Hunter's Secret

Cameron’s POV

I watch Raine as she walks into Hunter’s room, and I hear her heart start to beat faster. Her eyes travel over his body and when they reach his face, her breath hitches, and her heart beats even faster. She may be a doctor, but she certainly isn’t blind.

I softly clear my throat and she spins around to face me, her face flushed, and I can still hear her heart racing. She takes a deep breath and looks down at the clipboard.

“Alpha Cameron, I know you are his best friend so you probably know more than even his parents do, so what can you tell me about his health?” she asks, her heart calming as she slips into a more professional persona.

“What would you like to know, Dr. Hart?”

“You can just call me Raine and anything you can tell me will be helpful.”

I nod and go back as far as I can, telling her every time Hunter would get sick or injured, what he is like when he is stressed, how he has dealt with River (which piqued her interest and she asked me lots of questions about that), how he hasn’t been sleeping very well or eating very well these past few weeks, and I tell her everything that his doctor told me before.

She writes down as much information as she can and pauses occasionally to ask additional questions, which I try my best to answer.

‘I can feel you getting upset. She better not be hurting you or I am going to come down there right now!’ Emma growls out over mind-link.

‘I am just talking about Hunter. It makes me sad to see him so sick.’

‘I don’t like her. She was checking you out earlier.’

‘You are cute when you are jealous. But trust me, I only have eyes for you.’

‘Hmph. Fine. But you better come back here to me soon.’

‘I will, baby. Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

“Cameron?”

“Hmm?”

“I asked you to tell me what he looked like when you found him,” Raine asks me again.

“Sorry. I was talking to my mate, Emma,” I respond.

“What? How? You weren’t on your phone?”

I laugh and then realize she is being completely serious, “I was talking to her over mind-link.”

“Mind-link?”

“Yeah, it is what we use to talk to each other when we can’t have an in-person conversation.”

“But how?”

“I thought Titus was your dad. Did you not see him do those things?”

She shakes her head, “No. He never did. Maybe because he didn’t have any one to talk to.”

“Oh. But yeah, we can talk to each other in our heads. It sounds like a normal conversation.”

“Wow. That’s crazy,” she says, leaning back in her chair. I don’t quite know what to think of her. She was raised with werewolves but doesn’t understand basic wolf things. What is Titus hiding?

Hunter’s heart monitor starts beeping fast again and Raine springs out of her chair, quickly moving over to him. She places her stethoscope on his chest and two fingers on the inside of his wrist. As soon as her fingers touch him, his heart goes back to normal. She lets go and looks up at the monitor, slightly puzzled.

“His heart sounds fine to me. Maybe the monitor glitched?”

She goes back to her notes and goes through all his imaging again, looking for anything that might provide some answers. I look over at Hunter and even though his eyes remain closed, and he hasn’t moved, I notice a small tear slip down the side of his face. I move over to him and wipe the tear away and sit down next to the bed, holding his hand.

“I don’t know if you can hear me or not Hunter, but you are okay. I am right here. We will figure out what is going on with you. Just don’t give up, okay?”

“You are a good friend. I will do my best to figure out what is going on, but I can’t make any promises,” Raine cautioned.

“I know you can’t. I appreciate you coming all the way here.”

“My dad asked me to, and he knows that I would do anything for him. Plus, he told me about your…interaction earlier.”

I rub an embarrassed hand along the back of my neck, “Right. I am sorry about that. I was not myself. I promise I am not a violent person.”

“His ribs say otherwise,” she said, still not looking up from her notes.

“I know. I am sorry.”

“I was teasing you. Kind of,” she says, flashing me a smile, “You don’t have to stay you know. I am sure Emma wants you home.”

“She definitely does but I also don’t want to leave him. Plus, it wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me to leave you here by yourself, especially since I sent everyone else away.”

“I can just call my dad or Ash to come pick me up. Or I can just sleep here. I am sure there is a nurse’s room somewhere. I am used to being on call all the time, so I sleep in hospitals a lot.”

“You should go home. You are probably tired from traveling. I will call his parents to come sit with him overnight. We can both come back in the morning and make a plan.”

“That sounds good.”

She goes to call her dad and I mind-link Jackson and Alice to tell them they can come back. As soon as I finish the mind-link, Ash shows up.

Raine looked at her, quickly looked at me, and then back to Ash.

“It’s fine. He knows,” Ash said, flicking her wrist in my direction, “You ready to go home Raine?”

She nodded her head yes and the two of them disappeared. I start making my way out of the infirmary and pass Jackson and Alice on the way in. I give them a quick update and start my run home. I walk into the house, and it is dark.

“Emma?” I call.

“In here!” she calls back from behind my closed bedroom door.

I lock the front door and head to my room. I open the door and Emma is standing by the bed, wrapped in a towel which she promptly drops when I get into the room. My eyes hungrily roam her body and I start to walk toward her, but she holds her hand up.

“I don’t want you to come over here smelling like her. So, what are you going to do about that?” she says, smirking at me.

I don’t think I have ever taken my clothes off faster. The second I reach her; she pulls me in for a very passionate kiss and I pick her up and lay her down on my bed. I lean down to kiss her again and she puts her hand against my lips before taking both of her hands and pushing me off her. I land on my back, and she hovers over me, dragging a finger up my chest, stopping it at my mark. She leans down and pauses with her lips almost touching mine.

