Chapter 6

Rome

Dumb things happened sometimes. For instance, a ninety-year-old woman who decided to change lanes going forty miles an hour without looking. Right into him.

Even through the hazy state of shock, the shivers that racked his body as the bike lay on top of him, impossibly heavy, his body numb and weak, too weak to move it off and get up, he wondered how on earth she hadn't heard the loud rumble of his motorcycle. The growl was enough to shake the asphalt under him whenever he came to a stop.

Right. Because she was ninety.

And currently standing over him with bright seafoam green pants hiked up into a crisp white blouse with lace at the collar. She was the total granny package down to her wild and fuzzy white hair, thick eyeglasses, and the dentures she chomped back and forth in her mouth.

"Oh lord. Goodness me. Oh shoot. Dang. What can I do? Are you dead, son? That bike looks awful heavy. There's so much blood. Your leg doesn't look good. It's… oh sweet lord, it's twisted up under there."

He was fighting to stay conscious. He wasn't one of those people who couldn't feel pain. He just had a high tolerance for it. He didn't hate it. Pain could be useful. Right now, he felt nothing. Not because—thank the fucking stars—he'd been paralyzed when the bike went skidding out from under him, dragging him for what seemed like miles before it came to a twisted stop, plastering half his skin and blood on the road in the process.

The state of shock was the only thing that was going to save him from his wolf popping out right here to try and protect him. He still had enough energy for the shift, but it was channeled into his natural human reaction. He was shaking hard enough, he knew what it was.

"I'm calling an ambulance," the little old lady wailed. She was so distressed, it was hard for him to be mad at her. She was also adorably wrinkled.

That was probably the shock speaking. Why the hell couldn't he feel his leg? He tried to look down and could see just enough as he raised his head, still in his helmet, that the woman was right. It didn't look good, and it did appear to be twisted under the heavy frame.

"No ambulance," he choked. "No."

The last thing he heard before everything grayed out and faded to black was that high-pitched little old lady accent that seemed to come from all directions and very far away at the same time.

He had to stay conscious. He had to stay awake. If anyone got a hold of him, they could do anything to him, give him anything. If he wasn't in full control of himself, there was no telling what his wolf would do. Giving some doctor or first responder the scare of their lives might be the least of his worries.

He tried to open his eyes, but there was nothing. Just heaviness, a low-grade burn, and then black .

***

Rome opened one heavy, grainy lid. As soon as his eye focused, he saw white and he knew he was in a hospital—at least it looked like a hospital, and not some fucking secret government laboratory. There was a list of things that shifters feared, and doctors were right the hell up there. The risk of discovery was greatest when given medications, when in pain, when being kept in a confined space. It was all a recipe for a complete and total loss of control over the wolf. Unless a person was too hurt to summon the energy to shift, the wolf was there, ready to take over, ready to shield and endure and protect.

His mouth was so dry. He still couldn't feel much pain, and when he forced his eyes to focus on the back of his hand, he realized why.

There was an IV in there. It might just be giving saline, but at one time, they'd pumped something into him. Morphine? His head was definitely all wrong. Yeah, it was probably morphine. He had no idea how long he could last. He needed to get out of here before the hospital staff was dealing with an injured, frightened, angry wolf.

There were several machines around him, all beeping. He started detaching himself from the wires and clips and then pulled out the IV. He didn't feel the pinch, so whatever they had him on had to be strong. It was a miracle he was even coherent enough to do that much.

He swung back the sheets and grimaced when he saw his legs. He was still in his clothing, but one pantleg had been cut away. The leg was bandaged, probably as a way to keep things clean and to staunch the bleeding until something else was done. Surgery? Setting it? Was it broken? How badly was it crushed?

He wanted to look for himself, but was afraid that alone could tear the wolf out of his skin. He was already on the edge, his teeth grinding together with every movement he made. The bandage could stay. It would hide the injury from him, but it might also make it appear that he was free to go.

He made it down the hallway, hobbling awkwardly, his left arm also hardly any use at all to counterbalance himself. The fact he could even do this, proved that as awful as the leg injury looked, it mustn't have been that bad. Unless his shifter body had kickstarted the healing process—another reason to get the fuck out of here ASAP. At the hallway's juncture, he noticed a bank of elevators. They freaked him out, but it was a necessary evil. He could get down to the main floor and walk out the front doors far easier than tackling the stairs. He had no idea how high up he even was.

