Chasing Shadows(50)

Lochlan finished up his ministrations and pulled the blanket up until Juliette was fully covered. Then he just stayed there, holding her hand.

“Can…can you get it out of her?” Daniel asked.

“Sir, I am afraid that the only way to do that would be to draw out a large quantity of her blood,” Lochlan told him. “I am afraid I do not have the equipment.”

“Then we need to take her to a hospital, where she can be treated by a real doctor!”

I was not surprised that Daniel had exploded. He was on edge and the snap had been inevitable. Lochlan, however, did not rise to the bait. Other than the muscles flexing in his jaw, he did not react to the other man’s accusation.

“Mr. Singleton, my brother is a real doctor, I assure you,” I said slowly, drawing his attention to me. “And as I am sure your wife can tell you, because she is a shapeshifter Juliette cannot be seen at a hospital.”

“Saphrona is right, Dan,” Monica added. “Shapeshifters can’t go to a hospital—they’ll be confused by her vital signs, they’ll want to draw blood and conduct tests. We can’t let that happen because then they’ll just want to conduct more tests, and more tests, trying to figure out what’s going on with her. We can’t let that happen. It’s why I’m a nurse, why there’s always one doctor in a pack.”

“Th—then we will take her home, and you can take care of her there,” Daniel insisted.

“I’m afraid that right now, moving Juliette would be unwise,” Lochlan said.

“You don’t want us to take her because you want to kill her yourself!”

My brother was up and in front of Daniel Singleton in a blur of movement, standing nose to nose with him. “If I wanted Juliette dead, human, she’d be dead—I’d have finished her off when I found her in the driveway, and been gone long before any of you arrived. In fact, I daresay I would not have called my sister to inform her that she was even here, and you’d still be out there, searching, your efforts as futile as your protests are now.”

“Lochlan, that’s my father you’re speaking to,” Mark said, a clear warning in his tone. “Back off.”

Lochlan turned his head to look at Mark. “Do not think, brother, that I will allow this man to besmirch my honor and say nothing in my own defense. You know that I do not kill humans for sustenance, but if his disrespect of me continues, I will be sorely tempted to make an exception.”

Mark’s expression darkened and he took a step toward him. I grabbed his arm to restrain him, saying, “Both of you stop it. All your posturing is not helping Juliette.”

I stepped between Mark and Lochlan, but focused my gaze on Mr. Singleton. “Daniel, sir, I know you are frightened for your daughter. I know that the things your wife told you seem too damn crazy to be real, and you’ve likely contemplated the possibility that she’s out of her mind. Unfortunately, I cannot assure you of that—I can only confirm that what she said is true. There are things in this world that defy explanation and test the boundaries of believability, and your ability to handle the truth that some mythical monsters are just as real as you are.”

“I… I just… I can’t believe it. I can’t! She expects me to believe that she and Juliette can turn into dogs. That vampires are real, and that it was a vampire that killed my Patricia. That they turned my son into some kind of freak who’s never gonna die. I can’t believe it, it’s crazy. You’re all crazy!”

I saw it now, what Juliette had been talking about. Her father was a good man, a strong man in body and spirit, but he just wasn’t capable of handling the truth. The attack on his first wife had left him just a little too unhinged in that regard.

Which meant there really was only one thing left to do.

“Lochlan, scamall a áireamh. Ní dhéanann sé is gá a mheabhrú aon cheann de seo,” I said softly, speaking Gaelic.

My brother looked at me, and then he nodded. Speaking softly in the same ancient language I had used, he drew Daniel’s attention to him, capturing his gaze and holding it, his words in a tone that was low and soothing. Soon Daniel’s eyes went from wide-eyed and frightened to distant and unseeing. I hated to have it done to him, but I felt it was for his own good.

“What the hell did you just do to my father?” Mark demanded.

Lochlan turned to look at him. “He is beguiled. Your father will not remember the last few hours—not what he saw or what he heard.”

“You erased his memory?” Monica asked, incredulous. “Vampires can really do that?”

Lochlan did not reply. He turned around and walked back over to Juliette, kneeling to check her pulse.

“It’s not an erasure, per se,” I answered for him. “The memories are still there, but they’ve been buried deeply in his subconscious. Given his reaction, Mrs. Singleton, I thought it for the best that he not remember.”

She glanced across the room at her husband, who stood seemingly transfixed on something none of us could see. Tears fell silently from her eyes as she nodded. “Somehow, I’ve known all along that Dan just wasn’t strong enough. There are some things that some minds are just incapable of grasping as truth.”

She looked at Mark then. “That doesn’t mean he’s not a good man, of course. A good father. He’s been a marvelous husband, too.”

“Did you imprint on him?” Mark asked, tearing his gaze away from the older version of himself and settling on his stepmother. “Juliette is afraid you didn’t, that you could be forced to leave him if you ever…”

Monica looked fondly down at her daughter and cast an adoring gaze at her husband before looking once again at the son she had raised as her own.

“I love him, Mark. I truly love him,” she said.

“That’s not an answer, Monica.”

She was startled by his use of her given name, and I suspected that he’d never addressed her by it before.

I reached for Mark’s hand. “Mark, it’s the only one that matters right now,” I said. “The only one that ever will.”

He turned to me. “But what if some guy comes along and she suddenly feels the pull of her own pair bond? She will leave my father all alone, and he will be devastated all over again!”

Monica stood and crossed over to us. “I have not left him yet, Mark. The scenario of which you fear will likely never come to pass. I gave up shifting the night you were born, and imprinting is for the young—at least among our kind. The chances of my imprinting now are practically non-existent.”

“But not impossible,” he countered.

Hesitantly, she reached up to cup his cheek in her hand. “Son, it is pointless to spend your time pondering ‘what if.’ I assure you that I am wholly committed to the vows I made to your father when I married him. Nothing is going to change that, or how I feel about him.”

“You should take your husband home, Mrs. Singleton,” Lochlan said over his shoulder. “He is in something of a trance right now, but the effect will wear off and if he wakes here it may well disrupt the memory block.”

“Oh,” she said, turning around and walking over to where her daughter lay motionless and silent. “She…she’ll be alright?”

“I’ll be honest with you—I’d prefer to draw the drugs out, but the only means of doing that right now would be for either Saphrona or myself to drink from her, and I daresay it is not something you wish for,” Lochlan said, looking up as he spoke.

Monica studied his face, looked at Juliette, and then at me. “It can be done without turning her?” she asked.

I nodded. “A vampire can drink without injecting draculin, though it requires a strong will to keep from killing. And it would create a temporary blood bond between Juliette and whichever of us drinks from her.”

She looked down at Lochlan again. “And you think this is the only way?” she asked.

“It is either that, or allowing the drugs to work their way out of her system naturally. But choosing that option means it will take longer for her to heal.”

Monica gave her options a long moment of thought, for which I commended her. She didn’t just take the easy way out, and she could have—instead, she appeared to be weighing the pros and cons of either choice.

In the end, however, she opted for door number one.

“You are a physician,” she said to Lochlan. “You have sworn to do no harm. I am holding you to that oath, vampire.”

She and Lochlan stared at one another, and after a long moment of holding each other’s gaze, my brother nodded slowly.

Leaning down to kiss her daughter’s brow, Monica then straightened and came back over to where Mark and I stood. She stretched on her toes to kiss his cheek, then turned to me and said, “I would very much have liked to meet you under better circumstances.”