Desert Heat (Complete)

{Dorian’s P.O.V.}

“PUT THOSE DOWN!!” Leah screamed at the top of her lungs. We all stopped what we were doing and just looked at her. Her eyes were glowing red. Allie grabbed the drink from me so fast some spilled over the top of the glass onto her hand, and as soon it did, Allie dropped the glass on the table and started to scream,

“AHHH!!”

“Allie, what’s wrong!?” I looked at her and she was grabbing her wrist. Allie was starting to cry in pain. “Baby, talk to me!”

“It burns! My hand is burning!” I grabbed Allie’s hand, and sure enough, there were blisters forming all over her fingers, the inside of her palm, and along her wrist.

“PUT THE DRINKS DOWN! DON’T LET IT TOUCH YOUR SKIN!” I shouted to the guys.

“AHHH!!” Lacie screamed too. I saw that the liquid from my drink that Allie dropped had spilled over the table and onto her foot.

“BE CAREFUL! EVERYONE BACK AWAY!” I tell them. We all get up, and any girls with opened shoes were carried by their mate.

“Dorian!!” Allie was full-on crying, and so was Lacie. Whatever was in our drinks was giving them third-degree burns in a matter of seconds.

“Siobhan! Bring us some bottled water and ice now!” Brandon shouted and Siobhan took off.

“I can help!” Eileen said and left also. She was wearing tennis shoes, so she was fine.

“Aries! What’s happening!?” Lacie was screaming and crying.

“LEAH! WHAT DID YOU SEE IN YOUR VISION!?” I screamed at her.

“The drinks, as soon as you guys drank them, all of you started to suffocate!” she replied.

“As of right now, we have to assume whatever is in this is a danger to werewolves,” I say to everyone.

“I’m not a werewolf,” Dani replied. She looked at the drinks on the table and dipped her index finger in one. She had no reaction at all. “I’m safe, it’s not doing anything to me,” she said.

“Dani, go down to the kitchen and get a cooking syringe and two zip-lock bags. We need to take a sample of this and have it analyzed,” Brandon tells her. She nods and leaves. As she is going down, Eileen and Siobhan came back with the water and ice.

“Lucian, come hold Allie!” I tell him. Cianna had boots on so she was safe as long she stayed away from the table. I pass Allie over to him and start to pour water on her hand.

“Ahh!! Dorian it hurts!” Allie’s cries.

“I know baby, but we need to clean this s**t off of your hand,” Lacie’s foot was covered in blisters just as badly as Allie’s hand. Even after a few minutes of pouring water and ice, the girls were still crying and screaming. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going away, and the girls weren’t healing. “BRANDON! SHUT DOWN THE CLUB!!” I roared. Brandon went downstairs and immediately started to clear out the club. Dani came and started to take samples of the drink and placed them into zip-lock bags. Evelyn came running up the stairs when the club was being cleared out.

“Oh my god, what happened!?” she asked.

“Something in those drinks is causing their skin to burn in a matter of seconds,” Eileen told her. Evelyn went to grab one. “Don’t Evie! It affects anyone with werewolf DNA!” Eileen stopped her just in time.

“Evelyn, come here,” Deacon told her, and she did. She ran straight into his arms.

“Hey, what the f**k is going on!?” Trey asked running up on the stairs.

“Trey, who poured those drinks?” I asked him while pointing at the glasses. “I have no idea, why!?”

“Whatever is in them is causing severe burns to Allie’s hand and Lacie’s foot just as soon as it made contact with their skin,” I tell him. He grabs the drink and smells it.

“There’s nothing off about it, and the coloring seems fine,” he says.

“Dor…Dorian,” Allie whimpered. I looked down at Allie in Lucian’s arms and she was sweating bullets. I looked at Lacie and she was also sweating like crazy. Whatever this was, was starting to make them sick. I put my hand to Allie’s forehead, and she was burning up.

“f**k! Allie has a fever!” I shout and take her back from Lucian.

“s**t! Lacie does too!” Aries exclaimed.

“We need to get them to the pack hospital!” Mikey said.

“We’re too far from home! Allie needs medical attention now!” I shouted while running down the stairs and I see Bryce and the rest of security clearing out the club.

“Dorian! Aries! Let me! I can shimmer them there,” Dani said coming to us.

“Dani, can you shimmer that far?” I asked her.

