She frantically jabbed Redial, but the phone just blinked Caller Unavailable at her. “You can’t be unavailable!” she yelled at the phone. “You’re supposed to be his emergency contact! Griff, what do I do now?”
He didn’t respond. He was motionless.
Completely motionless.
He wasn’t breathing.
Hurling the useless phone aside, Hayley flung herself to her knees next to his rigid body. She pressed her fingertips to his neck, feeling for a pulse. His skin was freezing cold. He was as stiff under her hands as if he’d been dead for hours.
Chest compressions, she thought, suddenly icy calm. Griff needed her, now, and there was no time for any emotion but the single-minded need to save him. The CPR procedure sprang into her mind with crystal clarity, as if the textbook was open in front of her.
She pumped his chest, hard, counting the rhythm under her breath. At the right moment, she paused to give him mouth-to-mouth, not caring that his protruding fangs cut into her lips. It didn’t matter that he was twisted and stretched, half-beast. This was Griff, her Griff, her mate. She knew that he was still there, a spark of life hidden deep inside that still, barely human form. And she would not let that life slip away.
Compressions, ventilations. Compressions, ventilations. Focus, Hayley. Keep the rhythm.
Hayley cursed herself for throwing Griff’s cellphone away, out of reach. She knew she needed to call an ambulance, but she didn’t dare leave his side yet. He needed her to be his heart, to be the air that he breathed…
Fiery light flooded suddenly through the window. Acting on pure instinct, Hayley flung herself across Griff’s body, trying to protect him as the glass imploded inward.
An eye-searingly bright shape hurtled into the kitchen, white-hot flames streaming behind it like the tail of a comet. For a split second, the vast, bird-like form spread fiery wings over them both, its eyes as fierce and lethal as the heart of the sun.
The bird-shape vanished, leaving a man standing where it had been. He looked to be in his mid-forties, but he was still muscular and broad-shouldered, military training clear in his straight-backed stance. Wisps of smoke rose from the scorched floor around his feet.
Hayley gaped at him. “Who—what-?”
“I am Ash.” He was already kneeling, his calm gaze sweeping over Griff’s motionless form in assessment. “When did you give him the venom?”
“Venom?” Hayley said blankly.
He glanced up at her, briefly, and she rocked back on her heels as the power behind those dark eyes struck her like a blow. “The wyvern venom. In the syringe. When?”
“I—I don’t know,” Hayley stammered. Poison? He said it was medicine! “Not more than ten minutes ago.”
Ash’s expression stayed completely unreadable, but his breath hissed through his teeth. He looked at the window, as if he was waiting for someone.
Or possibly, something. Hayley stared in disbelief as a horse stuck its long, black head through her kitchen window. A…winged horse?
The pegasus retreated a little, folding its wings. Someone scrambled off its back and through the window—another man, much younger than Ash even though his short hair was a pure, brilliant silver. He didn’t spare Hayley even the most cursory of glances as he shoved her aside to get to Griff. From the unerring, expert way his long fingers swiftly assessed Griff’s vital signs, Hayley guessed the newcomer had to be some sort of medic.
“You fool,” the white-haired man snarled savagely, apparently to his unconscious patient. “I warned you this was an idiotic idea. If I ever get my hands on that bloody wyvern-!”
“Is he going to be okay?” interrupted an anxious Irish voice. Yet another man climbed in through the window, this one lean and agile with a shock of wild, curly black hair. “Hugh, can you heal him?”
“Who are all you people?” Hayley demanded.
“Get her out of here, Chase,” the white-haired man snapped without looking up. “I have to work fast if I’m going to have any chance of saving this moron.”
“What? No!” Hayley t
ried to twist away, but the Irish man—Chase, she assumed—was inhumanly fast. He seized her wrists, bundling her out of the kitchen despite her kicks and protests. “Let me go! I have to stay with Griff!”
“I’m sorry, but you can’t.” Chase elbowed the door shut behind them, still effortlessly restraining her. He was a lot stronger than his lean physique suggested. “Hugh won’t shift if you’re watching, and right now he’s Griff’s only hope.”
“He’s a shifter?” Hayley stared at Chase’s windswept hair, suddenly making the connection. “You’re all shifters. You were the pegasus.”
“Yep.” He flashed her a brief, strained grin, though the rest of his face was still set in grim, worried lines. “Chase Tiernach-West, at your service. The two back in there are Hugh Argent and Fire Commander Ash.” He cocked his head to one side, as if suddenly hearing someone call his name. “And…just landing outside are the last two members of our team. We’d better let them in, or else John will kick your door down. Or possibly your wall.”
“Team?” Hayley said, towed helplessly in his wake as he headed down the hallway. “Landing? What?”