mywolfprotector (22 page)

drank a lot of tea, and the next thing I know she collapsed, hitting her head on the table as she went down.”

“She's got a pulse right now, but it's thready. I need to get her back to my office, and on

advanced life support immediately, if she's to have a chance of surviving.” Carole Anne and Alexander stood up and moved out of the way, letting his assistants in.

Within seconds, Taylor was on the stretcher and secured to prevent her from rolling off. She

remained motionless, a large knot swelling on her forehead. Blood from the cut dripped off of her face, into her hair and on the sheet beneath her. Moving quickly, they set off for the door, with Doctor Sanders following.

Carole Anne and Alexander moved behind them, meeting Marrok at the door. His eyes were

wild and red, his face as pale as Taylor's. He looked at her before throwing his head back and howling, the sound filled with enough pain to bring tears to all that heard it. “What's happened to my mate?” he roared, caressing her face gently.

Doctor Sanders nodded at the attendants to keep moving. “Listen to me, Marrok. I know you're

upset, but if Taylor is going to live past the next few minutes, I have to give her proper treatment.”

Alexander moved up next to Marrok. “We're coming with you.”

Grim faced, Marrok nodded. The attendants took off at a fast clip, while the rest of them

followed. Carole Anne filled Marrok in on her last moments, her expression devastated.

Marrok was silent as he followed the doctor into the treatment room. He felt helpless, knowing his mate was moments, if not seconds, away from death. His voice was grim when he said, “Whatever it takes, Doctor. I refuse to live without her.”

“We will do what we can,” Doctor Sanders replied. The look of sympathy in his eyes was

completely at odds with his normally brisk manner. “We need to get to work on her, now. You're going to have to wait outside in the hallway.”

Alexander pulled him to the door while Carole Anne followed them, sobbing quietly. She pulled

the door shut behind her. Marrok immediately moved to the window to stare in, but one of the

assistants closed the curtains, blocking his view.

He raked a hand over his face, sinking down into a seat located by the door. “I left her this

morning, not realizing it could be the last time I ever saw her alive.” His voice was filled with agony.

“I've never known happiness, not like I have with her. Nothing could ever compare to Taylor. Nothing.”

His voice cracked at the end.

Alexander pulled Carole Anne close. His eyes watered at the raw pain and desperation in

Marrok's voice. They sat silently for the next hour, barely acknowledging Ivan and Elena, when they came through the door to sit with them. The attendants came and went several times, but didn't speak to the devastated group.

Marrok jumped up when Doctor Sanders opened the door. He shut it gently behind him, his

expression resigned. Marrok watched him in horror, as he forced out, “How is she?”

Doctor Sanders got right to the point. “Taylor has been poisoned.” He held up his hand as gasps of outrage filled the room. “It's not a recent poisoning, at least, it's not a recently administered one. It is tied into the drugs she was given in the research facility. Unfortunately, there is no known antidote for it. The scientists never intended for her to come off of it. Ever.”

Marrok growled, settling a lethal glare on the doctor. “I'll not accept this. There has to be

something that can be done.”

“How do you know this?” Alexander interrupted, standing up to put a calming hand on

Marrok's broad shoulder. “How do you know she was poisoned?”

“We ran extended tests on Taylor's blood, beyond those you already know about. Due to the

sheer amount of patients we had coming in, I never had a chance to review the full results, until now.”

Marrok stood up, his hands clenched into fists. “Could this have been avoided if you would

have known sooner?”

Doctor Sanders shook his head. “Absolutely not. Like I mentioned before, there are no known

cures for this. The withdrawal from the poison has thrown her heart into failure. If Carole Anne wouldn't have known CPR, she would have already been dead. As it stands now, she is stable, but it won't last. There is zero chance for her to recuperate from this.”

Tears ran out of the corners of Marrok's eyes, unnoticed. The rest of them were deeply grieved, as well. Taylor had managed to touch all of them since her arrival into Wolf Town, in one way or another. It was hard to imagine that the healthy woman they all knew was facing imminent death.

