Pretty Poison (8 page)

“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.

That Wade and Fletcher both trusted her didn’t matter. That she was a healer for the city shifters wasn’t important, either. This shifter was too young to be involved in what happened when he was a boy, when the same pack’s healers had recommended killing him. Noah swallowed down his sick panic because this woman was a healer and his last chance of obtaining what he really needed. “My pills. Please.”

“Medicines designed to treat human bodies, from human doctors.” The woman’s mouth pinched. “But you aren’t human, peaches. You aren’t their lab rat anymore, either. Open wide.”

Noah jerked away, knowing his grief at the denial would only make him tense and intensify the pain but helpless to stop that.

“Give me the tonic,” Wade said. “I’ll make sure he drinks it.”

“The pills work.” Bright lights flashed in Noah’s eyes as he dislodged Wade’s massaging caress from his scalp. “Human or shifter, the medicine helps.”

“Shifter physiology responds best to herbs and natural remedies that have been processed as little as possible.” The healer passed the jar to Wade. “If refined human drugs alleviate your symptoms, this should eliminate the migraines quickly.”

“Don’t,” Noah said as Wade’s fingers vised Noah’s chin. Heart thudding, Noah froze. “I don’t even know what’s in that.”

Trudy smiled at him. “Feverfew, mostly. Some lemon balm. A little something extra to help you relax.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Fletcher, the water should be ready for his tea in the kitchen. Would you bring the kettle out?”

The beta nodded and pivoted. He strode back to the house.

“I hate tea,” Noah said, but no one was listening.

“How much should he have?” Wade pressed the bottle to Noah’s lips.

“All of it. Small sips,” Trudy said, sitting on the cement next to the hot tub. She tucked a foot behind the opposite ankle and smoothed wrinkles from her skirt. “If he keeps this down, the tonic will knock back the migraine and the tea will help him rest. I brought more, if he needs it later.”

Noah didn’t want it. The herbal remedy wasn’t medicine. Shifters healed quickly; health care was scanty. While advances in human medicine had progressed at an astronomical pace, the treatments shifters received hadn’t improved much in the past century. It was witchcraft mixed with good intentions. Hocus-pocus. Yet, he parted his lips. He would not continue to disobey his alpha, not when his family had done so much to defy Wade today. If more repercussions came, they wouldn’t be laid at his feet. Besides, city shifters wouldn’t back down about refusing Noah the drugs he needed until they’d seen for themselves that their healers had failed him. Again.

He gagged at the first acrid, bitter taste of the tonic, but he swallowed it. Wade fed more to him as Trudy had directed, a few sips at a time, and after several mouthfuls, the horrible taste wasn’t as strong. Still nasty. But Noah could manage his revulsion.

“That’s it. Alternate with this,” Trudy said, handing a steaming mug to Wade.

Shuddering, Noah drank the tea, too. At least it seemed no more noxious than regular herbal blends his sister preferred, and tea washed the bitterness of the tonic down his throat.

By the time he finished both the tea and the contents of the bottle, Noah could hardly keep his eyes open. The attacks always exhausted him, but he couldn’t remember the last time weariness hit him this hard. His body felt melted. His head throbbed, but distantly, as though the pain were happening to someone else.

Tired. So tired.

Wade’s arms around him, his scent, the scruffy brush of his hair against Noah’s cheek, all of it felt amazing.

What the hell was in that tea?

“It’s working,” Wade said, his voice a rumble competing with the thunder of his heartbeat against Noah’s ear.

“Because he hasn’t built a tolerance against our treatments, his pain should ease rapidly. His body is responding strongly to the mix of herbs in the tonic. Much faster and better than I anticipated given the history of poisoning.”

Cuddling shamelessly, Noah felt Wade rest his chin on the top of his head. “His wolf is a fighter.”

“Yes,” the healer said. “He is.”

Chapter Five

Noah woke twice, the first time when Wade moved him to their rooms and again during the night. Miraculously, his head had stopped hurting. He just couldn’t think. Whatever was in the tonic and tea had knocked him on his ass. He briefly roused while Wade carried him to their bed. Noah’s arms and legs were too heavy, weighted down and clumsy as he moved his hand over the springy pelt of hair on Wade’s chest, bared of the sodden shirt he’d worn in the hot tub. Wade stirred beneath his touch, the muscled pec under his cheek rippling.