a number. “Men in hospitals that suddenly start walking again tend to attract attention.”
“I can see that, but wouldn’t wheeling a stretcher out of a hospital while being chased by nurses attract attention
too?”
Hudson smirked and shook his head. “I’m not stealing you. I’m getting you transferred to a private facility. One we use when supernaturals need privacy, or doctors that don’t scream when they see bones knit themselves.”
He hit call and a moment later Micky heard a muffled voice on the other end of the line. Whoever it was, Hudson knew them well enough to skip the niceties.
“I need a transfer to Hope Clinic, soon as possible, no questions asked.” He listened for a moment. “I said no questions, Snow.” The other voice spoke again, and Hudson smiled. “You’re a star. I’ll text the details.”
He hung up, then sent a quick message before turning back to Micky. “It’s done. An ambulance will be here soon. I’ll go and handle the rest of the details with the doctors.”
“Before you go,” Micky said, “come here.”
Hudson raised an eyebrow, but did as he said. As he moved close enough, Micky reached up and pulled the man down, then kissed him softly on the lips.
“Thank you.”
Hudson only smiled and kissed him back.
Over the next twenty minutes, things got loud and complicated. From what Micky could hear from his room, a doctor didn’t like the idea of moving Micky so soon, and also took exception with the fact that he’d never heard of the Hope Clinic. Hudson had started off with his usual calm demeanor, but as time went on he started to lose his patience. In the end he told the man in no uncertain terms that he didn’t give a damn what the man thought and to mind his own business.
Soon after that, Hudson came back into the room, followed by a smaller man in medical scrubs. His long, pony-tailed hair was impossibly white, and his skin was almost as pale.
“You must be Snow,” Micky said.
Snow grinned. “What gave it away, then?”
His accent was almost stereotypically Cockney English. His eyes looked older than his nineteen year old frame, and Micky guessed he was also a shifter. Snow handed Micky a form.
“Need your scribble on the bottom, mate, and then we’re good to go.”
Micky added his signature to the form, and Snow disappeared to hand it off to somebody else before returning with a considerably swankier stretcher than the one Micky currently lay on. Snow lifted a backboard from the mattress.
“Good news and bad news,” he said, in his clipped London accent. “Bad news is that this will hurt like a bastard. Good news is you probably won’t feel a thing.”
Micky nodded. “Let’s get this done.”
Snow had been half-right. Unfortunately it was the first half. By the time Micky was on the other stretcher and strapped down for the trip, his face was slick with sweat from the pain. While his lower body had remained useless and free of any sensation, as soon as they had begun to move him, lightning bolts of agony had arced up his back, radiating to his arms.
“Want something for the pain?” Hudson asked, as he wiped away the sweat.
“I’d say a blowjob, but I wouldn’t feel it.”
Hudson smiled and kissed Micky on the head. “You’re brave, you know that?”
Micky smirked. “Stupid, more like.”
“Fine line between ’em,” Snow chirped as he began to move the bed. “Now, let’s get you to Hope, where the healin’s good and the meds are even better.”
As he was being slid into the back of a private ambulance, Micky heard Hudson talking on his phone. From what Micky could hear, Bill was on the other end.
“Tell Laura he’s been transferred, but she can’t visit tonight. Tell her he’s in surgery. Once he’s up to it, and we’ve got a private room, I’ll let you know.” There was a pause. “I know. Thanks.”
Hudson joined Micky in the ambulance and pulled the doors shut.
“You know what?”
Hudson smirked. “Your hearing’s pretty good already. Haven’t even bit you yet.” He slid his phone away. “It was Bill. He told me I was doing the right thing, and that he would have done the same.”
“He’s a good guy, that Bill.”
“He really is.”
Micky raised an eyebrow. “Think we can turn him gay and persuade him into a threesome?”
Hudson laughed and banged on the partition between the back and front of the ambulance. “Step on it.”
Chapter Eleven
The drive to Hope Clinic was long, but Micky slept through most of it while Hudson watched him and held a quiet conversation with Snow. They could both hear a murmur through the ambulance’s partition, so they were in no danger of waking Micky.
“So how is the pack?” Hudson asked.
“Not too bad, all things considered,” Snow replied. “The Brooks have been trying to snag more territory, but they’re doing it through words rather than claws, so it’s mostly being handled by the alphas.”
“Let’s hope they settle it amicably. We don’t need increased tensions in the area.”
