(1) Magnus
POV: ANASTASIA
“Fuck. Call it.”
The defibrillator was tossed back onto the crash cart. I dragged my forearm across my brow, wiping away sweat.
“Time of death is…” One of the nurses who stood on the other side of the table looked at her watch. “Fifteen-oh-six.” She typed it in, then looked up with a frown. “I’m sorry, Dr. Hansen.”
Adrenaline still pumped through my veins as my hands dropped to my hips. I thought I could save her. “Fuck,” I repeated, looking at the dead woman on the table next to me. So young. I shook my head and turned away. “Um, the husband is outside, right?”
She nodded. “Do you want me to—”
“No, it’s all right. Thank you for offering.”
I slowly pulled off my gloves and tossed them into the hazard bin. My eyes squeezed shut to give myself a moment to pull it together. With a sharp exhale, I opened them again and went for the door. “Mr. Graham?” I called into the hallway.
A nervous middle-aged man rose from his seat, looking at me with wide, hopeful eyes. Beside him stood a young girl, no older than fourteen or fifteen.
My gaze flicked to her for only a second before returning to him. “May I speak to you privately?” I gestured to an empty waiting room beside us.
After he filed in, I shut the door behind us.
“As you know, your wife went into cardiac arrest. We don’t know exactly how long her heart had stopped before she arrived at the hospital.”
The words came out of me robotically, concise, clear. “We weren’t able to revive her. I did everything I could, but I’m very sorry, sir. She’s dead.”
The man’s lips parted and a guttural groan escaped him, followed by something like a keening howl. The sound startled me, so profoundly heartbroken and raw. He collapsed to the floor.
“She said she was tired before she left. She still w-went to work.” He gasped for air as I crouched beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I asked her to stop at the twenty-four-hour market after her shift to get me something from the deli.” His face crumpled. “I made her go there. Oh God. I killed her.”
“No, that’s…that’s not true. You didn’t kill her. She could have had a genetic predisposition or an underlying heart condition you weren’t aware of. There are so many unknowns.”
Through a screen of tears, he gestured weakly to the door. “Molly’s out there. What am I supposed to say?” He gasped for air again, clutching at his chest as tears rolled down his face. “How do you tell your kid her mother is dead?”
I swallowed hard as my weight shifted on my heel. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “There is no good way, except to be honest. I can bring her in and tell her, if you need.”
“Oh God.” He hung his head and cradled it in his hands.
I sat with him for a moment, then gently patted his shoulder to rouse him. “Would you like me to bring your daughter in, sir? Or…”
The clinical side of it, delivering the facts, was all second nature to me. But the aftermath was harder. Insanely uncomfortable.
It actually hurt to watch people have normal, healthy reactions to death. This weeping man’s behavior was normal. Collapsing to the floor. Crying. Screaming for his wife.
It was all normal.
I did not weep when I found Ethan’s gutted body in my living room. Or when Mom died in front of me. As the final breath left her lungs, something inside me had gone cold. I didn’t scream, I didn’t even flinch. It was like a part of me had died with her.
While Ethan’s body hung in front of me, I simply stared into space until the ambulance and police arrived. Again, not a single tear shed.
Mr. Graham tried to stand. I caught him by the arm and helped him back into the chair. “Please bring her in,” he said.
When the waiting room door opened, the young girl shot up.
I stared.
She was so young. Long red hair like her mother, freckles on her pale skin. What struck me the hardest were her large, intelligent blue eyes. They told me she already knew what I was going to say.
I swallowed hard and pushed down the ache, the feelings that wanted to bubble out. This wasn’t about me. “Miss Graham, would you come inside and sit with your dad?”
She nodded, walking past me and into the room where her father loudly wept. “Dad. Daddy?” Surprised, Molly rushed to his side. “Tell me.” The girl’s voice cracked, and something deep inside me threatened to break loose.
“She’s gone, baby.”
“What?” Her eyes were wide as saucers while they darted between him and me.
“She went into cardiac arrest at the supermarket.” I stuffed my sweaty hands into my white coat pockets. “By the time she arrived, she was already unresponsive. We tried everything to revive her, but…” I paused. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
The young girl stared at me as fat teardrops rolled down her cheeks. Her chin trembled.
I didn’t dare to look away. If I did, I was betraying my past self. I was betraying Ethan and Mom. I don’t know how long we stood like that, locked in a strange standoff.
A nurse and a grief counselor had quietly entered the room. After they introduced themselves to the Grahams, I gave them a weak nod, swiftly turned, and left. I went straight for Mia’s locker, pulled out a cigarette, and even stole her lighter.
On autopilot, I navigated the hospital hallways and exited to the back alley. Cold evening air felt good against my overheated face. I leaned against the wall beside the dumpster and fished a cigarette from my pocket.