The fact that every step wasn't agony only worried him more and more. His head wasn't right. Was he even going in the right direction?

When he thrust himself into the elevator and tried to stab the L, the whole thing went blurry. The chrome pad suddenly looked like a silver scaled shark body, slithering up from the deep to claim him. He pulled back, cursing, but then reminded himself that sharks didn't have scales. Did they? Whatever he was seeing was just a byproduct of the shit pumped into him. It also freaked him out because if he was seeing that kind of thing, who knew what else would be beyond his control in a short measure of time.

The elevator reached the main floor without any further incidents. No sharks and no other wild animals, including him. He held it together. Barely.

A young couple stepping on gave him a funny look and he knew just how badly he must appear.

He walked on anyway, trying to appear confident, even though he was dragging his leg and his arm hung uselessly and the room was spinning with renewed violence.

He spotted sunlight at the far end of the hall and went towards it. It wasn't a light in the tunnel moment. It was the most welcome sight in the building. Doors that led outside. It didn't matter what exit, it just mattered that he'd reached it.

Phone. Wallet.

His hand flew to the back of his pants, but both were gone.

He stumbled to the parking lot, spotted a middle-aged man in a suit, and ambled towards him. The guy had one of those soft looks, both in body and in spirit.

He didn't draw back when Rome, dirty, bloody, beaten up, approached. "Do you need help getting into there?" The man already had an arm offered.

"No," Rome panted. His breathing was getting rapid for no reason. Anxiety? Shove it down. He had to shove it way the hell down. Stay in control. Breathe. "No, thank you. I was in an accident. I can't go in there because I lost my wallet and phone with my insurance information. I have an extra copy at home, but I need my wife to bring it. She doesn't even know that I'm here. I was brought in unconscious and woke up without anything. Would you lend me your phone to make a quick call?"

"Of course. I'm sorry, man, that's rotten luck." The guy gave him a once over. He had a receding hairline and a bit of a paunch. His suit was exceptionally cheaply made. Was brown ever a color that anyone found pleasing?

He passed over a phone and Rome could have wept. It was a lifeline. Thank fuck for the kindness of strangers. Though given the messed-up state he was in, he could be outrun by a toddler right now, so Mr. Cheap Suit probably thought he was safe from having his phone stolen. If he could get someone to come immediately, he could get into the car, and they could take him somewhere. Let him get that shit out of his system. He'd be safe. He'd heal on his own, eventually. Maybe he could even find a healer here, a shifter healer who could set him right to ensure that the bones didn't knit together incorrectly.

Who?

The guys from the garage? He didn't have their phone numbers memorized. It was after hours. There would be no one there.

His family? He knew most of their numbers, but they were about three hours plus traffic and packing time away.

He didn't know Gloria's number offhand. What kind of idiot did that make him that he couldn't even call the babysitter and tell her why he was late?

There was only one number that was burned into his brain.

She could get here shortly. Cram him in his car. Take him back to Waverly, collect her, and head directly to his former pack lands. Brooke Wind, their pack healer and healer to most of the packs in the area, would treat him. She'd remained neutral for anything. She owned her own land. He wasn't banished from her land or home.

Life had the most perfect sense of irony. Any and all the gods or forces of the universe were laughing at him. He was going to have to humble himself the way he'd forced her to do. Beg her. He was going to have to play nice and say please and put himself in her hands. He'd be at her mercy. She was about to see him at his weakest and most vulnerable, but short of passing out on the sidewalk and getting dragged back inside, or having the wolf come out and go on an unholy terror around the city, probably to be shot by a terrified citizen or law enforcement, there was nothing he could do.

He dialed.

His brain was barely pushing through her phone numbers. Would he even be coherent enough to call anyone else, even if it was a four-hour wait? He could hide himself until they arrived, but could he even stand up for that long? His head was starting to feel like it was full of toxic waste. It was invading every crevice used for thinking.

"Hello?" she answered. Her voice was pure heaven drifting through that phone. He nearly fell to his knees right there and kissed the concrete.

"Seren. It's Rome. I need a favor. A big favor. I've been in an accident. I need you to come to the hospital. I'm outside waiting. It's urgent."

"What? I can barely—you're slurring everything you're saying. What's wrong? What happened?"

"Help. Hospital. Come now. Wait outside."