The Brooks, as Snow called them, were the other large pack in the area, named after their alpha, Brook Conway. They were pleasant enough to Hudson, for the most part, but that was only because he was a wolf. The Brooks were a wolf-only pack, and while there were no rules about such things, Hudson had always considered it a very backward way of running a pack, especially in modern times.
Snow’s pack was known as the Creeks, after their alpha Roger Creek, and as a tongue-in-cheek reference to their opposites’ group name. They were a much more laid-back bunch. They’d have to be to let Snow be a member, Hudson decided with a smirk. While they, too, were mostly wolves, they also had two bears and a cat shifter and accepted any newcomer with open arms.
The clinic they drove towards was a neutral area, owned by a consortium of supernatural creatures who saw the need for such a building. The doctors and nurses inside were trained to deal with all nature of wound and curse and would never charge a penny, nor turn anyone away. And woe betide any person, be they creature or human, who tried to start trouble on or near the premises.
They arrived at the secluded entrance to the clinic just before sunset, and Snow opened the doors to the ambulance to help move Micky. As the stretcher was lifted to the asphalt, the man stirred, opening one tired eye.
“We there?”
“We are,” Hudson said as they pushed the stretcher inside.
“Should I be wearing a cross or anything, in case of vampires?”
Hudson chuckled and shook his head. “The few vampires that live in this area aren’t foolish enough to prey on a patient of the Hope Clinic. Besides, they’d have to come through me first, and I play rough.”
“Oh, I know.”
Snow laughed, but quieted when Hudson shot him a glare. Together they pushed Micky to the large automatic doors of the building, then through into the lobby. As they set foot inside, both Hudson and Micky shivered. The wards that had been erected around the place were strong enough that even a shifter could feel them. Micky, however, was entirely unaware.
Two nurses, one human and one half-demon, rushed to the stretcher and leaned over to check on Micky. He smiled at the human, then turned to the other woman.
“Did, uh, did I get stuck with a needle in the ambulance?”
“Nope,” Snow said. “She’s supposed to have horns.”
“Oh,” Micky said. “That’s okay then. Carry on.”
The half-demon laughed and kissed him on the head. “I usually hide them, but there’s not much point in a supe hospital.” She glanced at his chart. “Nasty injuries, Mister Silvers. I take it one of these men will be, uh, administering aid.”
“That would be me,” Hudson said, drawing the part-succubus’s attention. “Do you have somewhere I can shift?”
“Sure thing,” she said with a smile that would make a straight man weep with desire. “Down the hall, on the left.”
Micky raised his head from the pillow but was gently pushed back by the second nurse. “Shift?” he asked.
Hudson nodded. “I need to bite you in my wolf form for it to work.”
&nbs
p; “Oh. I guess that makes sense. Can I see the change?”
Snow laughed. “See it? Fuck, there are some things that ain’t meant to be watched, mate.”
Hudson punched the man on the arm. “It’s not pleasant is what he means.”
Micky swallowed, but agreed and allowed the nurses to take him into the ward. Hudson called that he’d be with him soon, then told Snow to go with him.
“He’s never seen this stuff before,” Hudson said. “Keep him calm.”
Snow nodded, then wandered after the nurses, his gaze squarely on the succubus’s bottom. “And I’ve never seen that before.” He grinned and turned back to wink at Hudson. “Ever seen what a demon can do with their tail?”
Hudson rolled his eyes and left to change.
* * * *
The demonic nurse’s nametag was unpronounceable, but she took pity on Micky and told her he could call her Zeth. He thanked her, then turned and thanked the much more tongue-friendly Michelle. As they left, they pulled the curtains around his bed, and Snow slipped inside just as the gap closed and took up a seat to Micky’s right.
“So,” Micky said, well aware of the noises surrounding him. “Just what’s in the beds around me?”
“Who, Micky,” Snow said. “Who are in the beds around you.”
Micky winced, then blushed as he remembered just how good the hearing of supernatural creatures could be. “Sorry. I was just curious about, uh, species.”
Snow shrugged. “Understandable. Let’s find out.” The man closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose, cocked his head to one side as if he was thinking, then opened his eyes and nodded. “Three shifters, a vamp, couple of half-breeds, which is to say half-demons, and a witch. That’s quite a few, but I only recognize one scent. The rest are out-of-towners.”
“I see.”
Micky tried to ingest the information he’d received over the last few hours, but it was hard going. Not only were their shifters of various types, but there were vampires, witches, half-demons—which presumably meant there were also full demons—and witches. And his nurse had a tail. A frickin’ tail.
