Chapter 73 Dosage
Sam's POV
I knelt beside Sable and watched her chest for the thousandth rise.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Come on, Sable. Please.”
Its been 12 hours since I gave her another dose of wolf bane. I really should not have but she was getting the best of me. Cold sweat ran down my back. She should have woken up by now.
“Come on, Sable,” I said. “WAKE UP!”
My brain sprinted in circles: Rhea’s voice—Careful with doses or you’ll turn this into a funeral. The way Sable’s eyes had flared right before I stuck the needle in her chest, a look that said she would never forgive me, not in a thousand lives.
I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead. No fever. Skin cool, too cool.
“Okay,” I told myself, standing too fast. “Okay, plan.”
Rhea. She’d know what to do.
“Okay,” I told Sable, crouching beside her again. “Listen. I’m going to the Den. I’ll be fast. I’ll bring back the right thing. You’ll wake up and you’ll—” I swallowed. “You’ll see I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Her chest rose, fell. No reply.
“Ten minutes,” I said, lying. “Twenty, tops.”
I grabbed my jacket, then hesitated, looking down at my shirt. Her blood was a brown smudge where I’d wiped the broken needle. I changed into a clean shirt, then stuffed the used one deep into a plastic bag and tied it so tight my fingers ached.
I took one last look. Sable on the floor, cuffs gleaming like ugly jewelry. Her hair spilled across the blanket i laid her on in a dark river, skin pale in the bad warehouse light. She looked like an angel sleeping.
“Don’t die,” I said.
The city outside felt different once you knew what lurked in the shadows. I kept my head down and moved quick.
The Moon Den sat in its usual bruise of shadow, but the red light above the door was dead. The window was black. No music. No voices. The stool where the door guy always held court was empty, one leg bent at a wrong angle like someone had stepped on it too hard.
I suddenly got a bad feeling as I shoved the door open.
Inside, the place looked like a storm had passed through. Bottles smashed, the ceiling near the bathrooms drooped in a wet, ugly bulge, water pattering into buckets. Chairs on their sides, one split down the middle. A line of muddy boot prints tracked from the back hallway to the door.
“Rhea?” I called, and my voice sounded wrong in the ruined room. “Rhea, it's me Sam!”
Silence.
Panic tried to climb my throat; I pushed it down, hopped the bar, and checked the back. The storage room door was open, crates shoved aside and the office was empty. Someone had taken the time to go through drawers and take what mattered as the safe sat open.
“Okay,” I said to the water-stained ceiling. “Okay.”
The alley door stuck halfway, then gave with a yank that popped something in my shoulder. A crate tipped, disgorging beer cans like dull coins. The alley itself was painted with graffiti and sat quiet, too quiet.
The cobbles were slick. Two sets of prints overlapped—heavy boots, lighter boots—and something that wasn’t a shoe at all, more like paws.
I turned to go back through the bar and find something I’d missed.
That’s when a hand caught my jacket at the collar and slammed me into the wall hard enough to rattle my teeth.
“Ah—” The hand spun me and pressed me flat. I tasted copper. The bricks were close enough to count.
Another hand patted me down clinically, thumb jabbing my ribs, wrist, pockets. My breath tripped over itself trying to be useful.
I tried for calm. “I don’t have anything,” I said into the bricks. “I’m just here to talk to Rhea.”
The voice was low and cold. “Where is she?”
“What?”
“Where’s Sable Hale?”
My chest locked up. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The man shoved me harder against the wall, his forearm pressing into my back. “Wrong answer.”
“I’m serious!” I tried to twist, but his grip was brutal, efficient. Military, maybe. Or worse.
He leaned close enough that I could feel his breath on my ear. “You want to rethink that answer?”
“I swear I don’t—”
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back, forcing me to meet his eyes. They were pale gray, like cold metal, and completely empty. “Try again.”
My throat worked around air that wouldn’t come. “She’s—she’s safe.”
“Where?”
I hesitated. He saw it.
“Wrong again,” he said, and slammed me sideways into the wall. Pain flashed white behind my eyes.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Please, just—”
He hit a button on the small comm clipped to his shoulder. “I got Sam,” he said, voice steady, almost bored. “He's secure.”
A voice crackled through, deep and controlled, but I couldn’t make out the words—just the sound. The man’s tone shifted slightly, respectful but detached.
“Yes, sir. Alone,” he said. “No, she’s not here.”
My heart stopped. He was talking about Sable. About her.
The voice came again through the comm, low and dangerous. I couldn’t hear what was said, but the man’s answer made my blood go cold.
“No, sir,” he said simply.
Then, after a pause, he added, “Understood.”
He clicked off the comm and turned back to me.
“Who are you?” I croaked. “What do you want?”
He smiled slightly, a cruel twist of the mouth. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
He adjusted his grip, pulling me upright by the collar. “Looks like you’re going to see the Alpha.”
“Alpha?” The word hit my stomach like a weight. “No—wait—please, I can explain—”
“Good luck,” he said flatly.
And then his fist connected with the side of my head.
The world spun once, hard and fast.
I heard him say something into the comm before everything went black.
The last thing I felt was the cold rain on my cheek.