"Oh my god. I get it. The wolf. You're in danger. We're all in danger. To be clear, that's the only reason I'm dropping everything right now and leaving. And yes, I went right to the bathroom as soon as I heard your voice. No one can hear me here. At least no clients. Rome, are you still with me?"

Barely. He was barely hanging on. Not when the world was so upside down and inside out. Not when his stomach was punching at his throat and his brain sickeningly.

"Yeah. Here."

"Where is here? What hospital?"

Rome looked to the man helplessly. He was watching him carefully. "Do you know what hospital this is?"

The man said something that Rome tried to translate over the phone.

Thankfully, Seren picked up on most of it. "Okay. I'll be there in twenty. Good thing I'm close."

Casper wasn't some vast city, so everywhere was pretty much close in any direction.

Rome hung up and passed the man back his phone. "Do you have a piece of paper?"

He blinked, but then slid a small notebook with an impossibly tiny pen out of his pocket. Rome wondered if he was hallucinating that because it looked so strange. But no. He picked up the pen and looked at him quizzically.

"Write your name and number for me. I'm a rich man. When I get my wallet back and this figured out, I plan on sending you a large chunk of money in exchange for your time and kindness."

"Oh." The man folded up the notebook onto the pen. He shook his head. He had jowls and they jiggled a little with the movement, but Rome could no longer find him undistinguished. He wasn't just a pathetic middle-aged creature walking with a depressed stance into one of the most wretched buildings ever invented.

He was beautiful in an odd way.

Kindness . He'd been in desperate need of help and this man had given it. That transformed the man's appearance.

"No. Thank you. I just want to make sure you'll be okay."

"My wife will be here in twenty minutes. Thank you." He hoped the words were coming out how he meant them, but he was no longer sure. The man was clearly straining to understand him.

A bench. Wood. Metal. Uncomfortable. His eyes landed on it, and he hobbled off, dragging his leg now, his other hip ready to give out.

There was something astoundingly wrong with his stomach. He had to settle himself on the bench, his bad leg out in front of him and lean his elbows on his knees. The churning nausea burning through him only got worse, until he tasted acid in his mouth. He tried to lean further forward, but it wasn't enough. He still emptied his stomach out all over the bottom half of his jeans. It was just his luck that it was the pantleg that hadn't been cut away.

He straightened, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. It felt like his guts had turned to liquid, and if things didn't improve, he was going to have to find a bathroom before he embarrassed himself in the worst possible way.

He breathed through it the best he could and hunched over. He must look and smell like a vile creature. His eyes kept half closing. He almost considered jamming his fingers into his sockets to keep the damn things open. He needed to be aware, and whatever they'd given him was going to make him pass out.

The time it took Seren to get there might have been twenty minutes, but it felt like twenty days.

Due to another round of puking, which went all over the sidewalk beside the bench, people gave him a wide berth, and no one came up to ask if he needed help again. No one came out of the hospital either to chase him down or wrangle him back in. They must have taken his phone and wallet for ID. Everything could be replaced, but since all the ID was fake, it would be a nuisance. When he wasn't in the middle of a crisis, he'd come back and hunt it down as well as pay whatever his insurance didn't cover for the ambulance ride and whatever shit they'd pumped into him.

Whether it was her wolf senses that guided her straight to his bench or straight up luck, Seren's silly pink micro mobile slowed to a halt. She threw it into park, got out, and cringed.

"You should have warned me I'd need a tarp to protect my seats. I'm going to have to take my baby to the carwash after you've been inside it. Bleeding and barfing all over. You're a wreck, Rome. Seriously."

"I don't have time to debate that with you." The words felt like syrup in his mouth, sticky and slow coming out.

She swept up a handful of pink hair and tossed it over her shoulder. "I should make you beg me for this favor. I had to apologize to a client and leave the job half finished, which is extremely unprofessional. I had to ask Becka to close up the shop for me and move all my appointments for the next few days and that's not her job. We do our own scheduling. Plus, there's my time and gas, the degradation to my vehicle—"

He'd never needed out of a place more than he'd needed out of there. He closed his eyes and balled his fists. "Please."

"You can do better than that."

"Seren." Fuck, he'd earned that. He looked her straight in the eye, which made his head pulse and his stomach churn. He stopped before he vomited again. " Please ."

