Pretty poison, p.6
Pretty Poison, page 6
Noah drew the wadded tissue away. Once he dropped that hand to his lap, he winced at the splotches of blood on the tissue. And waited.
No one spoke. No one had to. The sour scent of despair exploded from his family, joined by the aroma of gloating triumph from Wade.
Noah’s stomach pitched and rolled.
“I didn’t think...None of us believed him strong enough. We hoped we’d be able to take him home,” his father said, voice strained. “We’ll send his clothes and books. His computers. He has extra braces and crutches, too. His medicines.”
“Burn all of it.” Wade squeezed the back of Noah’s neck. “I’ll provide anything he needs.”
Noah froze when a chair across the conference table scraped the floor.
The muscle of Wade’s thigh bunched.
“Sit, Mikael,” his father said on a low growl.
“Look at him, Dad!”
“I am, and this isn’t helping. Sit down.” His father blew out a long, quavering breath. “Noah needs his medicine. Please. It’s already been over twenty-four hours, and we’re worried for him. Without the muscle relaxants, the pills for his migraines, his shots to prevent shifting—”
“You ran from your old alpha and this pack. I can forget that. You had valid reasons. But you also allowed humans to experiment on an injured and defenseless whelp after I offered pack healers for his care once I became alpha. Did you think I would ignore the laws you broke?” Wade asked, voice vibrating with cold malice. “Or forgive that?”
“I won’t apologize.” Noah’s father gulped. “Pack healers have no experience with the injuries Noah suffered, and Dr. Phares has been treating Noah since he was four. Humans know what’s best for him.”
“Humans know nothing,” Wade thundered, pounding the conference table with a furious fist.
“They saved his life.”
“And now they are poisoning him.”
“Wade,” Fletcher murmured. “The boy.”
That’s all he said. Noah wasn’t even sure if the beta had bothered to learn his name or if he thought of Noah as a person rather than an unpleasant chore. He wasn’t Noah, not here, not in this room. He was just a boy. Some...thing. Whelp? Wasn’t that what Wade had called him? A damaged and defective whelp, as well as a bone to be argued over by posturing shifters.
“He’s bleeding,” Fletcher said.
Wade tensed and then relaxed, his muscles unclenching. “Fine. Go.”
The beta pulled Noah from the chair by his grip on Noah’s arm and marched him back through the door from which he’d come only moments before. Numb, sick, and dizzy, Noah followed until he reached the exterior hall, and the door separating him from his family had firmly shut.
“Come on,” Fletcher said, bending to retrieve the discarded forearm crutch. “Once you’re back upstairs—”
“No,” Noah shouted. “This is wrong and you know it.” Rubbing at the bruises the beta’s fingers would probably leave on his biceps, he glared at Fletcher. “I didn’t do anything except survive the fall. I didn’t defy him or his people. None of us did, not without reason. After the pack failed us, my family did what they had to do to save me. That’s all. We never hurt anybody. I was well within my rights to reject this mating pact. But I gave in. To protect them from your damn shifter law. No matter how much it scared me, I paid that bill.”
“This isn’t about punishing them. Or you.” Sighing, Fletcher shook his head. “And it’s your damn shifter law, too.”
“I won’t be used as a tool in whatever twisted game he’s playing with my dad. I won’t be his pawn.”
“Noah.” Dark eyes glittering, Wade stared, the shut conference room door at his back.
Heart thudding, pulse roaring in his ears, Noah froze. Shock held him locked in place. He hadn’t realized Wade knew his name since he’d never used it before, and didn’t that speak eloquently of how fucked up this situation...this mating...was?
Wade didn’t mince words. Why should he? He simply stalked to Noah, towering a foot and more above him, so damn sexy Noah’s mouth watered. He was scary as fuck. And mesmerizing. The alpha lifted one hand, fingers threading through Noah’s closely cropped hair. Wade frowned at the length that marked him as different as much as the dark red shade, but he managed to anchor his grip, yanking Noah’s head to the side to expose his throat.
And Wade’s bite.
“Your family is leaving,” Wade said. “Without a scratch and with full amnesty, as we agreed.”