“You are mine,” she growls.

“I should make you jealous more often. You are hot when you are possessive,” I say, looking into her blackened eyes.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I am completely yours,” I say breathlessly, as my heart speeds up.

Satisfied with my answer, she crashes her lips on mine.

“Emma?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for making me breakfast. As much as I want to spend the whole day with you, I need to get back to Hunter. Dr. Hart called me and said she had some news,” I tell her.

“You gave her your number!?!”

“Yes…how else was she supposed to get in contact with me? She can’t mind-link me.”

“Why not? She is Titus’ daughter, so she is part of the pack now too,” Emma responds with a scowl.

“Because she is a human.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to be jealous,” I point to my mark, “I am yours, remember?”

She comes over to me and kisses me, “I know. Just reminding you,” she says, kissing me again.

“You are mean. You can't kiss me like that when I have to leave.”

She smirks, “You will hurry home tonight?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Good. I will be waiting…” she says in a sing-song voice, walking back to the kitchen.

Fighting Xavier and his desire to just take her back to bed, I headed back to the infirmary, hoping for good news.

Hunter’s POV

I hear the door open and just from listening to the person’s walk, I know it is Cameron. I hear him take a seat and then a voice that I don’t recognize starts talking.

“Alpha Cameron,”

Alpha? Why is she calling him Alpha?

She continues, “I reran every test that they already ran plus every test that I could think of and redid all of his imaging and scans, and I am sorry, but I didn’t find a single thing that is abnormal.”

“So, you called me down here to tell me that you found absolutely nothing!?!” Cameron snapped as he stood up, the chair falling over.

I can hear her move backward and I can hear that her heart is beating fast.

Stop! You are scaring her! Is what I want to say but no sounds come out.

“Listen, I came here as a courtesy to my father. You do NOT get to raise your voice at me or try to threaten me. I can leave right now and then you will be right where you were before I got here. I don’t have answers yet, but I can’t find them if you are threatening me.”

I hear Cameron pick back up the chair and sit back down, sighing, “You are right. I am sorry. I just miss him.”

I am here! I am right here! I try call to him but again nothing comes out, and I am starting to get frustrated. That stupid beeping is going off again. Can’t someone turn it off!?!

I feel a cold metal object placed on my chest and two gentle fingers grab my wrist, feeling for my pulse. I try to move my hands and to my relief, I twitch my fingers. The gentle fingers leave my wrist as I hear a gasp and immediately feel a rough hand grab mine.

“Squeeze my hand if you can hear me, Hunter!” Cameron says, emotion filling his voice.

I successfully twitch my fingers again and he starts to cry. Why is he crying? I don’t have much time to think about it though because I start choking. I am panicking. I can’t breathe! I feel another sharp pain in my arm, and everything goes quiet.

When I wake back up, if you can call it that, since I still can’t open my eyes, the room is quiet. But that tube is out of my mouth now. There is just a small thing blowing air into my nose, which is much more comfortable. But I am so tired, so I fall back to sleep. I wake up the next time to my hand being held as I hear Cameron talking to me.

“Please wake up, Hunter. I need you. I miss you.”

I try to talk to him, but I still can’t make any words come out, so I focus my energy on squeezing his hand instead. I only manage to twitch my pointer finger.

“Hunter? Can you hear me?”

I move my finger.

“You can?”

I twitch my finger again.

He lets go of my hand and I feel him wrap his arms around me, enveloping me in a hug. I can hear him crying and I don’t understand why he is so upset but I want to comfort him.

He gets off me and scrambles to get his phone out of his pocket.

“Dr. Hart! You need to get here now!”

A few minutes later I hear a set of footsteps running down the hallway and I hear the door swing open.

“What is happening?”

“He moved his finger!” Cameron says excitedly.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, Alpha Cameron.”

“But watch!” I can feel him grab my hand again, “Hunter, if you can hear me, move your finger again.”

I do and the other voice, sighs, with what I think is relief.

Cameron removes his hand from mine and who I assume is Dr. Hart places their hand in mine. Their hand is small, and their skin is smooth.

“Hunter, I am going to ask you some questions. Move once for yes and twice for no. Okay?” the voice says, and I realize that Dr. Hart is a woman.

I moved once.

“Good job. Can you hear me right now?”

I try to move but it takes a long time before I am able to move my finger again

“Are you in pain?”

I move once and try to move again but it takes too long, and she asks me another question.

“Does your head hurt?”

This time I can move twice more easily.

“Do you know where it hurts?”

I move my finger twice-no.

“Do you know where you are?”

Yes. I feel my heart start to beat faster.

“You are in the hospital, Hunter. You are safe. You are okay. Don’t panic.”

Her voice calms me down for some reason.

“Good job. Keep breathing. Do you feel up to answering some more questions?”

Yes.

“Okay, do you remember what happened before you woke up here?”

No.

“Do you remember your name?”

Yes.

“Good job. Can you open your eyes?”

I move twice, but it takes me a while.

“That is okay. Keep breathing. You are okay. Are you feeling tired?”

Yes.

“I am going to give you some medicine to help you sleep. We can talk more after you rest some.”

I slowly feel myself start to drift off to sleep and I can hear Cameron sniffling in the background.

“He is going to be okay?”

“I am not sure yet, but this is a very positive sign,” Dr. Hart tells him and that is the last thing I hear before I completely fall asleep.