Ashley did her shift change duties quickly. She knew Rick would do most of this on his own, but with the close calls this kid suffered, she wanted to make sure they were on their toes with him.
Her eyes may have closed several times during her final paperwork push, and if she happened to doze in the elevator on the way down to the Emergency Room, no one but security would be the wiser.
Ashley trudged through the ER with a jaw-popping yawn stretching her face. Little signs of Christmas were all around. She loved the LED lights and tiny decorated trees, but the creepy doctor elf everyone seemed to love taking pictures of was now hanging upside down from a ceiling tile. It even had its own social media pages. With a shake of her head, she tugged on her coat. The hustle in their emergency department seemed to never let up, but at least they were having fun.
“We’ve got another one. Deep lacerations on his back, chest, and stomach. Prep the trauma room. Get me—”
Ashley tuned out the demands. Her tired brain was barely functional at this point. The last thing a patient needed was to have her interest piqued. She was a danger to herself and others. A warm, comfortable bed waited for her.
The emergency doors opened and a stretcher rushed in guided by one EMT while two others forcefully held down an obviously aggressive patient. Frigid wind whipped through the doors, pasting her jacket to her body. Her bare fingers twitched in the cold. She debated going back upstairs to grab her gloves.
As Ashley wrapped the giant scarf around her neck, the patient wrenched his arm free and knocked one of the EMT’s away. Blood marred his emaciated face and he pierced her with a half-crazed glare. “You.” He spat the word like a curse. Hands shoved him back down.
Great, another strung out junkie.
“Step back, Doctor Baker.” The EMT’s command had her moving quickly. “Did you check him for weapons?” he demanded from the police officer dogging their heels.
“Of course.”
The patient began laughing, an eerie, crazed laughter that set Ashley’s hair on end. “Found you,” he spoke in a sing-song voice and turned his body, arching off the bed to watch her as they passed in the stretcher. His blood-shot eyes were glazed over. She doubted he even saw her anymore. “He will praise me.” They shoved him into a room none-too-gently, and Ashley huffed out a breath.
“They get crazier every year, don’t they?”
Ashley stared after the patient, fighting down an uncharacteristic shudder of fear. His laughter scratched through the halls, brittle and dry. “Yeah.”
“Do you know him?”
Ashley forced herself to turn toward the exit. Forget the gloves. Her fingers could handle twenty minutes in the cold over facing down that guy again. “Nope, but I’d like to get out of here before anything else weird shows up.”
“It’s a freak ice storm in San Antonio. Everything’s weird. Be careful out there, doc. The roads are shit.”
Ashley nodded and pulled the scarf up over her mouth. She’d drive at a snail’s pace if it meant she’d get as far from this building, and that creepy laughter, as possible.
Chapter Three: Unexpected Encounter
THE BRISK WALK to the parking garage was tempered with the crunch of salt under her boots. Get home, eat something, and crash for two days. That was the big plan.
A lone howl rose up in the early morning light. Its eerie call sent chills down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
Relax. It’s nothing.
Her heart thundered in her chest.
Another howl followed, closer.
She froze, waiting, with hands buried deep in her pockets. Nothing lunged at her from the shadows. Barking echoed from somewhere down the street.
Ashley huffed out a breath, annoyed at her own stupidity.
“I need sleep,” she muttered to herself. Dogs howled. Hell, she’d had basset hounds her entire life. They bayed at everything. Except demon dogs. In her dreams, anyway.
A frigid gust of wind slapped her face with wet snow and ice. Ducking her head into the scarf to block most of the biting chill, she rushed to the elevator.
Ashley focused on her car, and the heat that awaited her. In less than twenty minutes, she’d be wrapped up in her blankets at her tiny apartment, snoozing the day away.
The scent of baked apples filled her nostrils. Someone was bringing desserts to work again. She fumbled with her keys to hit autostart and ran head first into a solid weight that knocked her into a steel traffic bollard. Her teeth nipped the inside of her mouth and she shoved her tongue against it, hoping to soothe the sharp pain shooting from the cut. The copper taste of her own blood told her that eating anything spicy was out for a few days.
Hands steadied her, and she looked up into the dark eyes of a man she’d never seen before. His hawkish features accentuated the shadows of his features.
“Are you okay?” A smile broke out on his face, washing away the harsh dips, and erasing the sinister shadows.
Her imagination was out of control.
Yep, she was definitely too exhausted to deal with people. “I’m fine.” She waved her hand and stood up straight. He let her go in an instant. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
“I’m glad you ran into me first. There’s an ice patch in front of the elevator that nearly broke my neck.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
“Do you work here?” He stepped in front of her when she would have dashed around him.
“I do.”
Relief washed over his expression. “Thank goodness. I’m trying to figure out how to get to the main entrance of the hospital. This is my first time visiting this facility, and I have a friend waiting inside.”
Ashley blinked at him. “The main hospital entrance is shut down. Only the ER side is open right now. Visiting hours start at seven.”
“The ER is what I need, actually. They said my friend was about to go into surgery. I want to see him before he starts talking out of his head. The last time he went under the knife, he was completely incoherent for a few days.”
