Or at least a conversation which didn’t end with blood spilled in the dirt.
Knox had swung by the Abrams property to give them a piece of his mind. Several of them were gathered on the front porch, and they did not look happy.
“How could you have lost her?” Knox growled at Virginia, who was one of the nurse’s aides at Grayslake Memorial, and also a bear shifter from the Grayslake Clan.
Knox had put out the word to all shifters in the area to notify him immediately if they spotted Margaret, and to keep an eye on her until he got there.
“Excuse you,” Virginia snarled right back at him. “This is a wolf issue. Not my problem. In fact,” she sneered, “you’re lucky I even called to let you know she showed up in our E.R. Next time I won’t.”
Ty Abrams, the Itan of the Grayslake Clan, let out a low, rumbling, growl, and Virginia’s whole posture and attitude changed immediately. Ty was a large man, with broad shoulders and a fierce glower, but it was more than his expression or his size. There was an aura of strength and danger roiling about him. It was why he was the leader of the Grayslake Clan, and the other bears quailed when he was angry.
She hung her head submissively, her shoulders slumped, and she stared down at the ground.
“Itan,” she mumbled.
Ty’s Enforcer Van, who served the same role for the bears as a Beta did for the wolves, looked at him stood back, a look of anger wrinkling his forehead. Clarence met his gaze steadily. “You’ll do what I command,” Ty ground out. “And if any Alpha or Itan or leader from any species calls you up and asks you to keep an eye out for a shifter showing up at the hospital, then you will call me, and tell me, and I will decide what you do next.”
“Yes, Itan. Of course, Itan,” she mumbled. She risked a pleading glance at him. “I did call you and tell you as soon as I heard about the search for the girl, Itan.”
Knox couldn’t fault her for that. She answered to Ty, not to him. What he could fault her for was letting Margaret walk out of that hospital.
“I scented wolf in her room,” he growled at her. “As in, at some point, she must have shifted. Now, the curtains were drawn, so maybe nobody saw it happen. But maybe they did. That means a risk of exposure, which doesn’t just threaten us, it threatens all shifters. Why weren’t you watching her room?”
“I couldn’t,” Virginia whined. Her gaze darted to Ty and then back to Knox. “I’m on the opposite side of the E.R. They divide up the rooms between me and the other nurse’s aide, and I had rooms one through ten. She was on the other side of the E.R. Heather would have been assigned there – she had eleven through twenty.”
“Where were you when she disappeared?” Knox demanded.
Virginia went pale and swallowed hard.
“Answer him,” the Itan growled.
“I was…I was on a coffee break,” she said miserably. “She’s a wolf, I didn’t think it was a big deal what happened to her…”
“Damn it to hell!” Ty growled at her furiously. “You didn’t think at all! An unconscious shifter in the emergency room is likely to spontaneously shift. And expose us all to humans. You should have at least stayed on the floor until Knox showed up.”
“And now we have absolutely no fu— Uh, hello. We have no darned idea where she is,” Knox said as an attractive pregnant woman marched out the door. She had a pleasant round face and brown curly hair and a little up-turned nose. Her stomach was just starting to swell.
“Language!” the woman said, looking indignantly at Ty. Mia, his Itana, the female leader of the clan. A small boy, bear cub, trotted along next to her, holding her hand. His name was Parker; Knox had heard something about her and Ty adopting him after his parents had been murdered by his uncle.
She patted her rounded belly protectively with her free hand. “You’re setting a bad example for Parker, and for our bun in the oven. See, our guest isn’t swearing.”
She was the only bear in the clan who could get away with talking to Ty like that.
Ty shot a look at Knox as if he’d like to eviscerate him with his claws.
Knox smiled at her, flashing an innocent smile, just to annoy Ty, because he really wasn’t crazy about wolves. “Oh, no, ma’am, my grandmother raised me never to swear around a lady,” he said with exaggerated politeness, and he saw Ty’s eyes glow with rage.
“Swear jar,” Mia added to Ty. “You owe five bucks. Don’t think I’ll forget. And did you offer our guests a drink?”
“Oh, I couldn’t impose,” Knox said. “We’ve got to get back out there and keep looking. The Northeast Alpha’s going to blow a gasket if I don’t track this girl down. But thank you for offering. Itan, Itana,” he added, with as short a nod of his head as he could get away with and still be respectful. The truth was, he didn’t want to enter a bear’s house, and he didn’t want to hang out with them long enough to have a drink. Although Mia wasn’t too bad. Then again, she was only part bear, from what he’d heard, so maybe that was why.