Noah shouted when Wade darted down, the alpha’s sharp teeth slicing into the vulnerable skin of Noah’s neck. Pain flared hot, but along with it, the instinctive arousal Noah was as helpless to deny as Wade was. Bastard. Noah’s hands rose, snatching at the shifter’s arms for support as Wade ravenously tasted Noah, blood trickling in a wet line from Noah’s throat to his sternum when Wade couldn’t swallow fast enough. Still, it worked. The bite was Wade’s vow. He’d refreshed his mark and renewed his pledge.
He wouldn’t give Noah up.
He wouldn’t harm Noah’s family, either.
He lifted his head and licked Noah’s blood from his lips. Smears of it wetting Wade’s chin shouldn’t turn Noah on, but Noah’s dick hardened, anyway. Chest heaving, senses spinning at the sting of the fresh bite, Noah scowled when the alpha arched a cool eyebrow. Wade’s glance drifted to his own shoulder in taunting invitation.
Furious, horny, and confused, Noah turned his gaze away.
Wade laughed and released him, holding on long enough to steady Noah when, off balance, Noah stumbled. “Take him upstairs.”
Clinging to the tattered remnants of his pride, Noah sneered. “I thought I wasn’t a prisoner.”
“You aren’t.” Fletcher shoved the forearm crutches at him. “It’s too dangerous for you to be near other shifters. Too many would be hurt.”
“Try again.” Noah curled his fingers around the grips of his crutches. “I’m not as weak as you think, but I’m no match for other shifters. They’d eat me alive.”
“You wouldn’t hurt them. It isn’t in you. Even when your wolf fully recovers, you wouldn’t hurt them.” Pivoting at the other end of the corridor, Wade walked backwards while he flashed a malicious smile. “But I would.”
* * *
The lesson was harsh, but one Noah had learned young: stubborn pride would only carry him so far and usually to his great detriment. In this instance, it took him to the second floor landing. Noah’s family had adapted the farmhouse from the time Noah was in his wheelchair. Everything Noah had needed was on the first floor. These stairs were killing him. Muscles shaking with exhaustion, he paused to wipe sweat from his face. Fletcher had evidently had his fill of this torture, too. The beta bent at the waist and tossed Noah over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He dumped Noah onto the freshly-made bed in Wade’s suite moments later. Pain stabbed into Noah, building behind his eyeballs at the bright sunlight. The ache joined the symphony of misery in his bad leg and both hips. He rubbed his temples. “I need my pills.”
“You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten,” the beta said.
Noah glared. “I’ll feel better after resuming my meds and my physical therapy.” He rapped his knuckles against the rigid plastic of his brace. “Shifting won’t cure this.”
The beta’s chin lifted. “Neither will poisoning your wolf.”
By the time Fletcher returned with another plate heaped with meat, the pain in Noah’s skull had intensified, the migraine coming on quickly. He’d unstrapped the brace to try to massage his bunched muscles, too aware he’d soon pay for the exacting trip up and down the stairs. The pulsing in his skull escalated, unabated. Fletcher settled the plate next to him. “Eat and you’ll have the energy to shift again. Your wolf will relieve any cramps or strains.”
Stomach roiling at the smell, though the kitchen had cooked the beef this time, Noah shook his throbbing head. “I can’t.”
Fletcher crossed his arms over his chest. “You can’t only because you starve your wolf.”
“My head—”
“—will be healed by the wolf as well.”
Fury and pain twisted inside him. “I can’t eat because I’ll throw up,” he said in a tight snarl that was making his agony worse. Nausea churned his stomach. “Not the aconitum shots. If he wants me to shift, fine. I’ll shift, but I need my muscle relaxants and Imitrex for the migraine.”
“You walked into the conference room,” the beta said, lips compressing into a hard line. “Without crutches. When your wolf is strong, so are you. Human medicines aren’t always the answer, or the only one.”
The keen ice pick of the migraine dug deeper into his skull, sore leg really beginning to tighten up. “I’ll beg if that’s what he wants.”
“You’ll eat and shift when it hurts bad enough.” Fletcher grunted in disgust. Turning away, he left Noah to his misery.