She nodded absently. Several side effects of anesthesia came to mind, as well as a few surgeries that could cause those symptoms. She shoved those thoughts away before it woke her back up. “Oh, well, you just walk down this path and follow it around. The ER sign will be easy to see.” She gestured behind her and hesitated only a moment before asking a question. “Why didn’t you park next to the ER?”
“I wanted the covered parking, my dear. If everything goes well with the surgery, I’d hate to have him wait in the cold while I scraped ice off the windshield.”
Ashley sighed and nodded. “Sorry. That makes total sense. I’m so tired. These past few days have been hectic.”
“With the storms, I bet they have been.” He held out his hand. “Jason Matthews.”
“Ashley Baker.” She shook hands, surprised at the warmth radiating from his touch.
A flicker of something shifted in his eyes and then was gone. “Well, Ashley Baker, thank you for your help. I must be on my way.”
He nodded at her and strode past, eating up the icy path with his long legs.
Ashley shook her head and huffed on her hands, hoping the man would find his friend. Of course, if his friend was the weird patient who just came in, talking out of his head was the least of his worries.
The scent of burning rubber and machine oil permeated the air as she stepped in the elevator and punched the button. Doors closed and the elevator lurched as she rose to her floor.
Ashley pressed her tongue into the small wound on the inside of her mouth. She pushed on her cheek with the back of her hand, hating the sting, but needing to know how bad the bite was.
The unit jerked to a stop and the doors slid open. Stepping out into the garage, Ashley could just see the dim light of dawn sneaking through the menacing clouds covering her city.
Her car was right around the corner, parked in her favorite spot. Pale smoke slid across the floor, telling her that the key
fob had done its magic. The guy who invented the autostart function was a hero.
The normally packed garage level was bare for all but the critical teams keeping the hospital operational, and the few people like Jason Matthews.
Ashley’s eyes widened. She remembered his name. A smile stretched across her face. Maybe things were finally looking up.
A shadow blurred from the corner of her peripheral vision a split second before a heavy body slammed into her, knocking them both to the unforgiving concrete. The back of her head hit hard enough to rattle her teeth.
It took a moment to realize the weight on her was a man, a bare-chested man with intricate tattoos on his arms. She shoved him off her and scrambled to her feet. Ashley fumbled for her phone. She’d call security, and get them to take care of this.
He didn’t move from where she’d shoved him off her. His breathing was labored and she eyed the scratches on his arms and chest. A chest that had the same tattoos she remembered from her childhood dream.
Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs sent another wave of pain through her brain. With a tender touch of her fingertips, Ashley walked her fingers along the back of her skull, checking for bleeding.
His face was turned away from her, and curiosity burned inside Ashley. Did he look the same as her dream?
What are you thinking? He’s probably a serial killer or something.
She brought up her contacts list and found the number to security.
A loud rendition of a Los Lonely Boys ballad rang out from her phone, shocking Ashley enough to make her nearly drop it. Her Nana’s ringtone? She answered it quickly.
“Nana? I can’t talk right now, there’s a guy here—”
“Is he with you? Daniel? Did he make it to you?” Her Nana’s voice held that no-nonsense tone that had ruled Ashley’s childhood.
“Daniel?”
“The angel, child. Did he find you?”
The man at her feet groaned, and rolled over with a hiss between his teeth.
“My God.” Ashley’s voice was barely above a whisper. His back. Two charred lumps of flesh and bone shaped like…there was no way this was real. Because if it was, if this was real, those stubs were all that were left of her angel’s beautiful wings.
She covered her mouth with her hand, vaguely aware of her Nana’s voice yelling in her ear.
He turned to look at her then, a single bright green eye piercing her from beneath his long dark hair. The other remained in shadow, but she could feel his gaze to the depths of her soul.
“Hello Ashley Baker. We meet again.”
Chapter Four: Wingless Warrior
HE WAS REAL. “What are…do I…”
“As articulate as ever, I see.”
She blushed hot with embarrassment. Talking was never her strong suit anyway. She preferred action over endless chatter.
He grimaced and a shudder wracked his body. Dark ichor oozed from his back. “We have to go. Get me to your car.”
His demand snapped her mind back into focus. “There’s no way you’re going anywhere in that condition. We’ll get you to the ER.”
“No you won’t,” Nana’s yell forced Ashley’s head away from the phone.
“Nana, listen—”
“Ashley, turn off that brain of yours and you listen to me for a minute. What will you tell them when you bring a man with wings into the hospital?”
She watched a brutal storm of emotions wage war across his face. Her throat was dry as she spoke to her Nana. “His wings are gone.” A part of her realized saying those words out loud could be career killing. It could easily land her with a suspended license and loss of her surgical certifications. Not to mention a first class trip to a padded room.
“Gone, what do you mean?” Nana’s yell pierced Ashley’s eardrum.
“Don’t yell, Nana.”
Daniel lurched to his feet and grasped her wrist in his strong grip. He hauled her close and brought the phone to his ear.
“Anna, I have her with me. She’s safe, but we have to go. They found her, somehow.”
His intense gaze took in the area.
