Chapter 2 - Percy

My heart was pounding in my ears, and my body was feeling weaker by the moment, but all I could think about was the look on Veronica's face when she came to the door and saw me on the porch. The fear, confusion, and pure terror that passed over her features were familiar, and I hated seeing it there.

If I had known she was here, I never would have run here for help. I would have gone to the pack center, even though it's further into town, and I might not have made it.

As Ado and Byron hoist me up, quickly carrying me inside, I close my eyes, seeing the same images I've been seeing in my dreams for months now—Veronica, huddled and terrified in a basement, begging me to let her go.

Horribly vivid and too, too real, those dreams have had me waking up in cold sweats every night, throwing the covers off my legs, and pacing until I'm tired enough to fall asleep again.

Ado and Byron set me down on the couch in the family room, and I wince, hoping I'm not getting my blood on the Cadell's furniture. After getting the antidote, I was happy to learn that Aris and Linnea are happily together now. Thinking about that first night in Rosecreek, in the bar, watching as he and she were blood-bonded together—it feels like it was a million years ago.

"Veroux," Aris says, coming into view, and I flinch away from his gaze, knowing I'm about to get my ass handed to me. "What the fuck is this? Showing up on my porch in the middle of the night? Scaring my wife? My children sleep here, man."

"I'm sorry," I say, gaze on the floor. "I didn't think—"

"You'd better tell me what the fuck took a chunk out of you like this," Aris says, shaking his head and sitting on the edge of an armchair. On his left forearm, he has two little paw prints. One reads Araya , the other Percy . His children. One of whom he named after me. When I first heard about it, I'd had to turn away so they wouldn't see that I was crying.

"Where's Veronica?" I hear myself asking, and Aris gives me a strange look before glancing over his shoulder. He doesn't say anything, but it's clear as day that he's communicating with Linnea—or someone else—through a mental bond.

Something I haven't been able to do since being dosed with Varun's serum.

"She's okay," Aris says, "humans—can't handle the shifting. Which is another reason this shouldn't have happened, right? So, get to talking. Tell me what the hell is going on."

I let out a sigh. When this first started, I thought that I would be able to go out, come back with the information, and show everyone that I was ready to come back to the team. Now, it only feels like I've further demonstrated that I'm not ready for action.

"I overheard Byron," I say, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck. "At the pack center earlier, saying something about that field of Wolfsbane up by Red Creek. I thought—"

"You thought you would go check it out yourself?" Aris asks, raising his eyebrows. "Percy—you know how these things work. We gather information, we put together a team. I can't condone you ignoring protocol like this. This information about the wolfsbane is too important to be running a botched mission."

I know first-hand how important the information about the wolfsbane is—Rosa, our resident chemist—is the one who figured out that wolfsbane was the primary ingredient in the "silver" serum Varun—a rogue alpha—developed to poison other shifters by blocking their ability to shift, and essentially driving them insane.

That's what I was dosed with—and all other subjects dosed with the same serum version as me died after just a few months. I was the only one who lived past that time frame, but I did so out in the woods, with little to no recollection of what was happening or what I was doing.

Figuring out why there's a huge field of wolfsbane in the area could lead us a bit closer to knowing more about Varun's full plan, and who else might have been involved in the serum development process.

And, after my little trip, I think I know who's involved.

"I know, man," I say, hating how my voice breaks. I look down at my hands, wincing, when a fresh wave of biting, searing pain rips through my abdomen. It takes a moment to subside, and Aris looks a little less frustrated with me after seeing the pain I'm in.

"Go on," he says, his voice a little softer.

"Well, I found the field," I laugh, staring up at the ceiling and remembering the moment. I was shifted into my wolf form, sniffing around the perimeter of the wolfsbane field, when I was ambushed by several other paranormals. It only took me a few moments to realize it was vampires—their acrid, not-quite-alive smell similar to a strange combination or iron and thawed meat.

"I'm here!" someone says, and when I look up, I see Maisie hurrying inside, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and carrying a medical kit. She's wearing a set of pajamas with cartoon kittens on them. "Linnea said there was a flesh wound?"

"Something like that," Aris says, gesturing to the wound on my side. I couldn't see it when I was in my wolf form, but now, I don't even want to try and look. I can feel the pain radiating up and away from it, and I'm worried that if I look at it, I might pass out.

Maisie lets out a low whistle under her breath and drops to her knees in front of the couch, pulling the things out of her bag.

"You don't have to stop talking," she says, glancing at me. "You might need the distraction—these stitches are going to hurt."

I grit my teeth at the thought of it—I hate needles, and Aris motions for me to keep talking, so I do.

"I got a sample of the stuff," I say, "it's in a bag I dropped on the porch."

Aris's brow lowers, and he looks like he's concentrating for a moment. I know he's communicating to someone that they should go and collect it. The same is important because it will tell us if it's the same strand of wolfsbane that was used in the serum.

I suck in a breath through my teeth when I see Maisie threading the needle, and she apologizes under her breath, turning so I can't see it.