“Yes, I’ve been practicing, I can do it. I need someone who doesn’t have wolf DNA to hold this. Do not let anyone with wolf DNA touch it,” Dani said holding the samples.

“Bryce, take that sample and go straight to my company. When you get there, ask for Vladimir Chekhov, he is a full vampire and a biochemist. Let him know that I sent you and what happened here at the club. Tell him I said to have those samples analyzed ASAP!” I tell him. Bryce takes the samples from Dani and takes off. “Mikey, call the security office and let them know a werebear is heading over there,” Mikey gets on the phone and calls the office.

“Okay, place them on the ground,” Dani tells me and Aries. We gently place the girls on the ground, Dani takes both of their hands and disappears in a cloud of orange smoke.

“Andre! Call Dr. Quinn to let her know that Allie and Lacie are her top priority!” I tell him.

“Hey! Todd!” Brandon shouted.

“Mr. Kane!”

“I need all security footage from tonight emailed to me! I want every second of footage since we came into this building!” Brandon tells him. Todd nods his head goes to the back.

“LET’S GO!” I shouted and the rest of us leave the club to head home.

{Dani’s P.O.V.}

I shimmered the girls straight to the pack hospital, and landed in the middle of the reception area,

“DR. QUINN!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“Delta!!” She shouted coming around the corner and a team of nurses came running with stretchers for Allie and Lacie. “Ready, on my count! One…two…three!” they lifted Allie and Lacie and wheeled them both into the VIP room so they could be treated at the same time.

I started to feel faint, and dizzy. Shimmering that long of a distance was rough, and I had never done it with two passengers before,

“Delta!” I heard a familiar voice. I looked up and saw Ava. “B***d! The Delta female needs b***d now!” she shouted. A few seconds later, another nurse came with two bags of b***d they keep in storage for me. Being a three-quarters vampire requires me to have b***d whenever I use too much energy and shimmering a long distance with two passengers definitely took a lot of energy.

I downed the two bags and felt better in no time at all. Once I was able to get to my feet, I went to check on Allie and Lacie,

“Dr. Quinn, what’s happening to them?” I asked as I see Allie and Lacie looking worse.

“Delta, I need to know what happened,” she says. I explain to her about the drinks that were served to the guys by an unknown party and how Leah had a vision of them basically dying after drinking them. I told her how Allie got it on her hand and how it dripped onto Lacie’s foot. Dr. Quinn’s face was horrified.

“Dr. Quinn, do you know what’s happening to them?”

“Delta, I think this may be Dimethylmercury poisoning,” she replied.

“Di…what?”

“Dimethylmercury, it’s a form of poison that attacks a wolf’s central nervous system and is lethal. There is no cure,”

“WHAT?!”

“Delta, this poison is stronger than silver nitrate and wolfsbane combined,”

“But they didn’t ingest it! It only made contact with their skin!”

“The burning that causes the blistering forces it to seep into the bloodstream. The poison is in their b***d,”

“What can we do!?” I was freaking out and starting to cry. Allie was one of my best friends, and I was just starting to really like Lacie.

“There’s not much we can do, Delta. If their bodies can’t fight it off on their own, they’re not going to make it,” hearing those words felt like a million steaks in my heart.

“There has to be something!” I screamed, but no one said anything. Allie and Lacie were on their own. How was I going to tell Dorian and Aries?

I waited out in the hallway, while Dr. Quinn and the nurses got Allie and Lacie set up on IV’s, and morphine to help with the pain they were in, and to dress their wounds with antibiotics. Everything Dr. Quinn said kept replaying in my mind, and the tears kept falling. I looked at the clock and saw that it was an hour before the New Year. Andre, Bryce, Siobhan, and I were supposed to go on a double date tonight after the countdown to celebrate our anniversaries together. Allie and Dorian’s second wedding anniversary was in an hour, and instead of spending time with each other and the twins, Allie was going to be fighting for her life.

The thought of the twins made me cry even more. They were less than two years old and they were going to lose their mother. Dorian was going to lose his wife. Aries and Lacie just started their love story, and Lacie was so young. I continued to sob when I heard everyone running into the hospital,

“DANI!” I heard Andre. I looked up and ran straight into his arms and just started to bawl. “Dani, what happened, why are you crying?!” he asked, but I couldn’t answer.

“DANI!” Dorian roared. “WHERE’S ALLIE!?” I just looked at him, but I didn’t know how to answer. “ANSWER ME!” he roared.

