Skins & Needles (COMPLETE)

New Family Part 2

Arsen

"Any word on Macy?"

At this, Dr. Shannon's face fell.

"She's having an emergency c-section now," she told me. "Whatever hit her wasn't kind to her body."

I didn't ask more questions after that. Worry for my unborn niece and sister in law consumed my mind, and I lay back on my cot and closed my eyes. Of all the people to be on guard during a breach...

I was released a day later, and headed straight for the NICU ward of the hospital. The word was baby Volkov was going to survive, but she was still only at thirty weeks when she was born. It would be a while before she could go home.

Upon entering the room, I found Adrian asleep in the chair next to the bed, and Macy awake. I followed her gaze to the incubator to the left of the bed, and saw the tiniest of babies hooked up to tubes and IVs inside. The vision had me swallowing hard as my heart thrummed with pain.

"Hey, sis," I said softly, and Macy flicked her gaze to me. Despite the sling on her arm, the bruises on her face and neck, and the fragile infant next to her, she managed a smile.

"Arsen," she greeted, and motioned me in with her good arm. "How's your side?"

"Oh, it's fine," I dismissed, only to receive a glare. "Only mild tissue damage, and I got the antivenom before my system shut down. I'll be as good as new in a week. Enough about me though..." I trailed off and walked to where the sleeping baby rested. "Does she have a name yet?"

"Not yet," Macy replied, smiling at her daughter, "but soon. We have a few narrowed down." I had to resist making a face at the lingering smell of magic on Macy's body. It wasn't her fault the sorcerers had pumped her full of their hateful energy, but she still had to carry the unpleasant after-effects.

I took a seat in a chair near the foot of the bed and leaned back with a flinch. My side was healing well, but I'd still been hit with a significant amount of venom, and even I couldn't completely shut out the pain.

"How's Adrian?" I asked, glancing to where he slept lopsided in a cushioned chair. His eyes had thick bags under them, but he looked to be in a solid state of rest at the moment.

"He's worried, but holding up," she said softly. "He was a wreck during the cesarean. He thought we would lose her."

"What about you?"

To this, she just smiled and leaned her head back.

"I never for a second believed we would," she told me. "Even when I was blasted with... whatever it was they threw at me, I could still feel her, alive and kicking and willing to survive. My little fighter." She paused for a minute and then smiled again. "I think I've picked her name."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Luana. Warrior."

"It's beautiful."

Quiet enveloped us after that, save for Luana's heart rate monitor beeping steadily. It was a comforting sound after what had transpired, and instinct told me that my niece would be just fine. She was a Volkov, after all.

I got up to leave a while later, when the nurses came back to administer more pain medication, but was stopped by Macy as I turned to leave.

"What is it?" I asked, pausing at the door to look back at her.

"The only thing I worried about when the attack happened was never getting to see Adrian again," she told me sleepily. "I thought I might die, but I knew in my heart Luana would be okay. I just kept thinking, what if I never see him again? I didn't even kiss him goodbye this morning. What if that was it?"

"What are you saying?" I asked, not sure why she was telling me any of this.

"I'm saying, find someone who makes you happy, and when you do, make sure to spend every chance you have with them."

She told me goodbye after that and I left to go home, but her words stuck in my head. I had never been concerned with finding a mate. I'd always figured it would happen later, when I deemed myself ready to look, or that it would come naturally when I met the right person in the shifter world or old families. But she hadn't even been talking about mates. She'd been talking about people we would regret leaving behind without spending that last bit of time with them.

I groaned and rested my head on my steering wheel. Why'd she have to say that now? And why was there only one face in my mind when I considered her words?

I don't have Charlotte's phone number. The one thing I could process when I had snake venom pumping through my system. I hadn't even thought I was going to die. I just thought I was losing my mind. And besides, it was probably for the best that we didn't share numbers. There were things that could be exchanged and then deleted over texts that would never be allowed in person. Dangerous things that could make our friendship more complicated.

But Macy's words still hung heavy on my heart.

I didn't have Charlotte's number, but I had something else.

"You could at least stop in the shop sometimes."

Jesus, was I insane?

"I was thinking how you're an open canvas."

Yep, definitely fucking insane.

But after everything that had gone down over the past two days, I needed to do something. And if Macy's words weren't enough, then the nasty, painful scarring on my side had to be.

I pulled out the small card I'd kept in my glove box for over a month, and dialed the number listed.