The Awakening: Britton (Entangled Covet) (28 page)

“Val?”

At the vaguely familiar male voice, her smile slipped. She pulled the phone from her ear to check the

caller ID again. “Britton.”

Unease curled inside her. “Who is this?”

“Aidan O’Connell.”

Panic instantly threatened to overtake her. Aidan wouldn’t have called her using Britton’s phone unless

it was for dire reasons. She used every bit of her cop-instilled resolve to say, “Tell me what happened.”

“We’re rushing Britton to the Bradley Clinic.”

A long, agonized howl came over the sounds of a speeding car engine and squealing tires.

Icy fear washed over Val. Her fragile composure crumbled. “W-what’s the matter with him?” She barely

got the words past the heart thundering in her throat.

“We don’t know. About twenty minutes ago, he started having stomach cramps. Now the pain is so bad

he can’t even walk.”

A low, rattling groan sounded in the background, bringing with it an image of Britton doubled over in

the backseat, fighting the pain.

Her grip tightened on the phone. “I’ll meet you there.”

Not waiting for his response, she snatched up her keys in trembling hands and rushed to her car. She

peeled out of her driveway and sped down the road.

Please be okay
.

She white-knuckled the steering wheel. They’d been so close, just days away from being together. Why

was this happening?

Breathe. Breathe
.

He was having stomach cramps. That could be anything. Food poisoning. Appendix. So many different

illnesses that could be easily remedied. Even though he’d been given the serum, he wasn’t a full shifter yet.

So he was still susceptible to human illnesses and complications. Hopefully the return of his super-speed

healing would click into place, and by the time she got to the hospital, he’d be fine.

That rationalization calmed her.

He was going to be fine
.

As soon as she parked her car in front of the Bradley Clinic, she rushed inside. The receptionist lifted

her head, and Val didn’t even have to say anything. The woman hit a button and the door to the shifter side

of the facility popped open.

Val found Aidan and Liam sitting in the waiting area, both with their elbows on their knees and their

heads in their hands. She felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach, and slowed her steps, terrified

at what she’d see when they looked up.

When they looked up at her footsteps, the air
whoosh
ed from her lungs.

Fear
. From both of them.

“B-Britton?” was all she could get out.

“We don’t know.” Aidan rubbed his hands on his jeans. “He’s in back with Miles right now. Miles said

he’d give us an update as soon as he knows something.”

When she sank into the chair beside Liam, he wrapped an arm around her and tugged her to his side.

“He’s going to be okay. Britton is too much of an ass to let something like this bring him down.”

She tried to smile, but could only nod.

Hours passed before Miles finally walked into the room running his hand through his hair, making it

spike up in every direction.

Dread clenched her throat and she leaped to her feet. Whatever he was about to say wasn’t good news.

“H-how is he?”

He studied her for a moment and sympathy shone back at her.

“No.” She took a step backward, vehemently shaking her head. “He’s not dead.
Please
, don’t tell me

he’s dead.”

“No. He’s not.”

A gust of relief shot through her and she nearly collapsed to the floor.

“Val, it’s still not good news,” he warned.

“He’s not dead. I can live with anything else.”

A grimace crossed Miles’s face. “We can’t control the pain. Nothing we’ve given him is working. It

hasn’t even taken the edge off. We even tried putting him in a medically induced coma, but all our drugs

have failed.”

Okay, she’d been wrong. The idea that they couldn’t do anything to ease Britton’s suffering horrified

her. “I don’t understand. Why is nothing working? H-how are you supposed to help him?”

“I don’t think we can.”

“But you have to. There’s something wrong.
Fix
him!” Hysteria welled up in her voice, and she

clenched her teeth to keep a tidal wave of tears from breaking free.

“What’s going on with Britton isn’t something I can fix.”

Vision tunneling, she blinked. “Why not? What is it?”

“His body is at war with itself.”

“What are you talking about? He’s sick! He needs medicine. Do something!”

Miles sighed. “Val. Sit down. I don’t need two patients.”

Shaking her head, she took another step back. She didn’t know what he was trying to say, but she

didn’t want to hear it. Britton was sick. He was
just
sick.

The doctor reached a hand out toward her, but she swatted him away. “Aidan and Liam told me that

Britton had been given the serum a little while before he started having the pain. I ran some tests.” He

pinned her with his gaze. “His human side is rejecting the shifter side.”

Wait.
What?
How was that even possible?

Suddenly weak-kneed, Val groped behind her until her hand clamped on the arm of a chair. She

dropped into it. Miles took a seat beside her. “Val, in less than a month he’s been given his beast back and

had it taken away, only to have it returned again. It’s messed big-time with his body chemistry. The human

DNA is now recognizing the weaker shifter DNA as a foreign object, a virus, and is trying to fight it. Think

of it as an organ transplant, where the body attacks the new organ. It’s the same thing, except it’s the two

DNAs battling each other.”

A buzz of panic sounded in her ears. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“
Dea
knows. It’s a wait-and-see scenario. The fight is taking its toll on his body. His liver enzymes,

creatinine levels, and blood pressure are slowly rising, while his heart rate has decreased. None of the

medicines we’ve tried are helping. Thankfully, in the time he’s been here the numbers have gotten only

fractionally worse. The good news is, I believe even though the shifter DNA is in a weakened state, it’s still

keeping him fairly stable, and is working to heal the damage.”

“But?”

“You know what I’m going to say. Shifters are hard to kill, but we’re not immortal. If this fight

continues, if his blood panels get worse, he will go into organ failure. The damage will be too extensive

even for his shifter DNA to heal.”