My fingers shook as I tried to light it. My thumb trembled uselessly, slipping over the spark wheel again and again. My vision began to blur. “Come on, fucker,” I muttered. “Light already.”
A flame appeared in the darkness in front of me.
Slowly, I lifted my head.
An egregiously handsome man stood there, holding a metal lighter between us. The small fire reflected in his eyes.
He was tall, with brown hair shaved at the sides and slicked back on top. A dark-blue suit hugged his slender frame. He looked both regal and dangerous. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
After a second’s hesitation, I bent forward, lighting the end of my cigarette, and then straightened. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” He snapped the lighter closed and deposited it into his pocket. “Dr. Hansen, yes?” His voice was warm, deep. Almost American, but I detected a hint of something else. British, maybe.
Wary, I nodded. I mean, it was on my name tag in block letters. “Do I know you?”
“Not at all.” He grinned at me, showing glaringly white teeth. “But I know your pack.”
Ilya. Eric. Damon.
Though I had avoided Damon like the plague, he was still a part of the pack and therefore impossible to fully ignore.
Nervous, I glanced up at the hospital siding and realized there were no security cameras. Ilya wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on me. And for once, I desperately wished he could.
“Eric has been trying to keep a lid on your presence. But I smelled him on you from practically a mile away.” He laughed, another annoyingly deep, lovely sound. “Has he impregnated you yet? The alphas always have the stronger sperm, you know.”
Gross. I loosely crossed my arms and gestured with the lit cigarette. “Is this how alphas fight nowadays? Comparing sperm count?”
“You already knew I was an alpha? How flattering.” Large hands settled into his trouser pockets. “No fighting here, I assure you. I sensed you were in distress and thought I would check on you.”
“Distress,” I repeated dubiously.
“You release potent pheromones. It’s a side effect of the bond.”
“I haven’t completed the bond.”
“Oh, trust me, I know.” The man smiled, and a fresh wave of nervousness tightened in my chest. “But I could still smell it on you. It’s an alpha’s job to take care of his packmates.”
“You’re not my alpha.”
“Precisely. So, where is Eric?”
Did he really expect Eric to follow me around like a dog on a leash?
“I should get back—”
His movements were swift. The alpha braced his hand on the back alley door, effectively caging me in. I got a whiff of his scent that wasn’t unpleasant, all things considered.
Still, the proximity made me nervous. I felt like an animal of prey being cornered in the wild.
“But you haven’t even enjoyed your cigarette.” His eyes focused on my face, then lowered to my frowning lips. “I’m not trying to scare you, Doctor. This is merely a courtesy visit. Your alpha sent out a call to the other packs in the area, if you didn’t know already.”
I glanced down at the untouched cigarette between my fingers, almost ashamed. I did know. Eric was attempting to form alliances and create some sort of militia on my behalf. To take out my father. “And you were looking for the reason why,” I guessed.
“Right. And now I see you’re not just a pretty face. A doctor!” He stepped back to look me over and whistled. “Perhaps we can make a deal with your man after all.”
In the dim light of the alley, I couldn’t tell precisely what color his eyes were, either green or gray. “What sort of deal?”
“Most wolves work in the same general area. I think your pack calls it security, but that’s just a PG-version of saying mercenary. Personally, I don’t shy from the truth.” He smiled. “My pack is quite large, Dr. Hansen. There’s fifty of us—”
“Fifty?” I flattened against the wall. Wait, one person was supposed to bond to fifty people? How did that even work?
The alpha was genuinely surprised by my reaction. His head reared back as he burst into laughter. “Oh, you are adorable! I can tell we’re going to have fun with you.”
I shuffled toward the door again, trying to keep space between us. “Not the kind of fun you’re thinking of.”
He chuckled again, softer this time, and shook his head. “Injuries are inevitable in our line of work. Tell Eric my condition is this: If you agree to treat my pack, then we will consider his request.”
I scoffed. “You’ll only consider it?”
“Well, how do I know you’re not a shit doctor? We would have to do a trial run first.” He reached out and twirled a loose strand of my hair between his fingers. It must have fallen free from my ponytail during CPR.
“Lucky me.”
“You have no idea, darling.”
I batted his hand away. “So you want a doctor on hand. I’m amenable to that. But only if you don’t screw around with my mates. Follow through on your word, and I’ll follow through on mine.”
He procured a business card from his suit jacket and handed it to me between his index and middle finger.
“Magnus,” I read out loud, then sighed. “Of course your name is Magnus.”
He barked with laughter again, giving my chin a little affectionate pinch. I ripped my head out of his hold with a scowl.
“You are too much fun.” His voice lowered to a dangerous, sensual whisper as he leaned in. “You better hurry and finish that bond, Dr. Hansen. Or I might have to steal you away and keep you for myself.”
