The Alpha Men's Secret Club 5(23)

They wheeled Kate away and he could only watch helplessly. He knew she needed to get back on the ventilator. It was her only chance of survival till Alyssa got back.

But Kate looked so fragile. Her life was hanging by a thread. He watched them take her back to the intensive care unit which had become her home. He didn’t follow because there was something else he had to do.

The doctor came out, holding a little bundle wrapped up in green surgical cloth. He didn’t say anything.

Rust buried his face in his hands and wept.



*



It was another twenty-four hours before Alyssa returned. Rust was asleep outside the intensive care unit. His jaw was unshaven and he hadn’t had a shower in two days. No one disturbed him, except to bring him food and drink.

He felt the hand on his shoulder and he was startled awake.

Alyssa said, “I brought you this.”

In her gloved hand was a purple flower.





22



It was a time for answers.

Alyssa watched as Rust gave the scientists and researchers there the instructions to prepare the antidote.

“Crush the petals in the mortar . . . like that,” he said.

“Can we do a centrifuge?” asked a researcher.

Rust hesitated. “I’m not sure. I daren’t take the risk. I’ve never done it like that before.”

“You’ve done this before.” Alyssa watched Rust grind the petals of the purple flower in the stone mortar with a pestle.

“Yes. The flower is Carpelinium silopsis, a rare plant found only in the Caribbean, especially in the hills of Honduras.”

“I did my homework on the plane. It has anti-cancer properties as well and it’s being studied as a targeted agent by the R and D divisions of a major British pharmaceutical company.”

“Has it? Good to know.” Rust put in another bunch of flowers into the mortar and pounded it furiously. “I need alcohol.”

“What’s the poison? What are we dealing with?”

So far, the post-mortem had yielded nothing in the blood and exudates of Connor and Moira. Toxicology scans were running furiously around the clock for all known drugs and poisons to man.

But Connor and Moira were not human.

Rust said, “When my father was younger . . . we . . . he did some experiments in Bellevue using this flower, which he discovered had antitoxin properties.”

He paused, as though weighing what to say next.

Alyssa said softly, “They killed your parents, didn’t they?”

“You’ve been infiltrated.” His voice was harsh.

“And you can be sure we’re doing all we can to find the perpetrators. You have to level with us.” When he didn’t answer, she added, “You tried to protect them, and look what they did to you.”

Her pulse was racing. She was at a threshold here. The threshold of discovery. What she couldn’t make him and his parents reveal in weeks was about to be revealed now.

“But you can save Kate now.” As an afterthought, she said, “I’m sorry about the baby.”

He nodded. “I had to sign the consent form, you know . . . to save her.”

She didn’t badger him anymore, but let him finish his pounding. He mixed a few more chemicals and then gave the potion to a scientist.

“Now you can send it for centrifuge,” he said.

“What’s the poison, Rust? Why isn’t anything we’re giving her working?”

He raised his eyes to hers. There seemed some sort of calm acceptance in them.

He said, “The poison is called ‘wolfsbane’. We shifters have known of its existence for centuries. It is found in the Ural mountains. It’s a closely guarded European shifter secret. It’s deadly to shifters, in particular, but pretty toxic to humans too.”

She sucked in her breath.

“Shifters, you say,” she remarked. “Many of them.”

“Yes. As you have instinctively known, there are many of us living among you. For centuries.”

It was all spilling out now.

She said, “There have been . . . legends. And the fact you and your parents didn’t probably spring from immaculate conception.”

“Some are legends, most are the truth.” His steady eyes held hers.

“Can you tell us everything . . . from the beginning?”

“Yes, I can. But it will be my story. My terms.”

“What are your terms?”

“I need protection for Kate and myself. Possibly for the rest of our lives.” He was very grim when he said this.

“I can arrange that.”

“And – ” He paused.

“Yes?”

“You’re going to help me nail the bastards who did this to us. They are going to be sorry they didn’t get to kill me too.”