50. Garrison

Chapter 50

Garrison

I 'd been pretending to be on a call as I watched Resa from the patio doors.

As work piles up, with Roman and Frost doing more of the fieldwork, I find reason after reason to stay home. It's getting hard to remember why I made business my life.

Resa has stopped talking about leaving, and every time I see her, she's making a place for herself in our home. She's making a space we treated as more of an office feel like home.

So instead of working, I was in the entryway, watching Resa and willing her to stay.

I'd tucked my phone away as Vaughn sauntered back into the house. And because I'd been watching her so intently, I'd caught the moment someone shot her.

I shout her name as metal glints from a tree far behind our garden hedge.

I'm still shouting as I sprint toward her, an order for her to get down. Resa blinks at me, beautiful brown eyes confused as she looks down at the smear of blood on her arm. Her legs fold under her.

But I'm right there, just in time, reaching out to catch her as she collapses.

I immediately spin her around, my back shielding her as I go to my knees. Vaughn and Blaine are right behind me. Both must have heard my shouting since they're carrying. The sniper has gone, but that doesn't mean Resa is out of danger.

Her face is flushed, cheeks pink, and sweat forms on her brow. She's burning up. Whatever the sniper shot at her wasn't a bullet. The wound on her arm is a puncture.

"Vaughn, get Sadie on the phone. Tell her to have a stretcher ready. We'll be there in five minutes." I check her pulse. Too fast. "Blaine, look for a dart. Sniper fired from over the south side hedge. We need to know what this was."

A phone jumps into Vaughn's hands as Blaine searches the grass. I stay on my knees beside Resa, shielding her body with mine.

"Got it," Blaine says.

Using the bottom of his shirt, he retrieves a small silver dart from the ground. The end is wet.

Someone didn't shoot a bullet at her. They shot drugs.

She's in leggings and a tank top, and my gaze latches on the gentle curve of her belly. Terror grips me by the throat.

The baby.

"I'm moving her." I slide my arm under her back and knees, lifting her slight weight off the grass and cradling her against me. "We need to find out what the fuck that drug was."

Now. Before it can do any damage to Resa and the baby.

"I'll cover you," Vaughn says tightly, moving with me. He has his Beretta in both hands, raised to the south side hedge, with his finger hovering over the trigger.

I swear the sweet peach scent of Resa's omega pheromones is growing stronger by the second. I thought it was in my head before, but now I'm not so sure. What the fuck did someone shoot her with?

"Let's go." I sprint up toward the house, shielding every part of Resa as I can, as Vaughn runs alongside us and Blaine covers the rear.

We make it to the house. Lex is waiting, phone in hand, and it sounds like he's telling Frost what happened and that he needs to come back.

In my arms, Resa groans. Her skin is flushed, and she's still burning up.

I stalk toward the front door.

As her scent grows stronger, I get harder. Resa smells like an omega in heat, which is impossible. No pregnant omega goes through heat.

Blaine retreats, his green eyes as hungry as mine must be. "I've got the dart," he says, backing up.

Vaughn is starting the Hummer as I slide in the back with Resa cradled in my arms. Blaine appears with a white towel he must have grabbed from the bathroom that he passes to Vaughn. "Here. Sadie will want to test it."

But he doesn't get in the car. He slams my door shut and runs to the Audi as Lex watches from the front door.

"Let's go," I order.

Vaughn runs every single red light on our way to the clinic. The car squeals to a stop right outside the clinic's front doors, where Sadie is already waiting with a team to meet us.

One doctor is wearing a white coat, but Resa is unconscious, so I don't order him to take it off.

"Someone shot her with a dart," I say, placing Resa tenderly on the stretcher.

"Do you?—"

"I have the dart," Vaughn cuts Sadie off, holding the towel wrapped dart.

"Lara, get that to my father. We need to know what it is." Sadie bends over Resa, peels her eyelids back to check her pupils one by one as a nurse in black scrubs takes the white towel from Vaughn and sprints inside. "Her eyes are dilated. Let's get her inside," Sadie orders, straightening.

The doctor wheels Resa into the clinic, and I follow until something stops me. A small choked sound. I peer over my shoulder.

Blaine is backing away. "I can't stay here, Garrison. Not when she's…" Blaine's voice breaks, and he shakes his head. "I can't."

"I know," I assure him.

He rakes a shaking hand through his hair. "She needs me. And I can't let her see."

"Go. It's okay. She'll understand."

His scars. That car crash. Every day, they find a new way to torment him.

I watch him climb back into the Audi and tear out of the parking lot. He's had more than his fill of clinics and doctors coming to Resa's appointments. Expecting more will break him.

I hurry inside the clinic with Vaughn, lingering in the hallway outside the room Sadie wheeled Resa into.

Thirty minutes later, Sadie pushes open the door.

Over her shoulder, I take in Resa, lying under pale blue sheets in a matching blue hospital gown. Resa's scent is still thick, though it's not as overpowering as it was before. It's still stronger than it should be.

Vaughn and I step forward.