“It’s bad…” I tell him trying to fight my crying.

“DANI! STOP CRYING AND TELL US!!” Sin screamed. I look at her and I could see her, and the others are also starting to cry.

“It’s some kind of poison, Dr. Quinn said that there’s no cure,” I bury face into Andre’s chest.

“What kind of poison!?” Aries asked.

“Di…something…Demet…Shit…Demetal…”

“Dimethylmercury?” I hear Lucas say, and I nod my head.

“f**k!” Lucas exclaims. His reaction meant he knew what it was.

“LUCAS!” Dorian roared.

“Boss, it’s a rare and lethal poison that only works on werewolves and it works fast. That’s why Allie and Lacie reacted so quickly to it. It attacks the nervous system, and Dr. Quinn is right, there is no cure,”

“How fast!?”

“It all depends on the wolf, and how it was introduced into the bloodstream. Since it was through the skin on both of them, it won’t be as quick, but it’s been almost two hours now, and they were running fevers before they got here, it’s already in the bloodstream,”

“Lucas! What the f**k are you trying to say!?” Sam asked with tears flowing down her face. Lucas also had tears in his eyes,

“If Allie and Lacie can’t fight off the poison on their own, they’re going to die,” hearing Lucas repeat what Dr. Quinn said just made me break down again. Everyone was either crying or pissed off, but Dorian, he was on a whole other level of pissed off. He started to trash the hospital, roaring, and growling. It took Brandon, Mikey, Lucian, and Deacon to stop him from tearing down the pack hospital. Aries was sitting on the floor crying into his knees against the wall, and Cianna was holding him, crying with him. This was officially the worst New Year ever.

{Dorian’s P.O.V.}

It’s been four days since Allie and Lacie were hospitalized, and they’ve shown no improvements, but they’re not getting worse, not yet at least. I had to call UNLV to withdraw Allie from her classes. Allie was doing so well in school and withdrawing like this was going set to her back a lot, if not completely. I told the school that it was a medical emergency and that Allie was in an accident that put her in a coma. The school was fine with putting her on medical leave of absence. I also made sure that she didn’t lose her scholarship.

My parents have been looking over the twins and bring them every few hours to see me. They informed Amber and Ronnie, and they’re both a mess. They told the kids and they are even bigger messes than Amber and Ronnie, especially Cam. Cam and Allie are so close and losing her would be detrimental to him. Amber has given Cianna unlimited time off from work, given that Lacie is in the same boat as Allie. She also had to tell Bernie and Corinne, and they’re completely beside themselves. They want to come down but are afraid of Heather finding out that Lacie is a member of my pack and opted not to risk any more drama. Aries sends them updates every few hours and speaks to Bernie regularly.

Vladimir got back me within 24 hours of receiving the samples and confirmed that Allie and Lacie had been poisoned with Dimethylmercury and that there was in fact no cure. He also informed me that the survival rate was less than 15% which made me even more pissed off. Whoever was behind this was attempting to kill the men, but because of Leah’s powers, we were spared; however, Allie and Lacie were accidentally exposed. Allie because she took the drink away from me in a hurry, and Lacie because it spilled over the table and onto her foot. It was a bad domino effect.

After I made the call with the school, I went back down to the hospital to be with Allie. Dr. Quinn had put both her and Lacie into a medically induced coma to keep their bodies from using too much energy to fight off the poison. When I got down there, Aries was still there holding Lacie’s hand. He looked like s**t. He was still wearing the same clothes from New Year’s Eve.

“Aries,”

“Dorian,”

“Go change and take a shower, I will be here watching over them,”

“I won’t leave her,”

“Aries, I will be here. If anything changes, you will be the first to know,” I tell him, and he just shook his head. “Aries, I know what you’re feeling, I really do. I’m right there with you,” I say as I put my hand on his shoulder. “Go, I will watch over Lacie,” Aries finally stands up to leave. He gives Lacie a k**s on the cheek and leaves the room.

I sit down next to Allie and take her left hand in mine. I k**s her rings and just look at her fragile state. The last time I saw Allie like this was when she was beaten by Jessica, but Allie survived that. This time, Allie was literally fighting for her life,

“Allie, baby, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need you. Baby, I need you in my life. My life has no meaning without you. I need you to fight Allie, I need you to fight and come back to me, and our pups. Daisy and Demarco need you as much as I do, if not more. They need their mother and I need my wife. Our story isn’t over. It is far from over. Fight, baby, please. Please, come back to me,” I tell her, but I felt nothing. No spark, no movement, nothing. I started to cry and rested my face on her bed holding her hand.