“What if I were to turn her? Is there anyway to wake her up enough to get her to agree?” It was possible to turn someone without their agreement, but the process was unbearable for the human, if they even survived.

Doctor Sanders was quiet for a long moment. Finally he said, “I think there is a possibility that could work, Marrok. The poison would be ineffective against a werewolf. Theoretically speaking, converting her would make it pass through her system, harmlessly. It won't be as simple as waking her up and changing her, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are still a few hours left until the moon rises. We have to keep her alive until then, which might be impossible. If she does make it, there isn't any surefire way for us to make her regain consciousness. I'd recommend talking to her constantly. Hopefully, that will be enough. If not, you are going to have to decide if you want to change Taylor without her permission, or let her go.”

Marrok shook his head, his dark eyes flashing. “Letting her go is not an option.”

“Make sure you're prepared to turn her then, even without her permission. I don't want any

indecision about this, Marrok,” he warned, his eyebrows arched. “Decide this now, before the moon hits the skyline. Indecision is cruel to the patient. You don't want to stand there at that last critical moment, unsure of what your next move will be.”

“I won't,” he reassured him firmly, in a determined tone of voice. “There isn't any choice to

make. Whether this is done with or without her permission, Taylor is getting changed tonight. I meant what I said earlier, Doctor. Whatever it takes.”

“All right, then,” Doctor Sanders replied. “I'll let the assistants know that you'll be in shortly.”

He turned and walked into the room, leaving Marrok praying that his plan would work.

The door to the stairwell banged open as Nicole rushed into the room, Alonzo following closely at her heels. “Marrok, we just heard the news,” she cried out, anxiously. “How is Taylor?”

Marrok stared at her, his expression grim. His voice was low, grieved, when he replied, “She's dying.”

Nicole sank down into the seat by Elena as the other woman tried to comfort her. “I'm sorry to hear this news,” Alonzo told him, his dark eyes grave. “Is there nothing that can be done?”

Marrok's tone was flat when he replied, “I'm going to change her and pray it works.”

“Taylor has been my best friend since our school days. Without her, I would have never

survived Hell's Pit. You're werewolves for God's sake. I don't care what you have to do, Marrok. Please save her.” Nicole looked up at him, her eyes wide and pleading.

Alonzo grasped his shoulder. The two men were nearly identical in height. “What can we do to

help?”

“Pray,” Marrok replied, immediately. “Pray that she will wake up long enough to agree to the

conversion, and then, pray it works. I'm not sure being supernatural is enough to save her. There are too many things that can go wrong.”

Alonzo briefly closed his eyes in pain and sympathy for Marrok. “We will, in fact, the whole

pack is. Outside, the majority of the pack is camped out, waiting for news of your mate. The New Mexico pack is praying, and our medicine man is having a ceremony.”

Hearing this comforted Marrok. He'd seen a lot of miracles from prayer in his long life. He

looked at Alonzo with gratitude. “Thank you,” he responded, feeling encouraged.

“You're welcome. If there is anything else I can do, let me know.” He sat down next to Nicole.

She laid her face on his chest while he wrapped an arm around her. “We are going to be here until the bitter end, one way or another.”

Doctor Sanders walked out. “You can go in, now. I'll be monitoring her personally from the

office. If anything changes at all, let me know. Otherwise, I'll be back hourly to check on her.”

“Thank you doctor,” Elena replied, as Marrok walked to the door. His gait was unsteady. The

unbreakable man had finally been broken. She stared at his back, her dark eyes full of compassion. “Go with him,” she urged the men. “He doesn't need to be alone at a time like this.”

The men followed him, stopping at the doorway to allow him a few moments alone with his

mate. Taylor was so still and so pale, she appeared to have already departed from this world. Marrok pulled the chair next to the bed and gently took her lifeless hand. There was no response, her hand cold to the touch. Resting his face next to her, he started to cry.

