Doc Featherstone's Return (2 page)

“The sad part is none of them are coming to visit Ash. Maybe they could help rally around him and give him a reason to fight. Instead, he just sits in that chair all day by himself,” Jacyn bit out angrily.

Dean got a sad look on his face. “Nobody comes to visit him?”

“He has Shane, Ackley, Gregg and Isaac, but other than that, not too many others. And even when they do come, Ash hardly says a word to them, he just stares off into space. It’s like the TV

is on, but nothing is on the screen. I just don’t know how to get through to him.”

“You need to bring back Doc Featherstone,”

Dean cut in.

Jacyn looked over at him in shock. “Have you
sneezed away your brains? Those two hate each other. The last thing Ash needs right now is that kind of confrontation. It could set him back even further.”

Dean shook his head. “I don’t think they hate each other at all. In fact, I’d be willing to bet the opposite is true.”

“What do you mean? Doc was always yelling at Ash,” Jacyn said, more confused than ever.

“Didn’t you tell me that Ash was one of your best medics?” Dean asked.

Wondering where this conversation was heading, Jacyn still decided to play along. “Sure, I did.”

“Yet Featherstone still put him out in the field where he wouldn’t have to see him every day.”

“Yeah, but he said he did that because he couldn’t stand the sight of Ash. Call me crazy, but that doesn’t exactly sound like he has the warm and fuzzies for him,” Jacyn said.

“Unless Doc felt like his attraction was inappropriate, and he was trying to distance himself from Ash as much as possible. The same could be with why he was giving Ash such a hard time. If Ash hated him, then there was never any danger of Ash returning his feelings,” Dean pointed out.

“I don’t know. I think that’s a long stretch there,” Jacyn said.
“Do you have any better idea?” Mitchell asked, leaning back in his chair.

“Well, no, but I don’t think this will work. They hate each other.”

“Has anything else worked?” Mitchell pressed.

“Well, no,” Jacyn admitted.

“Then we have nothing to lose, do we?”

“I guess not. I just hope this doesn’t end up blowing up in our faces,” Jacyn said.

“So, are we going to call the doc and ask him to come back?” Dean asked.

Mitchell shook his head. “I think he’s going to need some persuasion to come back.”

“So what are you going to do?” Dean asked.

Mitchell got a huge grin on his face.

“Oh, no,” Dean exclaimed.

“Oh, no…what?” Jacyn asked, alarmed.

“It’s never good when he gets that look on his face.”

“Why?”

“It can only mean one thing.”

“What?”

“Trouble.”

Mitchell leaned forward on his desk. “I think we’ll send Shane to the doc’s to convince him to see things our way.”

Both Jacyn and Dean said, “Oh, shit!”

J glass of whiskey before he took a seat in front of the fire and stared into the flames. As always, the flickering flames reminded him of one thing— Ash.

It was funny that he correlated fire with a Hawk shifter of all things, but somehow over the time that he’d gotten to know Ash, he had. Maybe it was the way that the man was always full of energy. Maybe it was the way he always seemed to brighten the room. Or perhaps it was the spark he had for life. Whatever it was, he was a fireball of energy, and damned if Joshua didn’t want a taste of it.

But Joshua had a good ten years on Ash, not only that, but Ash was a Hawk. While it wasn’t unheard of for felines to mate with Hawks in the coalition, it was within his family. If Joshua were to claim Ash as his, he would have to sever all ties
to his kin. Something that he wasn’t sure he was ready to do just yet, no matter how strong of an attraction he had to Ash.

Joshua sighed and took another drink. He didn’t even want to think about the fact that it was his third of the night. Or the fact that it was mixed with the illegal kind that made shifters drunk. All he wanted to do was forget. Forget about what waited for him back home. Forget about a certain Hawk with sexy brown eyes and slightly messy brown hair. Forget about how that Hawk almost died to save his life. Shit…Joshua just wanted to forget, period.

He only felt the slightest shift in the air before the familiar scent of Shane filled the room. Taking another drink of whiskey, Joshua then let out a grunt and asked, “Don’t you ever just knock on the front door and walk in like a normal shifter?”

Shane walked out of the shadows. He had his assassin cloak pulled over his brown hair, but his doe-like eyes were clearly visible along with his baby-like face. All of which were deceiving since Shane was the most dangerous shifter out there.

He could kill quicker than most could sneeze, and he rarely felt sorry for it either. As a Leopard shifter, it was part of his genetic makeup, but Shane had taken it one step further and honed it to a fine art. It was a good thing that he and Joshua were good friends, or else Joshua would have
been pissing in his pants right then. While he wasn’t a coward by any means, a visit from Shane usually wasn’t a good thing, unless he liked you.

“What brings you here?” Joshua asked.

Shane tilted his head to the side. Something he did whenever he was trying to figure out every day common matters. Shane had been raised to kill, not to interact with others. “Maybe I just came to say hello to an old friend?”

The fact that the comment came out as a question rather than a statement was both amusing and telling. While Shane’s interaction skills were getting better since he’d taken a mate, he still had a long way to go.

“You could have just called for that,” Joshua pointed out.

Shane looked around the house and let out a low whistle. “Wow, Doc. You never told me you came from money.”

“What did you expect, a teepee or something?”

Joshua asked, knowing that Shane was deliberately changing the subject.

Shane jerked around and gave him a dirty look.

“No, I’m not into stereotyping people. You should know I would be the last one who would do that kind of shit. I just never thought a doctor who came from this kind of money would work at a coalition. Don’t you guys usually go into private practice or work for other richy people?”
“Yes, but much to my parents’ disappointment, I wanted to make a real difference in the war against the Ravens, so I joined up with the coalition as soon as I graduated. This is their house, by the way.”

Shane ran one gloved hand over the mantel of the fireplace. “So, why did you come back here to heal?”

