Marked by Three

ChapterFive

LEO

I spotted her the second we pushed the gurney through those sliding doors. Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, a few strands already escaping like they had better places to be. Gray eyes locked on the kid like the rest of the world had gone quiet. She was snapping on a yellow gown with that quick, no-nonsense flick of the wrist you only get after doing it a thousand times.

My wolf stirred. Not the usual snap-and-snarl that kicks in when something smells like trouble. This was quieter. Deeper. A low rumble that settled somewhere behind my ribs and felt… familiar, I guess. Which was impossible, because I’d never laid eyes on this woman before in my life.

“Eighteen-year-old male, motorcycle versus sedan,” I heard myself rattle off, the words coming out steady even though half my brain was still stuck on her. Professional. Keep it professional, Nash. You’ve done this dance a million times.

We shifted the kid over on the count. This was routine. Muscle memory. Then our eyes caught across the body, just for a beat, maybe less, and my wolf went dead still. The kind of still that usually means you’re about to chase something down or end it. Except this wasn’t that. This was something else, something that made the hair on my arms stand up for no reason I could name.

Her eyes widened a fraction. Like she’d felt it too. That weird tug. I stepped back from the gurney a half-second slower than I should’ve, couldn’t help it, couldn’t look away fast enough.

“Kira, I need vitals!” The doctor’s voice was sharp, Asian accent, cut through the moment like a scalpel.

Kira. Okay. Now I had a name to go with the face that was already lodged in my head.

My wolf started pacing again, restless in a way I hadn’t felt since… well, since Sarah. I made myself back off, lean against the wall, let the team do their thing. Santos was already drifting toward the bay doors, glancing back at me. “Nash, you coming?”

“Yeah. One second.” I needed to log the call. Standard procedures. Except I wasn’t logging s**t. I was watching her move around the kid with steady hands, calm voice calling out numbers even though I could hear her heart hammering from across the room like it was trying to escape her ribs.

Human. Definitely human. Her scent was clean, no pack markers, no weird supernatural static. So why the hell was my wolf acting like she’d just walked up and slapped a claim on us?

The team wheeled the kid out toward the elevators. She went with them. I should’ve followed Santos. We had another call stacked. Instead I wandered toward the exit, stopped, turned around like an i***t. Needed air. Needed to shake this off. Needed to stop feeling like my own chest was trying to tell me something I wasn’t ready to hear.

The ambulance bay smelled like diesel and old concrete. I leaned against the wall, arms crossed, trying to breathe through it. My wolf kept pacing, pushing images at me I didn’t ask for; her hands, her eyes, the way she’d looked at me for that split second like she knew me too.

Calm the f**k down, I told it. She’s a nurse. Human. End of story.

But it wasn’t. And the longer I stood there the more I remembered Sarah. The way my wolf had gone statue-still the first time I saw her at sixteen, that same bone-deep certainty. She’d been gone ten years now. Werewolves don’t get do-overs on that kind of bond. Everybody knows it. My wolf apparently hadn’t gotten the memo.

Mate, it whispered again, quieter this time, almost like it was testing the word.

“f**k,” I muttered, rubbing a hand over my face. I pushed off the wall. I’d go grab the clipboard, log the damn call like a normal person, get back to the rig, forget any of this happened.

Except when I walked back through the ER I saw her again. Kira. Heading down a side hallway toward the back, away from the noise. My feet moved before the rest of me caught up. Not close. Just… keeping her in sight. The hallway got quieter the farther I went. I told myself I was just making sure she was okay after the trauma. That’s all. Nothing creepy. Nothing that would make me hate myself later.

She ducked into a little alcove near what looked like a supply room. I slowed down. Ten feet away, maybe. Close enough to hear my own pulse in my ears. Just introduce yourself, I thought. Say hey, that was a hell of a call, sorry if I stared. Normal human s**t.

Then the smell hit me.

Blood. Fresh. Coppery and warm and way too much of it for a paper cut.

My wolf lunged forward in my head. Protective instincts on full blast. I was at the doorway before I’d decided to move.

She was standing there, one hand cradled against her chest, blood dripping onto the floor in fat red drops. Gauze pressed to her palm, already soaked through. Glass shards scattered around her sneakers like someone had taken a hammer to a vial.