The men exchanged sad looks. They knew there was nothing that could be said to ease Marrok's

pain, and all were relieved to not be in the other man's shoes. He raised his tear-stained face, staring at her as he spoke in a low tone of voice. The men moved closer to hear what he was saying.

“Taylor, I'm so sorry for all that you have had to go through since the night you met me. I

should have done what my body was urging me to do that night, which was take you off somewhere alone and mate you. I wanted to give you time to come to love me, though. Instead, all I gave you was thirty-one years of pain and torment.”

Marrok stopped, staring at each detail of her face. She was nasally intubated, the blood cleaned from her face. A huge cut and bruise marred the smooth perfection of her forehead. The doctor had ran an IV line in both arms, and she was hooked up to several monitors. From where he lay, he could hear the distress of her heart, struggling to pump to keep her alive.

Gently, he smoothed the hair back from her face. “I'm too selfish to ever let you go, my love.

The last month has been the best of my life. You didn't just save the lives of the people in the research facility. You saved my life, too, and I could never live without you again. I was just barely surviving when you were gone. I won't go back to that again. Wake up, baby. Just wake up.”

She didn't move. He leaned back in the chair, still holding her hand and willing her to wake up.

He'd never changed anyone before, but it was instinct. Could her body hold up to the extra stress in its already weakened state? Despite the coolness of the room, he began to sweat as anxiety filled his body.

Ivan moved behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder in comfort. The elder man could imagine

the thoughts running through his head, and he wanted to offer him some reassurance. “Marrok, in all these years, you've grown to be like a grandson to me. I believe you can do this. Have faith in your wolf, son. Where you're weak, he's strong. It's his mate, too, and I can guarantee he won't let her go without a fight.”

A longing for his parents shot through his body. Marrok was surprised to realize how much he

wished they could have been here. He hadn't thought of them in a long time. After they'd died, life had moved on, leaving him self-reliant and used to depending on nobody but himself. All that changed in the face of his mate's impending death. It was a long, hard road to walk, when you had nobody to walk with you.

Surprising them all, he stood up and hugged Ivan. “Thank you for that,” he said, unashamed of

the tears running down his cheeks as Ivan hugged him back. This was pack, a group of people that loved and respected him as if he were family... And he felt the same. Bloodlines didn't matter, not when it came to the werewolves.

The elder male slapped him on the back. “We're going to get through this, Marrok.”

He nodded, moving to sit back down. Alonzo pulled some chairs in, placing them around the

bed. “We're all here for you, and we won't let you go through this by yourself. Nobody is leaving until this is done, Marrok. There is nothing more important to any of us than seeing you through this, and none of us would rather be anywhere else but here.”

“What about the change? It will be painful to you if you refuse the moon's call.” He wasn't

concerned about his own pain. It would be nothing compared to the pain he was in, now. His wolf was oddly settled, though. Maybe the tragic events were enough to forestall it.

“We're tough, alpha boys,” Alexander replied, firmly. “I'm sure we can take it. If the women

need to go, they can.” He looked at Alonzo. “Were you planning on changing Nicole tonight?”

Alonzo shrugged, his expression unconcerned. “I was, but it can wait. She's not in any kind of danger. I've waited all these years, another month won't kill me.”

With that, they all fell silent. The next two hours passed quietly. The men rotated out with the women, although Marrok hardly noticed. Every moment of the last month was flashing behind his eyes, playing like a projector style movie in his mind.

So much had been packed into the last month. In his mind, he replayed them, the details vibrant and colorful. The first time he'd kissed Taylor after her abduction. Taking her virginity, and how uninhibited she'd been. The night they'd professed their love for each other.

Their future had been so bright, the dreariness of his life gone at his first sight of her in that room. She'd given him a reason to live again. This couldn't be the end, fate couldn't be cruel enough to take her, not when he'd just gotten her back again.

He knew what he had to do. “Alonzo, will you bring me my backpack? It's in the bedroom

closet at the house.”

The chief shot him a curious look but stood up. “Sure, I'll be back shortly.”

Doctor Sanders arrived a few moments later. “Any change?”