"You must be in a terrible position if you called me. You knew that the only thing I'd be serving up was giant sized humble pies."

He tried to stand up, but wavered. She rushed forward despite her smug taunting but stopped just short of grasping his shoulder. "Is it okay if I touch you?"

What kind of question was that?

"You stipulated in the contract that what we engaged in would never involve touch. I doubt that was for my benefit. Do you have some condition? Something I could set off? Am I going to hurt you further?"

"It's not like that. Not that simple." He ground his teeth against a fresh onslaught of nausea. His mouth was foul and acid crawled up his throat again.

"You're going to need help getting into the car."

"If it wasn't a child's toy, it would be more helpful."

"I'm sorry, should I have walked? It would have been so much faster to hoist you onto my back and carry you all the way to your—"

He took two steps, bent over, and heaved up what little was left in his stomach. It was mortifying being in such a vulnerable position. Beneath his hair, cool fingers curled around the back of his neck. His stomach was still convulsing when Seren slipped her hand to the small of his back.

"Okay. I'm sorry. This is enough torture already. I know you can't go back in there, but I strongly feel that you need medical attention immediately. Think about the risks before you let your daughter see you like this."

"Can't help it," he panted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand yet again. He'd never been more disgusting. No, that wasn't true. The night he'd killed eight wolves he'd been nothing more than a walking, blood-covered corpse. "Can't trust that I won't shift."

"You could be damaged inside. Your leg and arm are clearly ten shades of fucked up."

He almost laughed. Almost, but instead he used the rest of his energy to hurtle himself the few steps to the passenger seat of her car. Seren flung the door open for him and he carefully eased his leg in. It was definitely broken somewhere.

"It's the morphine," he stated.

"That's what's making you sick?"

"I haven't thrown up blood, so I think my insides are fine."

Seren shook her head and slammed the door, but she couldn't hide her worried frown.

She got in beside him, reached across, and grabbed the seatbelt. It was no easy task given that he looked like he'd just stuffed himself into one of those plastic toy cars truly made for kids. She didn't have far to reach, but his chest was practically in the dash. She grabbed it anyway and buckled him in.

She punched his address into her phone and tore away from the hospital.

He didn't say anything, but the way she drove was nearly maniacal. It was one hair short of a miracle that they weren't in another accident. Maybe it just felt like the car was going way too fast and half out of control because his head was a swampy mess, his stomach was worse, the pain was starting to register in his brain, and the car was a micro mobile next to all the regular sized vehicles whizzing past them.

"Bikes are dangerous," Seren chided. "I always wanted one, but my better judgement won out."

"It's not bikes, it's everyone around them."

"Exactly. You can't trust anyone else not to kill you, so you shouldn't be driving anything that if you crash it, will make you look like this." She waved a hand down the length of him.

"I had protective gear on." On top, at least. "People look a lot worse after some vehicle accidents. Should everyone stay off the road?" That was a damn fine motorcycle jacket that was probably gone for good. He didn't have it on. Just his t-shirt, jeans, and boots. The jeans might be half gone, but at least they hadn't stuffed him into one of those backless gowns.

"Are you going to throw up again?"

He did a mental inventory. The pain was just starting to creep through the morphine haze. It was either wearing off or the pain was intensifying. "Not right now." Was right now the right time to ask her for a huge favor? "I need… there's a healer…"

"Yeah. I figured. That's why I had Becka move my appointments for the next few days. I thought you'd need to go to someone who probably doesn't live here. Someone from your past who can fix you without your wolf tearing out their throat. When we get to your place, just stay in the car. I'll run in and get Waverly. I'll pack her a bag and get you a few things too. Whatever you want. You shouldn't be moving around. I'll get a blanket to cover you up so Waverly can't see any of this, and a barf bucket."

"Where do you assume that you're taking me?"

"Somewhere outside the city where it's safe for you. You clearly weren't raised the way I was, which is to avoid hospitals and doctors unless it can't be avoided. My wolf understands that human healers are there to help. Even through medications and surgeries, my wolf has been tamed down to understand that a hospital is not the kind of scenario we need to be protected from."

Her powers of deduction made his brain feel like it was swelling in his skull.

That might also be the drugs. It might be a concussion. He might be wrong about the internal bleeding. No, he hadn't been raised the way she'd been.

"We have a pack healer."

"I imagined so. Injuries like this can't go untreated. You won't heal right."

