Blood of a Werewolf (21 page)

“How sweet!
 
My little brother, the string bean giant.”

“I’m sure he’ll love that pet name.”

“Come here you!
 
My doctor told me I need very special care - as many kisses as I can stand, but only from you.”
 

“And when did he give you this prescription?
 
I’ve been here all day and the doctor has yet to come to your room.”

“While you were asleep he snuck in here and told me.
 
He didn’t want to wake you.”
 

He stood up and kissed her. “You really scared me, Love.
 
Really, really scared me.”

“I’m sorry! I promise to make it up to you!” she said with a devious smile.
 
He leaned in to her and she grabbed him, and pulled him on the bed with her, ravaging him with kisses.

“Why, Miss O’Rielly, I do believe you are feeling better.”
 

“You think?”

Chapter 15

Around 10:00 A.M. the doctor finally came to visit Darby.
 
All her tests came back negative and the MRI was clean.
 
The doctor gave her a clean bill of health and told her she could be discharged by noon.

For Darby though, discharge just meant that she didn’t have to wear the goofy gown and would be sitting instead of lying in a different room.
 
Darby asked Devon to take Blake to the hotel and get some sleep.
 
Darby had been asleep for almost a day, and the guys looked like they were about to drop.
 
They argued with her, but in the end, she won.
 
It wasn’t like she was over exerting herself. She was just sitting in a chair, waiting for her sister to wake up.

Darby talked to her sister, held her hand, and read to her from a fashion magazine from three months ago that had been well read by probably every patient and visitor that had passed through this room in those three months.
 
The nurses came in and the nurses went out, and no matter where Darby was, she seemed to be in the way.

Finally around 4:00 P.M. the doctor came in to see her.
 
He asked a ton of questions and then said to her, “Not all of the test results are back yet, but so far the ones that have come back are negative.
 
Her white cell count is rather high and we have put her on a wide range of antibiotics.
 
Whatever it is, she is fighting it, so we are just helping her body do that by making sure she is hydrated.
 
We can’t seem to find any reason why she hasn’t awakened and that, right now, is our biggest concern.
 
We couldn’t find any sedative traces in her blood, so that is not the cause. For now, though, all we can do is wait for her to wake up.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” she said as he left the room.

She looked at her sister’s pretty face.
 
So young, sweet, and so much life still to be lived.
 
What would her mother say to Darby if is she were here? She supposed she’d be pretty upset with her for letting something happen to her baby.
 
Darby brushed the hair away from Rowan’s closed eyes and held her hand.
 

“Hey Sweetie, it’s Darby.
 
You need to wake up, Honey.
 
You’re giving Blake a heart attack, you know.
 
He’s been by your side through all this.
 
He’s very sweet..
 
I’m not sure if he’s said it or not, but he loves you.
 
I can see it in the looks he gives you, and his protectiveness.
 
There’s not a nurse in this place he hasn’t reprimanded for lack of gentleness with you.
 
You need to fight this, Sweetie, for him, for me. Please wake up, Rowan,” Darby said.
 

Under Rowan’s pillow she put a little pouch of herbs and crystals to help her heal.
 
She continued to talk to her all through the day and into the night.
 
She tried singing a lullaby her mother had sung to them when they were little girls.
 
She tried getting mad at her using her middle name – “Rowan Margaret O’Rielly, wake up right now!” Nothing worked.
 
She went back to reading aloud the articles from the old magazine, just to let Rowan know someone was with her.

She was glad that she had made the guys get some sleep. They must have been exhausted. She was so glad she had them to play tag team with. It was like having a family again.
 
It had been just the two of them, for years and now, it felt good to have a shoulder to cry on.
 
But mostly, it was nice to not have all the responsibility for everything all the time. She liked being a big sister, but it was lonely sometimes.
 
Now, with Devon to share the weight and the string bean giant to tease and baby, it felt very good.
 
If only we could get Rowan out of the hospital and get back home, it would be perfect.

She thought about all this as the clock ticked overhead to 2:54 A.M.
 
She was still reading and her voice was getting hoarse.
 
She looked up at Rowan’s face and thought she saw her eyes flutter.
 
She tossed the magazine into the seat of the chair as she stood up and leaned in next to the bed and grabbed Rowan’s hand.

“Honey, can you hear me?”
 
Darby asked.
 
“Rowan, it’s Darby.
 
Wake up, Honey!”

Rowan’s eyes started to open.

Darby’s eyes welled up and started to spill over in joy.
 
“Oh Sweetie, we were so worried.
 
How do you feel?” Darby said.

“Groggy!
 
Where am I?”

“You’re in a hospital, in Maine.”

“Maine? You mean like across the continent?”

“That’s the one. Does anything hurt?”

“No.
 
I feel hot though. So what am I doing in Maine in a hospital?”

“It’s rather a long story, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t seem to have anything going on at the moment.
 
Maybe you could oblige me?”

“You must be feeling better. Your sarcasm seems to be intact.
 
Okay, but I’ll have to stop if one of the nurses comes in; you’ll understand as I get started.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“As far as we can tell, you went to the backyard to get something you thought you left out there during the circle ceremony.
 