Because I couldn’t stand the guilt of watching him
suffer in pain. Knowing that it was all because of me.

Since Joshua couldn’t say that part aloud, he only went with half the truth. “Because it was too hard to be there after the massacre. I lost a lot of good people that day.”

“There are a lot who are still injured, too.”

Joshua desperately wanted to ask about Ash, but knew that would be too telling. Shane was nothing if not shrewd, and he would pick up on that instantly. “Yes, I know there are.”

“How are you doing?”

“Better. Or rather, I should say as good as I’m going to get. My hand grip strength is never going to be the same as it was, and I’m going to walk with a limp for the rest of my life. I’ll still be able to be a doctor, but my operating days are over.”

That stung badly, too. Joshua had loved surgery most of all. But he would learn to live without it.

At least he hadn’t died that day, like so many of his staff members had.
“Have they been able to find replacements for the staff we lost?”

“Yeah. You remember Kallen?”

“The half-breed Hyena that’s related to Gage?

What about him?” Joshua frowned.

“Turned out he has some mad medic skills.

He’s working in the infirmary now.”

“Tell me you’re shitting me.”

They did not have a Hyena loose in his infirmary. There was just no way it could be possible.

Shane rolled his eyes. “He’s under heavy security, and he’s being a good boy. It’s supposed to help reform him and help him become a good doggy. So far, he’s been doing a great job. He gave me some stitches the other day and did fantastic.

He even apologized when he gave me a shot.”

“Probably because he’s terrified of you,” Joshua muttered.

“So, Doc, how long are you going to wait until you ask me how Ash is doing?”

Joshua winced. He hadn’t realized he’d been that transparent, but then again he was dealing with Shane, and that little bastard never missed a damn thing.

“How is he?”

“Do you want the bad news or the terrible news?”

Joshua felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach.
“Is it that awful?”

“He can’t walk or shift. Well, he possibly could if he were to work at it, but he refuses to leave his bed or wheelchair. It’s like he’s checked out or something.”

“That doesn’t sound like Ash at all.”

Shane sat down on the arm of the couch. “Yeah, well, he’s changed a lot since the attack. He sometimes goes for days at a time without talking.

He’s refusing to eat. He’s asked both Mitchell and Daniel to cull him.”

“Are you shitting me?” Joshua cried, alarmed and terrified.

“Don’t worry, they both turned him down. As did I, when he asked me to kill him.”

Joshua brought a shaking hand up to his mouth. “He wants to die?”

“He thinks he has no reason to live anymore.”

Shane shrugged.

“But, if he walks again…”

“For some reason, he doesn’t believe that. He thinks he’s going to be in that chair forever,”

Shane interrupted.

“Well, you guys have to find a way to prove to him otherwise. Give him a reason to hope.”

Joshua grabbed the glass to take another drink, but Shane took it from him and tossed it across the room. Getting right into Joshua’s face, Shane said, “Why do you think I’m here?”
Now Joshua was confused and drinkless.

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“For some reason, Dean seems to think that you’re the only one who can get through to Ash.”

Joshua pointed to himself. “Me? In case you didn’t get the memo, he hates me.”

“Which is why he threw himself in front of you and took six bullets for you? Boy, for somebody who’s so smart, you can be fucking stupid sometimes. Ash worships the ground you walk on. You’re just too dense to see it. Or maybe you just don’t
want
to see it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Joshua demanded.

“That maybe you don’t hate Ash as much as you claim you do, and the reason you’ve been hiding out here is out of guilt. Because you know that you can’t or won’t give him back what he needs.”

“Exactly what are you trying to say?” Joshua began to feel a bit frustrated and angry. Both of which were not new emotions as far as Ash were concerned.

Shane gestured to all the family portraits hanging on the wall. “I would bet my best gun that all of these are felines. I’d go even further and say that they’re all Bobcats like you. Am I right?”

“Yes,” Joshua admitted, his stomach sinking.

“So, if you were to become mated to a male
Hawk, they wouldn’t be too happy, would they?”

Damn it, but Shane had caught on sooner than Joshua had expected. “No, they’d disown me.”

“So, instead of owning up to your feelings, you did everything in your power to push the kid away.”

“It’s more than that, Shane. He’s ten years younger than me. Even you have to admit that’s a huge age gap.”

Shane cocked his head to the side. “It sounds to me like you’re just looking for more excuses.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Neither is abandoning him when he needs you the most. Now, are you going to get into the car or do I physically have to drag you there? Because either way, you’re going back to him.”

Joshua sighed. He would go back. He knew he had to the moment Shane told him how bad Ash was doing. In fact, the Bobcat in him was screaming to go rescue Ash. To go soothe the poor Hawk. To somehow make him better.

All of the sudden, Joshua wanted to kick himself for staying away for so long. Granted, he hadn’t known how bad Ash had been doing, but he could have at least called to find out. Instead, he’d played the coward’s role and stayed away.

“Just let me pack my bag.”

They drove through the night and arrived at
HQ just as the sun was beginning to rise. As soon as they parked and entered, the first place Joshua headed was the infirmary. He wanted to see for himself the condition that Ash was in. As he walked in and got his first view of the Hawk, Joshua swayed and had to grab the wall for support.

Ash was so thin that he looked emaciated. His skin was so pale that it resembled rice paper that would shred if touched. His eyes were overly large, ringed in black, and his lips were chapped from dehydration.

He sat in a wheelchair, facing a window, but he didn’t appear to be really looking at anything. His gaze was vacant and almost dead. His once lustrous brown hair, now hung in his face without any care to it.

Various IVs ran into his thin hands, and he had a blanket draped over his legs. Legs that no longer worked. To think of the once boisterous, bouncy medic reduced to this nearly brought Joshua to tears.