“W-what about the Splycer?” The Splycer was an electrode treatment that had once saved Aidan’s

mate’s life. Usually it was used to bring a half shifter’s latent shifter DNA to the surface after a traumatic

injury. But it could also help with various other shifter traumas.

“Britton’s not attached to his beast,” she said. “Maybe if you shocked him with the Splycer, his shifter

DNA would become dominant like it’s supposed to be, and heal him.”

“We’ve already tried that. A couple of times. And with each attempt, his heart rate dropped even

further. We can’t chance using it again.”

Desperation clawed at her. “Why didn’t it work? I don’t understand.”

“He’s not a half shifter, Val. And the disconnection from his beast was not caused by natural shifter

chemistry—it was artificially induced. When we shocked him, it caused his shifter DNA to become

aggressive, which in turn caused the human genes to fight even harder, resulting in even more damage to

his internal organs.”

“
Dea
.” She pressed her hands to her face. There was another option. She’d lose him, but if it meant an

end to his suffering, she’d take his hatred. “The serum. If you give it to him, it will make the shifter DNA

dormant again. There would be nothing left for the human DNA to fight.”

“It’s the shifter DNA that is keeping him alive. If we take that away, he could go into shock and we

could still lose him. We’re also concerned about giving him that serum for a fourth time in less than a

month. The three other times have completely screwed up his body. A fourth may push it right over the

edge. There are too many variables, and right now we think taking a wait-and-see approach is the best

option.”

Val took a moment to absorb that. “Can I see him?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “You need to be prepared. It’s not pretty. He’s in real agony.”

She didn’t care. She needed to be with him. “I’ll deal. Take me to my mate.”

Miles led her down a long hallway. As soon as they passed through a pair of mechanical doors, wails of

suffering echoed off the walls. Wrapping her arms around herself, she tried to block out the effect of his

screams on her emotions. She needed to be strong for him.

Miles halted before the door where the cries were the loudest. “Ready?”

She gave a jerky nod, and he opened the door. The volume of the anguish intensified, slapping her in

the face. And the heart. As she forced her feet toward the man she loved curled in a fetal position on the

bed, she had to keep herself from crying out along with him. His body spasmed as a long, drawn-out wail

filled the room.

A sob caught in her throat as she sat on the side of the bed. She brushed a lock of his dark hair off his

forehead and stifled a gasp. His face was deathly pale and coated with sweat. His eyes were squeezed shut.

“Hurts. Hurts,” he muttered between clenched teeth.

She rubbed his shoulder. “Britton, it’s Val. I’m here, sweetheart.”

His eyes suddenly snapped open. Violet surged through his irises. Then he rolled onto his back, body

stiff, back arching off the bed, and the most horrible, anguished sound came from deep within him. It

continued until she couldn’t stand it anymore. With a sob, she backed away from the bed.

Then his body collapsed onto the mattress.

Between wheezy gasps of air, he murmured six words that crushed her very soul.

“Get the fuck away from me.”

…

Britton was only conscious of the pain…the agony.

Unrelenting.

Never easing.

Not one second of peace.

Every fiber of his body felt as if it was on fire and he was being burned alive. Another ball of heat

blasted through his middle. He jackknifed up, then rolled to his side, clutching his stomach, releasing a

bellow he couldn’t contain.

As the flare subsided, leaving behind the scorching throbbing of his veins, broken weeping erupted

from between clenched teeth.

He wanted it to end.

Any way possible.

Even death would be welcome.

…

Val hugged her knees to her chest and buried her face deep in the crook of her arm as the sounds of

Britton’s pain tormented her.

Twelve hours. Twelve long, excruciating hours of agony. By the end of the first hour, she’d started

pleading with
Dea
to make him pass out. But he never did. Just screamed. And screamed.

Continuously.

Miles kept tabs on Britton’s panels. For the first few hours, they increased only marginally, but over the

last two, they had spiked to an alarming level. The doctor hadn’t minced his words, letting Val know this

was not a good sign.

When she’d demanded that he give Britton the serum, he’d refused, saying if they administered the

serum now, Britton would certainly die. Without the serum, there was still a chance—although slim—that

he could pull through. They needed to give the shifter DNA more time to click back into place.

She desperately wanted to be with Britton, but she hadn’t stepped foot inside that room since he’d told

her to get away from him. She told herself not to take his demand personally. His eyes hadn’t been focused;

he’d had no clue to whom he’d been talking.

But she’d seen the way his pain had escalated when he’d made eye contact with her. If there was the

smallest chance she made his suffering worse, she wouldn’t go near him.

But she stayed outside his door, listening, weeping over his agony.

Another howl strangled her, tightening her stomach until she was certain she would be sick.

Then all at once, the sounds of anguish stopped. Like a light switch.

Off.

She snapped her head up, staring at the door, terror consuming her as she struggled to her feet.

Miles and a team of nurses rushed past her into the room.

Aidan, his mate, Jaylin, Liam, and Ava straightened away from the wall, the same expression of fear

reflected on their faces. Aidan came over and put his arm around her to comfort her. She tried to shake off

the gesture, but he only tightened his grip. Tears scorched her cheeks as she pressed her face against his

chest. His other arm went around her and he held her tight.

Minutes crawled by, feeling like hours, then Miles finally stepped out of Britton’s room.

He looked at her. “He’s alive, but very weak.”

Covering her face in her hands, her knees buckled. If it hadn’t been for Aidan, she would’ve fallen to

the floor, but his arms anchored her.

“His body finally shut down,” Miles continued grimly. “Val, his vitals aren’t good.”