The Hellhound's Mate

Chapter 80

Lydia had learned how to revive Halwyn when she woke up, the girls pleading Angie to stay seeing as he'd probably be very angry when he woke and she was immune to hellfire. So using an MRI machine, they'd been able to pull the bullet out of his brain. That was the good news. The bad news rested in the fact that the bullet had been coated in silver that flaked off it and wasn't able to be pulled out by the MRI magnet. And when a hellhound heals, it burns up, meaning that the silver would melt right into his brain and kill him for good.

Lydia had been against pulling the bullet out first but Malia had reasoned that if it had been Parrish, he wouldn't have hesitated to pull it out to save the town. Angie had shuddered at the thought of her fiancee in this situation before they asked her opinion. As sad as it was that he was going to die, they needed to know how to stop the Anukite and stop the hunters and it was Halwyn's life mission to do so.

But in the end, as Halwyn lay dying, all he said was that they couldn't let the two halves merge and if they did, they couldn't look. Angie was fine with that. Seems like Deucalion's lessons in fighting without her vision would come in handy after all.

She took some of Halwyn's pain to make it a bit easier, but she couldn't help heal silver poisoning. There was just no way to get it out of his brain. But that wasn't the worst news surprisingly.

Because the two halves of the Anukite had merged, and now it possessed the ability to turn people into stone.

Right now, however, she was in Jordan's arms inside their apartment, savouring this one moment they had before they got back to it, Angie with the supernatural side of things and Jordan with the hunter side as he tried to get information through the people inside the Sheriff's station. They were simply sitting on the sofa, embracing one another when their door opened. But Angie wasn't worried because she'd heard the sound of a key turning and only one other person had a key to her apartment right now.

"Angie?" the voice called.

"In here, Theo," she called back as he walked into the living room to see them on the couch together. "Are you and Mason ok?" she asked and he nodded as he came to sit on the adjacent sofa.

"Yeah. Yeah, he's fine now, but, he said something that I can't get out of my head," Theo admitted and Angie sat up, Jordan's hands still on her waist as she listened intently. "He was hurt and I tried to take his pain, but I - I didn't know how. He said I couldn't do it unless I cared. And the other night when Scott's house was attacked - "

"Theo," she interrupted. "That night wasn't your fault. And neither was tonight. And as for the whole taking pain thing, Mason was right," she explained. "You don't have to care about the person necessarily, but you do have to care about lessening their pain. You have to care about how hurt they are. It's not easy at first, but once you get the hang of it, you can't forget it."

"But-But how?"

Angie's only answer was to stand and move over to Theo as she took his hand. And he watched eagerly as she closed her eyes and her veins began to turn black as she took his pain, pain that was residing from his run-in with the Anukite and that wouldn't heal until he stopped being afraid.

"You'll have to figure it out on your own. And I know you can, because I know you care," she answered as her eyes opened and she let go. "Because if you didn't, you wouldn't be asking to learn how to do this."

Theo was staring at his palm, rubbing it with his other hand as he let her words sink in before she moved her hand to his shoulder.

"Why don't you get some rest? We've all got long days tomorrow," she suggested but before he could agree with her idea, her phone rang from where it sat on the coffee table, Chris' name lighting up the screen. "The only reason why you would be calling me after your little vanishing act from the hospital is if you need something," she said by way of greeting as she brought the phone to her ear.