The oxygen tank was small, but it was enough to help me.
Slowly, the pain in my heart subsided with every breath I took, and I started to come around.
I opened my eyes and saw Jackson standing by the bed I was in,
a frown on his face. I was confused and a bit stunned.
Was it Jackson who had saved me? And where was I?
Had the person who’d once tried to k ill me just saved me?
I pulled the oxygen mask away from my face and struggled to get up from the bed.
Jackson pressed me back down and said, “Don’t move.”
I pushed his hand away. “I’m fine. Thank you for your help, Alpha Sterling.”
Determined to get away from this dangerous shifter as quickly as possible, I forced myself to sit up and get out of the ma*sive bed, holding onto the bedside table for support.
After taking a couple of seconds to get used to being upright, I stood.
Immediately, dizziness overtook me again.
I swayed, trying to focus on the door across the hotel room. Staring at a fixed point usually helped.
Not this time.
Wave after wave of dizziness overtook me, and my knees buckled.
Jackson caught me by the arm and gently but forcefully pushed me back onto the bed.
“Don’t push yourself too hard. You need to rest.”
Taya wasn’t Jackson’s biggest fan, and that was putting it lightly. After he caught her and kept her from further injury, he took a step back to give her space.
He’d felt compelled to rush to her aid when he’d seen what happened, acting strictly on his wolf’s impulse.
Right now, couldn’t leave her alone. Eric should be on his way, should be here any minute. At the very least, he wanted to Eric to check Taya over before leaving or letting her leave.
For some reason, the scene right now felt familiar to him, but he didn’t know why.
Nothing in his investigation gave an indication that they’d been in this type of situation before. And his wolf wasn’t a fan of the Jackson was keeping a distance from me, which made me feel slightly better. Rather than forcing myself to get up and flee the room, I lay down obediently and tried to case the dizziness.
The doctor had told me not to overwork myself.
Somehow, I didn’t think being tortured by Greyson for two days and then going to work counted as taking it easy. Not to mention that the day I’d anticipating having at work had turned out to be nothing like that at all.
It was tiring for healthy people to travel back and forth to the airport, restaurants, and hotels, let alone me.
Whenever I did too much, my condition worsened.
I had to get Tara to approve my resignation tomorrow.
The time had come for me to make peace with what was happened and lie at home and wait for death to come.
Had no one been there when I crashed the car today, had I not gotten oxygen so quickly, I likely would have died today. I would have been found quickly since I was in front of a hotel room, but once I was home and death took me… Who would find me?
I hated the idea of Harper finding me, but it wasn’t like anyone else was going to come look for me. Once I resigned, no one would miss me from work…
While I was letting my imagination run wild, a man in a whit e suit walked in.
I don’t think I’d ever seem someone who looked so perfect and clean. Let alone so pristine-looking while wearing whi te. Ile exuded a gentle and elegant temperament, and I couldn’t tell if he was a wolf shifter or a human.
When he saw me lying on the bed, he smiled.
Two deep dimples immediately appeared on his cheeks.
“It’s a woman,” the man said, a note of wonderment in his tone.
He walked over with the black bag he’d brought with him and gave Jackson a look. “You’ve finally found a woman?”
“Don’t be rid iculous, Eric,” Jackson growled, his wolf thick in his voice. “I’ve seen her faint twice today.”
The man-Eric-looked nonplussed at Jackson’s Alpha voice, and I wondered if he was indeed human. He took out a stethoscope from the first-aid kit and moved in to listen to my heart.
I stopped him. “I have a heart issue. It was just a little episode because I overdid it today. It’s not a big deal.”
I told the truth-without the pesky details about heart failure and the fact I was dying. I knew I couldn’t hide it from the doctor if he listened.
And if he actually gave me a full exam, he’d know just how NOT little my problem was.
I was afraid Jackson would be angry with me for lying to him about what was wrong, and I didn’t want him to harm me again. His kicks to my chest before didn’t kill me, but they sure as hell would now.
I hadn’t said goodbye to Harper. I couldn’t die like this, without seeing Harper one more time.
Eric was a doctor. He could tell at a glance whether the patient was lying or not.
And this woman was lying.
He glanced at Taya’s legs. They were swollen, and she’d said she had a heart issue…it was mostly likely a sign that she was in the end stages of heart failure.
More interesting was that she was human… Why did an Alpha like Jackson care to have a doctor rush over in the middle of the night to care for a dying human?
Since the patient didn’t want him to treat her, he wouldn’t force her. He put away the stethoscope.
Why was she glancing at Jackson and clearly afraid of him?
Eric gave Taya a slight nod and tried to convey to her that he knew what was going on.
“Jackson, she won’t even let me check her. What on earth did you do to her?” Eric took a step back and grinned at Jackson. “Or do you mean to tell me that you’ve gone so Alpha on her that she can’t bear to have another man touch her?”
He wouldn’t expose Taya. It wasn’t his place to do so.
But she wouldn’t be able to hide her condition for long.
Eric walked over to the gloomy-looking Jackson, covered his m outh, and whispered, “Who is she?”
“A friend,” Jackson said in his growly voice that indicated he wasn’t going to say anything more about the situation.
Eric didn’t believe him. Jackson never had any females around him, human or she-wolf. And Jackson certainly didn’t have any friends other than Eric. Jackson wasn’t someone who was concerned with “making friends”.
“There’s nothing else for you to do here. You can leave,” Jackson commanded with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“I see how it is.” Eric picked up his medical bag. “Call me out of bed in the middle of the night, and then just dismiss me without a word of thanks. I forgot…you’re the big Alpha and everyone only exists to serve you.”
Shaking his head, he walked to the door. When he reached it, he looked back again.
Seeing Jackson standing before the bed with his hands in his pockets and looking at the woman on the bed with a worried expression, Eric quickly took a photo with his phone.
He sent the photo to his brothers’ group chat and added, “Seems I found the reason Jackson’s been MIA lately…”
The group chat immediately burst into an uproar, just like a bu nch of gossipy she wendown,
It didn’t take long for the news to spread to Preston.