Sadie's blank expression sets off every warning I have. "What is it?"

"She's going into heat," she says calmly.

Vaughn and I stare at her.

"She's pregnant ," I say. Pregnant omegas do not go into heat. Heat is such an all-encompassing experience, putting so much pressure on an omega's body, that it's nature's way of protecting an unborn child. Everyone knows this.

"Whatever drug someone shot at her triggered her heat," Sadie says, troubled. "I didn't know a drug could even do that. It almost doesn't matter what it is because we don't have time to reverse it. The effect on Resa's body is unmistakable. This is heat."

Then I remember.

Something similar happened to Everleigh. She told us that the members would trigger an omega's heat before the auction.

I don't know why someone shot Resa with that drug, especially when they weren't shy about using bullets in the courthouse, but that isn't important now. I'll answer those questions later. Only one thing matters now.

"Can we stop it?" Vaughn asks.

"I've sedated her, but you can see how well that's working," Sadie says.

My gaze drifts over her shoulder. Resa's olive skin is flushed and every few seconds she twitches under the sheets.

"There must be something else," I say.

I promised Resa that she and the baby would be okay, and that means they have to be. I won't settle for anything less than. They will be okay.

"Sedation is not working. That drug could have killed her, and I can't risk giving her anything stronger while she's pregnant. The longer this continues, the more it endangers the baby."

Sedation isn't working. There's only one thing that can help an omega through heat.

An alpha's knot. Or…

I look at Sadie. "If you bring her out of the sedation, will she be able to talk?"

"I can give her something to make her lucid. It would only be for a brief time before it wore off and heat overwhelmed her. Her body is under extreme stress right now." Sadie's expression is serious. "This is not good for her or for the baby."

"I'll talk to her, give her the options. Maybe…" My voice trails off as a doctor in a white coat stalks this way, distracting me. His steps are purposeful, and at first, I think he's on his way to another room to see a patient.

Until I realize he's laser-focused on Resa's open door.

An alpha.

Resa's scent drifts out of the hospital room, a potent lure to nearby alphas. I'm in control, because I'm fighting to stay that way. This is Resa, my scent match, and the woman I love. I will fight biology with everything I have for her.

This alpha isn't fighting his urges. He's driven by pure instincts screaming at him to knot the perfuming omega he can smell.

Sadie moves to block him as he arrows in on Resa's door. "Ethan, you have to leave."

He doesn't slow down.

I stalk toward the prowling alpha that Sadie is failing to block with her body. "Vaughn, get the car ready. We'll be leaving through the window, so have the engine running."

Vaughn hesitates.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot his hand hovering near his right pocket.

"You can't shoot him. This is not a use deadly force situation." Not in a clinic, and not yet. "Go!"

Vaughn sprints down the hallway as the doctor lunges toward Resa's door, ignoring Sadie's attempts to block him.

I nudge Sadie aside, grab the doctor's shoulders and ram him head first into the nearest wall. Resa is my mate. No one is putting their hands on her.

He hits the wall with a grunt and collapses into a huddle, not moving again. He's still breathing, but I wasn't trying to kill him. Yet.

Farther down the hallway, nurses and doctors hover. I keep most of my attention fixed on the downed doctor as I bark. "Sadie, that drug you said can make Resa lucid. I need it now."

The soles of Sadie's sneakers squeak as she takes off at a sprint, yelling, "I'll be a minute."

I stand in Resa's doorway, blocking it as I wait for the next person who dares threaten my scent match. I breathe in through my mouth and out of my nose as Resa's scent grows stronger. But I fight those urges, battling back my need. My mate needs me to protect her, not maul her. And that's exactly what I intend to do.

Sadie's back in thirty seconds, and the doctor still hasn't moved from the floor.

She presses a needle with its tip covered into my hand, and I carefully tuck it into my shirt pocket. "One dose. Very small. Do you remember how to?—"

"Give a shot? I do," I interrupt as I walk into the room and ease Resa's sheet off her.

"I'll get the window." Sadie is already at it, whipping the blinds away and shoving it open as far as it will go.

"How long will I have after I give her the shot?" I ask, scooping Resa into my arms. Her head flops against my chest. And her ripe, sweet peach scent… I tremble with the need to tear the clothes from her body, then my own, and fall on top of her. I ache with it.

"Maybe five minutes."

It might not be enough time, but it might be just enough. Outside the room, the doctor groans, stirring.

Time to go.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Sadie asks.

No. But I hope I'm doing the right thing for Resa.

I throw my left leg out of the window then the right, careful not to hit Resa's head as I climb out. The second I'm out, Sadie slams the window shut, gives me a small smile and draws the blinds shut. As I sprint toward the parking lot, I hope I've opened up enough space that the doctor and any other alpha in the building can no longer smell Resa.

Vaughn has the Hummer's engine running as I approach at a jog. He sees me coming, and is out and around the car to pull the backdoor open, slamming it shut the second I'm in. "Home, Vaughn."

He slides into the front seat and takes off with a squeal of rubber. "I hear you."