"She's close to my family, but on neutral ground."

She didn't say anything, although she was clearly bristling with questions. The quiet lasted until she pulled into a guest spot in the parking lot that circled the condo complex. "I don't know the way." Seren turned off the ignition. "You should write it down for me." She blew a lock of hair out of her eyes and sighed when she looked him over. "Never mind. Just tell me and I'll put the directions in my phone. If you go into shock or lose consciousness, you're not going to be reliable."

He closed his eyes, tracing back the route in his head. He'd been to Brooke Wind's small cottage so many times over the years. He'd always gotten his ass beat in fights with local wolves. If there was a brawl to be had, he was definitely there to instigate and participate. He remembered the day, just over two years ago, that Kieran dragged his sorry carcass there after a particularly nasty fight and got the surprise of his life. It turned out that his angelic younger brother, the favorite of the family, the most upstanding wolf in the Nightfall Pack, his parents' choice to be alpha, had been seeing Brooke's daughter Zora in secret for years. She'd vanished, gone to the city a decade before, but she'd had his brother's twins there. It was a complicated story, but that day started everything for Kieran. A new life. A new dawn for their pack. A new alpha.

He gave Seren a play by play on the backroads so he was certain she could find her way, even though he had no intention of passing out.

"What about the garage?" she asked when he was finished.

"The guys will pick up the slack."

"You need to call someone. Tell them what happened and that you'll be out for a few days." She passed him her phone. Their fingers never brushed. He tried not to think about the way her touch still lingered from the hospital, but her fingertips felt like they were embedded into the skin of his neck. Her face shuttered and she practically dropped the phone into his lap. "What about our agreement?"

He'd seen that coming. "I can boss you around anywhere."

"You expect me to stay with you?" she scoffed. "Out there, in the middle of nowhere, just abandon my work and my clients? No way. Not without compensation."

"I'll pay you."

"No. You'll cancel this Monday's session and the one after that. I'll need to open my Mondays up to make up for the clients I'm going to have to move around. I'll need the full day, well into the evening and probably half the night."

"Done," he growled.

"Do I need it in writing or is your word good?"

He didn't dignify that with a response. He managed to punch in the garage's number. He'd leave a message there on the machine for the guys. He'd tell them his phone was gone and not to worry if they couldn't reach him. He'd be back.

When he started talking, Seren threw herself out of the car. The condos were tall and narrow and his was a top level one. She walked up the narrow metal stairs, back straight, like she was marching into a warzone.

She was undeniably strong. A warrior. The weapon. He'd bought her body and her time, but he hadn't broken her pride. She had more integrity in one cell than he had in his whole body. She'd come when he'd called. Come when no one else could. She was there when he needed her. She pretended to be annoyed, but she'd already anticipated that he'd need a ride somewhere and that it wouldn't be a single days' job. Even hating him as much as she did, he knew she would have done this for free if he asked.

Most people came in shades of gray. They weren't two dimensional. They were complex and ever changing. Seren? She was one dimensional in that way that she was all good. Pure.

She turned around when she reached the door and stared down at the car. He looked up at her and their gazes clashed. It seemed like she was searching him, staring a hole straight through him, trying to see through clothing, bones, skin, muscle, to the heart beneath.

What made it so black? What made you so damaged? Why do you want me if you swore you'd never have another mate. Why do you want to own me? Why do you want to make me yours?

He broke first, tearing his eyes back to the phone. He'd left it so long in silence that the answering machine disconnected the call.

She couldn't have possibly been asking him any of that. Those were only his own questions bouncing around inside a skull addled by nasty painkillers.

Through the pain, which was coming on strong now, and through the nausea and the haze and the weird stiffness in his fingers, through the black at the edges of his vision, he dialed the shop's number again, and this time left what he hoped was a coherent message.

He might be an impenetrable force, the villain in everyone's story, the bastard that just kept going and going, forging on and surviving, but he was tired. He was messed up. He just needed to close his eyes. Just for a minute. Thinking about being so near to his family and his pack lands, so near to the place Lila's body had been found, it was exhausting.

When he closed his eyes, he focused on the pain, and since the drugs were wearing off, there was more than enough of it to keep him company until the blackness took over. He'd had no intention of letting it win, but Seren knew the way.

He was either delusional or it was still the drugs, but he found that he trusted her with Waverly.

He trusted her with his life.