* * *
Time lost meaning.
He remembered trying to breathe. Sometimes that helped. Human painkillers, antibiotics, and anesthetics had been designed for humans, not shifters. The same drugs performed erratically in shifter physiology, if at all, and gauging the proper dosage was an educated guess. Shifters and humans didn’t mix often, and before Noah, shifters turning to humans for medical intervention was unheard of. Forbidden. While human doctors had figured out which drug cocktails were effective, they’d taught him tricks to handle the pain.
None of them worked now.
When the clenching of muscle in his bad leg and hips had vied for position on Noah’s agony scale with his throbbing skull, he’d finally broken down, and in sheer desperation, he’d eaten some of the meat Fletcher had brought him. Noah would’ve done anything, tried anything, to make the pain stop. Predictably, he’d thrown back up what he’d shoved down his throat to try to fuel a shift. Weak, sick, mindless with pain, he hadn’t been able to make it to the bathroom. He hadn’t even made it from the bed. Fortunately, his writhing at the stomach cramps had also dumped him off the mattress. Fortunately, he hadn’t lain in his own sick. When the room stopped spinning, in a lull when the tiny fireflies in his vision from the migraines had disappeared, he’d crawled to the darkest corner of the bedroom.
God, it had to stop. How long had he hurt?
Hours. No more than a couple of hours could have passed since Fletcher had abandoned him to this hell; the malicious sun had sunk below the horizon, deepening the shadows in his prison minutes ago. If he wasn’t afraid tears would make the pain worse, he would’ve wept. Hours? Had this agony lasted just hours? Noah’s migraines could last days.
What had he ever done to make Wade hate him this much?
The click of the suite door opening resounded like a cannonade in his tormented skull, but Noah couldn’t do anything except whimper as the lights in the outer room flared on.
“I see you decided to—”
Noah raised his fists to his ears with a groan, the quiet words like daggers stabbing into his temples.
The beta’s dark silhouette stopped at the foot of the bed. Fletcher whipped around, searching the room. He stepped on the plate that had fallen from the bed when Noah had. Fletcher slid on spilled food, some of it partially digested, on his way to the corner in which Noah cowered. He didn’t touch Noah, just stared down at him. “Shit,” the beta said.
Pride was for men whose legs weren’t twisted knots of abused muscle, whose heads didn’t pulse in time with their heartbeats. “Help me,” Noah said, eyes closing to block the fading sunlight that hurt him. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
Fletcher reached for the phone strapped at his side and brought it to his ear. “He needs you.”
Teeth gritted, Noah trembled through another cramp and wondered if his mate truly did mean to kill him, after all
“He’s coming. Just hold on.”
Wade strode into the darkening room minutes later. He crouched in front of Noah. “I tried,” Noah said, though every word was a steel pike through his skull. “Then I threw up.”
“I see.” Wade reached out to skim a light hand over the crown of Noah’s head. “It isn’t your legs alone that caused this. The migraines?”
Noah didn’t dare nod. “Both. I need my pills. Need them.”
Wade glanced over his shoulder. “How long has he been like this?”
“I brought him dinner and then left to see—”
“Never mind. Clear the patio immediately.” Wade leaned forward to scoop Noah into his arms, against his chest. He firmed his grasp when Noah squirmed, the pain in his knee redoubling. “Cut the lights and tell them to turn on the Jacuzzi.”
“Yes, Wade.”
Noah flinched from the brutal light streaming from the sitting area of the suite when Wade stood, but the alpha pushed his face into the shirt covering Wade’s chest. “Shield your eyes.”
He hurt so much, his stomach pitching and rolling with nausea. Noah was too weak to do anything else. He squeezed his eyes closed, and Wade carried him from the suite, then down the stairs. The corridors weren’t as empty as before. Their footsteps didn’t echo. The scent of other shifters jangled together along with the vague murmur of voices as Wade strode down a hallway. Somewhere, a radio played salsa music. A TV blared a report from Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Pots clanged.
Wade stopped for none of it.