“What was that?” The words fell out before I could swallow them.

She spun so fast she almost slipped in her own blood. Face pale, eyes huge.

“I… it broke. The vial. It just…” She glanced down at her hand like it belonged to someone else. “It shattered.”

I stepped inside without thinking. “Let me see.”

“I’m fine. I just need to…”

“You’re bleeding.” I moved closer. The smell was thick now, sweet in a way that made my wolf want to do something stupid. “I’m a paramedic. Let me look.”

She hesitated, then peeled the gauze back slow. Deep cuts. Glass still stuck in a couple spots. Blood welling up fresh.

“You need stitches,” I said. “At least three of these are gonna need ’em.”

“I know. I’ll page someone…”

“What really happened?”

I could smell the lie before it left her mouth. The fear underneath it too.

“The vial slipped,” she said. “I grabbed it wrong.”

Bullshit. Glass doesn’t explode like that from a slip. The cuts were from gripping, hard. Hard enough to break it in her bare hand. I opened my mouth to call her on it, but footsteps echoed down the hall.

Someone coming.

I turned just as he filled the doorway.

Tall. Pale like he hadn’t seen sunlight in years. Dark hair, sharp cheekbones, white coat over clothes that probably cost more than my truck payment. His eyes, pale blue, almost colorless, locked on Kira like she was already his.

And then the scent rolled over me. Cold. Old. Dead but not dead. Enemy.

My wolf bared its teeth so hard I felt it in my jaw.

“Kira.” His voice was smooth, but there was an edge under it. “What happened?”

He walked right past me like I was furniture. Straight to her. Took her bleeding hand without asking.

I wanted to grab him. My wolf was roaring. Mine. Ours. Back the f**k off.

“I’m fine, Damon,” she said. “Just an accident with a glass vial.”

Damon. Great. Now I had a name to hate.

He examined the cuts, all clinical and calm, then lifted her hand to his mouth and licked the blood right off her palm.

Everything in me went white-hot.

My wolf exploded forward. No. Ours. Get away from her!

I took one step before I caught myself. Fists clenched so tight my knuckles cracked.

His eyes snapped to mine. He knew. I knew. We stared at each other over her head like two dogs deciding whether to fight right there.

“Who are you?” he asked, voice cold enough to frost the air.

“Leo Nash. Paramedic.” The words came out rough. “Brought in the trauma earlier.”

“And you’re still here because…?”

“Making sure she’s okay.”

His mouth twitched. “She’s fine. I’ll handle it.”

“I don’t think…”

“I’m her attending.” He didn’t yell. Didn’t have to. The authority just sat there, heavy. “You can go.”

It wasn’t a suggestion.

My wolf wanted to argue. Wanted to push. But we were in a hospital full of humans and I was the new guy in town. Starting a pissing match with a century old fool in the middle of an ER was the kind of stupid that gets people killed. Or worse, gets the pack noticed.

I looked at Kira instead. She was staring at his mouth. At the blood still on his lips. And she wasn’t running. Wasn’t even yelling. Which meant she either knew what he was… or she was in way deeper trouble than she realized.

“Kira,” I said, quieter. “You good?”

She met my eyes. Really met them. That same pull hit again, stronger this time, like a hook behind my sternum.

“I’m fine,” she said. Voice shaky though.

I dug out one of my cards, scribbled my real number on the back, held it out. Had to lean past the vampire to do it. Felt like pushing through cold water.

Our fingers brushed. Static again. Her eyes went wide. She felt it too.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I nodded. Gave the vampire one last look, his pale eyes promising every kind of violence if I didn’t walk away right then.

So I did.

But only as far as the corner. Far enough to be out of sight, close enough to still hear if anything went wrong.

Because this was f****d. A vampire staking some kind of claim on a human woman who could apparently shatter glass with her bare hands and didn’t seem to know how she’d done it. A human woman my wolf had already decided was ours.

I pulled my phone out and dialed before I could talk myself out of it.

“Luke,” I said when my beta picked up, voice low. “We gotta talk. In person. I just… found someone. Or something. And there’s a sun hater in it.”