Do you remember that?”

“I remember the circle ceremony, but not going outside later.”

“While you were out there, one of Paine’s men grabbed you and either sedated you or knocked you out.
 
I’m thinking Chloroform or something like that, because the doctors didn’t find any wounds on your head.
 
They put you on a plane, we think a personal jet or charter, and flew you to Maine.”

“Why Maine?”

“I guess Paine felt if you were closer to him, he could deal with you and us in his own backyard, so to speak.
 
Paine’s thugs took you to a warehouse, where they...ummmm.”

“They ummmm...what?”

“They injected you at regular intervals with werewolf blood.”

“What? Why?”

“Paine was insane.
 
He had found some ancient book that made mention that werewolves and vampires were mortal enemies.
 
He figured you had been turned by Blake and he wanted to make sure that you, as a vampire, would die with the Bloomingtons.”

“But where does the werewolf blood come in?”

“Well, it seems that if a vampire is injected with werewolf blood, that the two bloods will fight it out, leaving both bloods dead along with you.”

“But I’m not a vampire!”

“I know, Sweetie, but he didn’t know that and went along with his plan.”

“Swell. So what does that mean?”

“I don’t know yet.
 
We’ve been more concerned with you waking up, then what you would wake up to become.”

“So I could be a werewolf?”

“Again, I don’t know.
 
We’ll deal with that when we have to.
 
Right now we want you to get well enough so we can go home and figure this all out.”

“Where’s Blake?”

“I sent him and Devon back to the hotel to get some sleep.”

“Why? How long have I been here?”

“A few days I think.
 
I’m not absolutely positive, as I was out for a while too.”

“You? How? Why?”

“Well, after you were kidnapped, we found a note next door, telling us the only way to get you back was for the guys to turn themselves over to Paine.
 
So we all jumped on the red-eye and flew into Portland.
 
Once we got here, we went straight to Paine’s house in Cape Cottage and confronted him.
 
I used one of those psychic bubbles Blake taught me to use and put it around Paine.
 
I minimized it to just around his body so he couldn’t move from his chair.
 
I also made the bubble air tight, so that his air supply would become less and less as time went on.
 
It was the only tactic I could think of, to get the information we needed to find you.
 
After listening to the man’s deluded ranting, we finally got him to admit what he had done to you and where you were.
 
I sent the guys to gather you and when Dev…”

“Wait a minute.
 
You sent the guys to get me?
 
Who was watching after you?”

“There was no need.
 
The old man was in a bubble, what could he do?”

“But the last time you used the bubble you passed out.”

“Umm.
 
Yeah! But this needed to be done.
 
There were two thugs with you and they were about to give you another dose of blood.”

“But that was stupid of you.
 
What would have….”

“It had to be done.
 
The guys had three people to contend with and I had an old man who could barely breathe.
 
Anyway…getting back to the story…”

And that’s when the nurse came in to poke and prod.
 

“Oh, it’s good to see you finally woke up, Dear.
 
How do you feel?” the nurse asked.

“Ok. A little hot, I guess,” Rowan answered.

“Well, I will let the doctor know that you are awake.
 
I’m sure he will be in to see you this morning when he makes his rounds.
 
In the meantime, get some rest, Dear,” the nurse replied.

“Uh huh!” Rowan said and the nurse left.

While the nurse was in the room, Darby texted Blake and Devon to let them know Rowan was awake.

“Okay, so you were alone with Paine, and you had sent the guys off after me and the thugs, then what?” Rowan said now that the nurse was gone.

“Paine and I had a long conversation about what a deluded old butt-head he was.
 
He showed me the ancient book that he had gotten his werewolf information from.
 
I also got the name and address of the werewolf he killed, whose blood he used on you.
 
I thought we could maybe contact his family.
 
Maybe they had information about werewolves that we might need to help you.
 
About that time I received a call from Devon that they had found you and you didn’t look good.
 
I told them to grab everything there and get you to the hospital.
 
I also asked Blake to meet me back at Paine’s house,” Darby answered.

“Why? I mean why Blake?”

“I thought, well…I had a plan that…I don’t know, I guess I just thought he’d listen to me no questions asked and that’s what I wanted.
 
I was going to have him turn the old man and then give him a dose of the werewolf blood and let him die there the way he intended you to die.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“That sounds more like something I would do, not you!”

“Yes, well…I’m not proud of it, but I was sick of this crazy old man interfering with my family, and well – do you know that the werewolf didn’t even attack them!
 
He just started to turn – probably trying to scare them off and they killed him, right where he stood.”

“Hey! I’m not condoning what Paine did.
 
He was psychotic; I’m just surprised at how you handled it.
 
So you felt that if you had asked Devon, he wouldn’t have let you go through with it?”

“I’m not sure that’s why I asked Blake instead of Devon. I knew, though, that Devon was the right person to be with you.
 
He’s the stronger of the two and he’d protect you like I would.”

“Hmmm. So what happened that landed you in the hospital?”

“Well, when Blake finally reached the house to find my nose and ears bleeding and Paine aiming a gun at me. I don’t remember much of anything else. Later, I woke up in the hospital with Devon at my side.”