Aries came back about fifteen minutes later and resumed his place next to Lacie. Not too long after that, Deacon came in.

“How are they?”

“The same,” I replied.

“Look, Dorian, I know this is a rough time for you guys, but…”

“I know, you guys have to go,”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I want to be here for you guys, I really do,”

“Deacon, don’t worry about it. As soon as anything changes, I will call you,” I say while standing up. He gives me a bro hug. “What about Evelyn and Eileen?”

“They agreed to come back with us. Eileen has fully accepted Apollo, but Evelyn is still on the fence. We agreed to take things slow to see where they lead,”

“Do you believe she is your second chance?” I ask him.

“I do, I really do believe it, and I think she does too. But, seeing that I’m marked is making her guard her heart, which I don’t blame her for. I’m going to give her all the time she needs,” I smile at him, and was about to respond when Brandon came rushing in the room.

“Dorian! Aries!”

“What is it!?”

“I scrubbed the footage, and I think I found the moment someone put the poison in our drinks!” We all were about to run out the door but realized there would be no one watching Allie or Lacie. I quickly mind linked Sam and Lucas, and they came as fast as they could. We gathered everyone else in the conference room, and Brandon showed the footage of when the drinks may have been spiked on the big screen.

“Okay, watch closely,” Brandon said pointing at the top right corner of the screen. “There! You see that?”

“See what?” Aries asked.

“It’s hard to see the first time, I missed it too,” Brandon says and replays the footage.

“Watch…there!” Brandon pauses and points to something in the upper far left corner.

“What is that?” Mikey asks.

“That looks like a vile of some sort,” Eileen says.

“Who is the bartender that poured the drinks?” I ask. Brandon rewinds a little further back and plays the footage.

“That’s Chris,” Evelyn says. “He’s the assistant bar manager,”

“Do you guys know him well?” Deacon asks her.

“Not really, Eileen and I only started a little over a month ago, and honesty, we both try to stay away from him,” she replies.

“Yeah, Chris is a douche. He has been trying to sleep with both of us since we both started working there,” Eileen chimed in.

“What!?” Apollo and Deacon both growled.

“Yeah, at the same time,” Evelyn added. “That fucker is into all sorts of weird s****l s**t and dominant and submissive roles, toys, threesomes, foursomes, and all sorts of gross crap,”

“Yeah, he is a straight sadist,” Eileen concluded.

“Now I’m even happier you agreed to come home with us,” Deacon tells them both. “There is no way in hell I want you two working near anyone like that,”

“Looks like I have to get Stefan to find three new bartenders for the club,” Brandon said making a note on his phone.

“What happens after he pours the drinks?” I ask Brandon, and he plays it forward.

“Looks like, he pours the nine drinks, and passes them down to the very end. He goes back to helping customers, but he keeps looking over to where he put the drinks,”

“Wait, it looks like as if he keeping an eye on them,” Leah says.

“Okay, Brandon play it back, again, and I want some of you to watch the bartender, and the rest of you watch the corner where the vile pops up,” I tell the room. Everyone nods and watches the screen again. Brandon replays it from where Chris passed over the drinks to the end of the bar. After a minute, Brandon hits pause. “Okay, what did you all see?”

“Chris was keeping an eye on the drinks while helping customers,” Leah said.

“Yeah, and at one point after watching, he smirked, and then went back to work without a second thought,” Sin added.

“The vile came out of nowhere, but I can tell you is that I think it’s a woman,” Eileen said.

“How can you tell that, babe?” Apollo asked her.

“See here, right where the vile pops up, the fingernail is an acrylic,” Eileen said pointing to the screen.

“She’s right, that’s a fake nail, and the finger is thin, like that of a female,” Cianna said.

“Brandon, is there another camera angle?” I ask.

“Yeah, hold on,” Brandon pulls up another camera angle, and it’s pointing in the direction of the cash register. “I don’t know how much more we can see from this angle, because this camera is solely for the cash register,”

“Wait, that’s Siobhan at the register,” Dani says. We keep watching and see someone turn around with the tray and hand it to Siobhan. Siobhan takes the tray and walks away. Just then two the culprits come into view,

“Oh my god,”