"It was vampires," I say, looking back up to the ceiling, my head spinning, feeling light from seeing the needle. "They ambushed me. At least twenty of them."

"Vampires," Maisie says, pulling her hands back, though she's wearing gloves. She shuffles a little closer, leveling her eyes with me. "Percy, I need you to tell me—did one of them bite you?"

I swallow thickly.

"I'm not sure," I saw, lowering my gaze, "but it's possible."

My fight with the vamps was chaotic, and I only barely made it out of there with the sample still intact, tucked between my teeth. I didn't have time to catalog how they were hitting me, and whether or not one of them got his teeth through my skin.

Maisie wrestles with her kit, abandoning the stitches and grabbing a tester instead.

"I'll need to take some blood," she says, panting a little as she gets the stuff out. "Percy, if this test comes back positive, I don't know if I can do much for you."

"Wait," Aris says, "that stuff is true? About vamp bites?"

"As far as I know, and as far as I learned," she says, screwing the needle onto a syringe. "Yes. Since he's a shifter, the venom takes longer to disperse through the body. But that genetic mutation also means the venom is lethal."

"Lethal," I repeat, letting my head fall back against the couch. I almost want to laugh out loud at that fact—going through everything I went through, only to die by vampire bite the first time I get back out into the field.

"Yeah," Maisie says, her throat working as she swabs down my skin with an alcohol wipe, preparing it to take the blood sample. "But—I don't know. I mean, with the long-term effects of the serum, it's possible that that could be different for you, Percy."

Between Maisie and Rosa, I've received my fair share of poking and prodding as they tried to figure out how the serum affected me. Though I'm sure both of them will be horrified by the news, there will be some small part of them that's excited to see how the venom and serum interact inside my body.

"Aris," Linnea says, appearing at the door to the family room. "I feel—"

She lets out a cry of pain, putting her hand to her forehead and bending her knees. Aris is there in a second, his hands steadying her, holding her. She pushes her head into his chest, and I have to look away.

It's been so long since I was with someone, since I felt someone else holding me and comforting me, that it's almost painful to watch Aris and Linnea interact. Every night, I go home to my empty apartment, wishing there was something to come home to.

"You should get a cat," I remember Bigby saying, when I casually mentioned that it was kind of lonely, coming home to an empty apartment every night.

"Can't," I'd said, swirling my beer before taking another drink. "I'm allergic."

"Oh!" Rosa had said from her place at the table, leaning forward to get my attention. "That could have changed! I completely forgot about that—we could test your allergies to see if they've changed. What an interesting idea!"

"Happy to be of service," I'd muttered, which made Bigby laugh beside me.

"Don't mind her," he'd said, waving his hand at me even as he looked over at her with pure adoration on his face. "You know how those pesky biochemists can be."

"That's Doctor biochemist to you," Rosa had said, throwing it over her shoulder before returning to her conversation with Linnea and Olivia.

Going to the bar with the team was one of the few things I'd had left to do after Aris benched me so I'd have time to "recover." Now, staring up at the Cadell's ceiling, I wish I had done it more, spent more time with the people I loved while I had the time.

The thought immediately makes me think of Veronica, and a hot wave of shame moves through me. I glance through the room to see if anyone is picking up on it, but Aris is too busy with Linnea to have a clear pull on my feelings, even as alpha. Plus, apparently, the serum has done a pretty good job of blocking a lot of the normal pack connections.

Like always, the memories of Veronica come flooding back to me in Technicolor. I remember the first time I met her in the ER at a human hospital.

The team and I were out on assignment in Florida, and I'd taken a slice across the arm from some weirdo wielding a silver blade. When I'd asked to see a local paranormal doctor for stitches, Aris had laughed at me, saying it would heal in a day.

I knew it would heal, but I wanted to avoid a scar. So, I walked into the local human hospital, holding up my wounded arm. The person at the front desk, who had surely seen her fair share of wounds, went white, her mouth forming a perfect "O" as she looked at the blood dripping from my arm and onto the floor.

"Hi," I'd said, crouching a little to catch her eyes. "Any chance I could get some stitches?"

Out walked Veronica, and the moment our eyes met, I felt it. I knew I did, though it was impossible—I could smell her, clear as day. She was a human.

And she was my mate.

"Hi," I'd said again, watching her eyebrows raise as she looked between me and the dripping arm. "Are you free?"

"To get you some stitches?"

"Oh, yeah, that," I'd said, glancing at it again, suddenly not feeling a single ounce of pain. "I'd love some stitches, but I was actually asking if you're free tonight."

To my surprise, she'd blushed and ushered me behind a curtain, stitching me up expertly, then passing me a business card. I'd read it as I walked out of the ER.

Veronica Soto. Traveling RN.

Until then, I hadn't realized how much a turn-on scrubs were. I'd always thought I didn't have a type, but walking out of that emergency room, suddenly and completely, my type was her. It felt like she was the only woman who would ever feel attractive to me again. It felt like I would go to the ends of the Earth just to be near her.

And that was what made it so difficult to leave her behind.

"Veronica," Linnea breaths, yanking me out of my memories. "Oh Gods, Veronica is in trouble."