Chapter 207

Arthur’s Pov

Gross. My mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, and tastes like stale blood. Wait a minute. I realize I’m thinking, that I’m having reactions to physical stimuli. I’m alive.

I try to open my eyes, but the blinding light forces me to squeeze them shut again.

“Easy, easy.” I feel the soft touch of someone’s nurturing hands gently lay me back down. I know that voice too. Who is it?

I don’t want to listen to the voice, I have to fight. The vampires, the familiars, they’re going to get me if I stay down. They’ll know I’m not really dead. They’ll kill me for good. Other wolves on the field pretended to play dead and it didn’t work, all it did was really get them killed.

What is this beeping? A bomb? Just as that guess comes into my mind, the beeping sounds happen closer and closer together. Almara. An image of her pops into my brain and it’s like I know she needs me. She called out to me. I try to move, but my limbs feel like lead. I have to get to her.

“Relax. You’re in a hospital. You’re okay.” The voice says again. The being slows as does my heart rate. “You suffered a stab wound to the chest. We believe whatever penetrated you had some venom in it, which we were able to extract just in time.”

I know what my injury is. The weapon in question was the claw the shape of a hook by a familiar that was part monkey and part lizard. I’ll never forget its malicious grin right before it struck me.

I try to shake the image from my head. “Almara,” I somehow manage to croak out.

“She’s fine,” The voice says, but even in my condition, I can still detect a lie. At least I know my brain didn’t suffer too much damage. I try again to open my eyes. This time the voice doesn’t try to stop me.

I don’t know how long it takes, but it feels like forever. Eventually, I’m able to see through the blinding lights and make out glimpses of my surroundings.

A lone chair is poised across from me. I’m lying on a white cushioned table. There’s a monitor behind my head, which probably is the reason for the beeping. The room is white, sterile and lacking any indication of tender love and care.

It’s also different than any hospital I’ve ever been in. Certainly different than the facility the Hurricane Pack uses. This hospital is make shift. In fact, the more I look at the walls the more I realize it’s just a tent.

The voice belongs to Almara’s mother who smiles at me, but there’s a sad quality to it.

“Almara,” I say again, this time with more strength in my voice, but it takes all the strength out of me.

“She’s okay.”

I get tired of this dance. Let out a grunt and force myself to sit up as much as I can which isn’t a lot. “She called, didn’t she?” By called, I mean howled.

Her mother hangs her head. “Yes,” She speaks softly. With that confirmed, a surge of new life pumps through my veins. I have to go to her.

“Arthur,” Almaras mother says with a bit of urgency in her voice. For a moment, I think she’s going to tell me that I’ve suffered serious injuries and too much physical exertion could cause the stitches to rip, but she doesn’t. When I look at her, I can tell there’s something serious she needs to share.

“The vampires are after your daughter,” She says and at once it all comes flooding back of how I ended up here. Then a minor detail causes me to pause.

“How do you know that?” I ask. The vampires and familiars came up to me on the field, though they didn’t want to fight. They said they wanted to make a deal.

I thought maybe we were beating them better than I thought and they wanted the war to end. They said if I gave them my daughter, they would cease the attacks. I laughed as the thought that they believed that to even be a possibility.

Then they told me they were going to take her anyway. Once they had Grace, they would take Almara, then the rest of the wolf nation. Pack by pack. Wolf by wolf. I had to think fast so I offered myself instead.

I remember this catching their interest. The vampires said this would suffice so I let them attack me. I should have known better than to take them at their word. I was filled with such delusion and hope that the war would end that I didn’t stop to think that I offer myself up to them freely only for them to continue with their original plan.

Who’s to say that if they even get their cold, dead hands on my daughter that they would stop? They only want her because of her advanced skill. Maybe they’d hold off for some time, but once Grace is grown they’ll be back using my own flesh and blood against me.

They probably knocked me out, only to get me out of their way as they advanced towards Grace. Almara’s call. Almara probably went to go protect our daughter. The beeping from the monitor picks back up.

“Nevermind how you know,” I say realizing that if the nurses at the hospital know this is what the vampires are after, then others know too. Everyone could know. which means it’s a race against everyone to be the first to get their paws on my daughter.

I think of Almara again and am certain this is the reason why she’s not here at the hospital. The only way she’d leave me is if she believed she could save our daughter, and I believe that she can too. Now, I have to go save my mate.

I remove the IV from my arm and again I half expect to be stopped, but I’m not. The nurses probably all figure that I couldn’t be stopped be anyways, not when my family is on the line.