Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Ethan lay sprawled on a table with Corey clutching his hand. His complexion was sallow, and his scar puckered against his now-sickly face. If it wasn’t for the labored rising and falling of his chest, Kierse would have thought he was already dead.
“Oh, Ethan,” Kierse said and rushed to his side, taking his other hand.
Gen threw her arms around her. “You made it.”
“Of course I did.” She pulled back to look into Gen’s red-rimmed eyes. She looked thinner, as if this had drained the life out of her, too. “How’s he doing?”
“I don’t know,” Gen said. “Maura is the nurse. I’m only her apprentice.”
“And we need a doctor,” Maura said tightly. Nate went to her side, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Maura looked at Kierse with a neutral expression, but Kierse saw what wasn’t there. It was bad. “Ethan’s alive. They’re all alive, for now. I already administered activated charcoal to try to keep the drugs from absorbing. But it’s not working.”
Maura’s gaze went to Gen’s as if seeking reassurance from her own assistant. Gen had that effect on everyone.
“I can give Ethan another dose,” Gen insisted.
“But we can’t give it to the wolves. Not without injury to ourselves,” she said clearly. “I don’t have the equipment to intubate anyone here to pump their stomachs. I’d have to take them to a hospital.”
“We could take Ethan,” Gen said. “Cara maybe. But what about the wolves? In their shifted form?”
Kierse knew the perfect hospital. “There’s a monster hospital. In Queens. They could treat your wolves.”
“Queens?” Maura asked. “They’d never make it. I don’t even know if we could move any of them.”
Cara cried out in that moment, and they all froze as claws suddenly carved divots into the conference table. Her back arched. Her eyes opened wide, going from large and blue to pinpricks in a second. Then, between one breath and the next, she shifted. Her body extended, fur appearing, and when she collapsed back on the table, she was an enormous honey-brown wolf with fangs that could cut a person in two.
“Fuck,” Nate cried. “They shouldn’t be shifting involuntarily. That’s not natural. Maura?”
She shook her head, her calm demeanor nearly shattering.
Gen went to her. “What do we need to do?”
Maura closed her eyes for a split second before saying, “We have to try to get them out of here. I can’t do anything more.”
“You have to,” Corey cried. “If we move him, he’s not going to make it.”
“If we do nothing, he definitely won’t,” Nate told him, putting a hand on Corey’s shoulder.
Maura sighed. “We don’t have time to figure out which one it is. We just need to get him to the hospital.”
“I was there when it happened,” Corey said mournfully. “One minute, he was completely fine, and the next, he went wild—like completely uninhibited. I’d never seen him like that. I thought it was cute at first, and then . . .”
Kierse looked into his distressed face. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes were distant, lost. As if someone was carving out a piece of him while Ethan lay there on that table. To see this strong Roulette breaking down almost put Kierse over the edge.
“Do we even know what drug could do this?” Kierse asked. “Make wolves shift like that?”
Kierse shoved her hands into her pockets, feeling helpless as fuck. She wished Graves were here. She wished that she had asked him to come with her. Not because he could have done anything to help. He didn’t have healing powers. If he did, then surely he would have done something to speed up her own healing when Imani’s magic had almost killed her.
What kind of drug could make someone do this? Go completely uninhibited. Make a wolf shift involuntarily.
Could it be that it wasn’t a drug at all?
Could it be magic?
And that was why the human methods weren’t working?
“I’ve never heard of anything that can force the shift in my wolves,” Nate said.
“There’s that new drug on the market,” Corey suggested. “We don’t even know what it looks like to overdose on the red powder.”
Kierse froze. “Wait . . . red powder?” Maybe it wasn’t just magic. Maybe it was Imani’s magic. “Is the new drug called wish powder?”
Nate nodded. “Yeah . . . how did you know that?”
Kierse shook her head. Graves had said that Imani’s powder wasn’t dangerous. That the product she was producing for her parties just intensified sexual desire. She didn’t know if this was an attack from Imani, but someone had clearly wanted to hurt Ethan to get to her.
Either Ethan needed a hospital or Kierse would have to try her magic. Except she didn’t know how to use her magic. She’d worked with Graves unsuccessfully for hours. Not once had she been able to even sense him; not once had she been able to use her intent to draw a ward.