Rather than turning to the wing of the conference room where Noah had met his family, the alpha stalked deeper into the house’s central core. When Noah chanced a glimpse, he spied at least a dozen tables in a wide room with a wall of windows and beyond it, a pool. A casual dining area spilled into a wide patio dotted with tables and chairs. The scent of chlorine seared his senses.
Shifters pulled sodden children from the water when Wade carried Noah through the open patio doors. The alpha paid no heed to his frantically retreating people or to Fletcher shepherding the last stragglers aside. He stalked directly to a separate pool, smaller and already bubbling. The bite of chlorine intensified in Noah’s nostrils, but Wade didn’t slow as they neared steps dropping into steaming water that Noah’s taut muscles cried out for. The alpha waded in, clothes and all.
“Your jeans,” Noah murmured in protest, sighing in anticipation when his bare feet first kissed the water.
“Don’t try to talk.” Wade sank into the Jacuzzi, Noah in his arms.
The relief was almost instant.
Oh, he still hurt. His cramped legs tightened initially at the shock of heat, but Noah knew relief was coming. Finally. Hot water would work at his abused knee, loosen the knots in his hips. Wouldn’t help the agony ricocheting through his head, but perhaps if Noah fought down the agony in one part of his body, he might manage the pain in the rest.
Maybe.
The fading light hurt as the sun dipped under the horizon. Noah shut his eyes again, burying his face in Wade’s neck as they settled in the hot tub. Locks of the alpha’s hair tickled Noah’s cheek. Why did city shifters grow their hair long? Noah kept his closely cropped. Never knew when he might need another surgery. Plus, the short length was easier for his father to comb fingers through to massage his skull when Noah’s migraines tormented him. Once they’d moved from the city, his entire family had adopted human conventions for short hair to try to seem less threatening, to blend in. Even his sister Lydia’s dirty blonde hair barely reached her chin. Meanwhile, Noah had learned to spot city shifters as a small boy because the bad men who wanted to hurt him wore their hair past their shoulders, wild and scruffy.
Wade’s was nice, though. Sinfully black like most shifters, his hair curled past his shoulder blades. This was the first time Noah had ever seen it loose. Except for last night in bed, Wade had neatly tied the thick length at his nape. It felt like silk and smelled like heaven. Reminded Noah of last night’s pleasures. He hurt everywhere all at once, but with Wade’s arms around him, with his senses steeping in the rich earthy smell of Wade and the alpha’s low murmur washing over him, the pain wasn’t as fierce and consuming. His mate was here. That stark fact alone made Noah’s misery a little better.
His screaming muscles relaxed by slow degrees.
“The others have been confined to public rooms inside and the family wing until further notice,” Fletcher said.
“Trudy?”
“Just got back. She’ll be here any second.”
Noah could’ve sobbed when Wade’s fingers searched through his hair for his scalp and gently rubbed. He must’ve made some sound...of entreaty? of relief?... because Wade said, “Hush.”
Noah quieted.
“We knew he’d been poisoned and that strengthening his wolf would require special care and attention,” Wade said. “That he would need to be closely monitored.”
“Yes, Wade,” Fletcher answered, voice cowed.
“I trusted you.” The fury in Wade’s voice soured Noah’s tender stomach.
“I followed your orders precisely. He is to rely only on you. I obeyed that order by interacting with him as little as possible to fulfill my duties.”
“He’s sick! Needlessly. We know how to handle his migraines.”
“Berating Fletcher while your mate suffers won’t help,” a female voice called out.
The newcomer’s scent edged near, rising above Wade’s lush smell and the tang of chlorine. It twisted Noah’s anxiety and magnified the pain. The heat of the water loosened his abused muscles. Wade massaging his scalp made him hurt a little less, but there were too many noises and smells, too much information swamping him.
“Here. Tilt his head up,” the woman said.
Wade stiffened. “I’ll give it to him.”
When Wade angled Noah’s chin higher, Noah’s stomach flipped because the woman, this stranger, was too close. Not much older than Noah’s sister, slender, blonde hair in dreadlocks that hung almost far enough to dip into the bubbling water, she leaned over the side of the hot tub. She gripped a small jar in one hand, the cork that must have stoppered it in the other. Leafy green bits suspended inside a clear liquid filled the jar to the top.