Ashley glanced around. Where had he come from? Her gaze took in the floor, looking for signs of…
Her thoughts jerked to a halt. Of what? Wings? Feathers? She rubbed her forehead. Hallucinations were a sign of extreme exhaustion, lack of REM sleep or something.
“We need to go before the wolves move in. Unfortunately, your granddaughter is as stubborn as you are.”
The world spun to a halt in the few rabid heartbeats it took to notice the full breadth and height of him. He’d seemed like a giant when she was a kid, and even now, he towered over her.
He could have crushed me.
The realization slipped through her mind the moment she realized one other, very important fact. He smelled good. Too good for a man who should stink of charred flesh and blood.
I’m dreaming.
Something clicked in her brain. “Wait a minute. Did you say wolves?” She scrubbed a cold hand over her face, unsurprised to find her nose just as numb as her fingertips.
Her adrenaline slipped away, leaving her body in full-blown exhaustion. She was at her limit for excitement. “You know what, forget it. Any minute now, I’m going to wake up at my desk with a monstrous crick in my neck and a back ache. If I’m lucky, I’ll wake up long enough to climb into the spare cot they keep for the surgeon on call.”
“This is not a dream, and if we don’t get you out of here now—”
Another howl echoed, this time from within the parking structure. Her breath caught. Stray dogs. They were probably starving, and looking for warmth.
Daniel dragged her behind him. With only his broad back in her sights, he couldn’t hide the pain rippling down his spine.
Was that a scabbard on his hip? A sword? She remembered him stabbing the monster in her dream with one. I’m definitely hallucinating. Or dreaming. Or both.
“Get your keys out, Ashley.” He ran forward with his back straight and rigid, but every foot fall jarred what was left of his wings. “No time to talk, Anna. They’re already here. I’ll tell her. We’ll call when we get to the Del Rosa Mission.”
The Del Rosa Mission? And Anna? Since when were he and her grandmother on a first name basis? “What the hell are you—”
He glanced back at her. “How did they find you?”
She dragged her keys free of the jacket pocket and unlocked the doors. “What are you talking about? Who?” She jerked open the driver’s side and then glared at him as he practically shoved her in the seat. “How did you find me?”
“That’s a long story we don’t have time for.”
“Why not?”
A low growl echoed through the garage, and Ashley realized, in that instant, if Daniel was here, the monster dog from her nightmare was probably right behind him. Even if this was a dream, the last thing she wanted was to get ripped apart. “Get in.” She slammed her door shut and put the key in the ignition, dragging on her seatbelt at the same time.
He made it in the car just in time for her to shift it into gear. “Hold on.” She hit reverse and gunned it, happy to see his door slam shut. In his hand was the sword and scabbard. He dropped it in the back seat and she shifted to drive.
She drove forward, forcing her foot to keep the acceleration at a calm, safe speed. “You have a sword.”
“Of course.”
Of course. “That normal for you guys?”
“Some of us.” He turned in the seat and stared at her.
She glanced over and realized it wasn’t her, but something through the window he was glaring at. With his jaw clenched and those green eyes almost glowing in intensity, he looked like the forbidding warrior from her childhood.
“What is it?” Her shoulders tightened and the urge to look warred with her wish to not see whatever caused such a frightening expression on his face.
“They’re here.”
“They?”
She forced he
r gaze to the left. It was there, pacing her from another row. Bright red eyes set in a shiny, obsidian face. “That’s not a wolf.” Her gut clenched and she sped, desperate to reach the ramp before it attacked. The memory of his claws in her arms, the frigid bite of his breath as he stole hers. She took the turn too fast, and nearly hit the wall.
“They’re hunters.”
“Of what?” Yeah, so what if her fingers were digging into the wheel deep enough to leave imprints. At least her voice was steady.
“Of people like you. Its eyes are red.”
As it paced her through the second level of the garage, she prayed that no one else faced this thing, whatever it was. “Yeah, I noticed the eye color. What do you mean people like me?”
“Are you bleeding?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?” She clenched her teeth at another sharp turn, wincing at the sound of her wheels squealing and the scent of rubber coming in through her heater. “Explain. Now.”
“Their eyes turn red when they scent blood.”
“Any blood?”
“No. Just yours.”
“Lucky me.” Ashley had a split second to notice a black shape launching ahead of her before she slammed on the brakes. Daniel’s forearm caught him against the dash board.
“What the hell—”
“Look.” She gestured with her chin toward the exit. An exit that was now blocked by the hulking shape of the monstrosity. White teeth, sharp and deadly, gleamed in the morning light. Beyond it, the street. “If I run it over, will it die?”
“No. It will probably destroy the car and limit our escape options. Where there’s one, many others will follow.”
“Great. Just freakin’ wonderful.” Ashley twisted her palms on the leather grip of the steering wheel. “What now?”
“Don’t worry. I have a plan.” He grabbed his weapon from the back seat and opened the door. She ducked as he brought it too close to her head for comfort. “While I distract it, get the hell out of here.” Her phone dropped on the passenger seat as he got out.
Alphas Unwrapped: 21 New Steamy Paranormal Tales of Shifters, Vampires, Werewolves, Dragons, Witches, Angels, Demons, Fey, and More Page 100
