Matthew’s wound healed enough to stop bleeding, so he cut again, this time forcing the blood down Brandon’s throat. Someone made gagging noises behind him. Matthew didn’t care. He continued massaging the other man’s throat, getting as much down him as possible.
“Matthew, stop.” He snarled at the one disrupting his work. “Matthew. You’re going to drain yourself.” Nathan repeated. The tug on his shoulder increased and he blinked, the all consuming power receded and he was aware of the flashing lights and siren of the ambulance. Black uniformed police fingered their weapons as they stared at them. Fear and other emotions infused the fumes of the gas station lot. He looked down at the blood smeared over himself, the doctor, and the unconscious man in his lap.
“You did it, son.” The doctor said with an awed expression. Hands to his elbows and spots in between were red with blood. “I don’t know how, but you pulled him through.”
“Your Dr. Drake didn’t have this in his report?” Matthew felt a little dizzy with relief and possibly blood loss. He blinked at the doctor’s absurd chuckle.
“No, he didn’t.”
“Sir.” A paramedic with a gurney edged fearfully into sight. A couple of policemen backed him up. “We need to take your friend to the hospital now.”
Whatever else he’d learned in the past day, it was not to trust an institution with his or his loved ones’ welfare. “No. You can’t do anything to help.” Matthew stood up, swaying.
“Sir, your friend was just shot and operated on in a gas station parking lot.” A policeman, more well-meaning and formidable than his comrades. “He needs a hospital. Antibiotics at the very least. You could probably stand to go yourself.”
“And your hospital could accidentally kill him.” He looked at the crying, sagging soccer mom in police custody. She pleaded that she was trying to save her child, but too many witnesses had seen Brandon grab the kid to keep him from being run over. “I know you mean well, officer. But we really can take better care of him.”
The officer seemed torn. “Not that long ago, this would have been handled straight and by the book. But now with the supernaturals out of the closet.” He trailed off frowning, then shook his head. “This is going to be a cluster-fuck no matter what.” He waved them off. “Just go. I don’t want us to have to deal with a bunch of pissed off werewolves in a hospital or at the station. Besides, even if your friend really should be on that ambulance, I know the hospital isn’t equipped to deal with that.” His face was drawn in unhappy lines as he waved at them all in general.
A few months ago, they probably wouldn’t have been as sloppy. The woman might not have had reason for her new paranoia. The what-ifs were endless and unproductive.
“Just…take care of her before she kills someone at the meat counter in a grocery store.” Matthew left the officer with his old contact information and told him that he was in the middle of a move. The officer didn’t look happy, but Matthew wasn’t about to explain that werewolves and mad scientists had run him out of his home.
Morrow knelt, gathering Brandon up in his arms. He turned to the truck, graceful despite the other man’s height and bulk. “No. Put him in my car.” The doctor said. He turned to Matthew. “Dr. Dorian Davidson.” He introduced himself, though they were long past that. “And I don’t leave my patients to fend for their own five minutes post-op.”
He nodded. That was good enough for him. He had a feeling that he’d need a professional’s voucher once he showed up on the wolven Pack’s doorstep with one of their injured members. “Nathan, Naomi, take the truck.”
The officers concentrated on talking to the bystanders while the frightened paramedic checked out the little boy. No one wanted to mess with them. Even if the crazy lady wasn’t prosecuted, Matthew was satisfied when they finally got out of the way and allowed them to leave.
* * * *
The back of the doctor’s Beemer wasn’t exactly roomy. Morrow slid Brandon onto the back seat and carefully folded his legs up so that he could shut the door. Easing in on the opposite side, Matthew gently placed the Brandon’s head and shoulders onto his lap. He took a look at the wound as the weretiger got into the passenger seat.
Dr. Davidson reluctantly got into the driver’s side. He handed them a light blanket that Matthew wrestled into place with Morrow’s help. He got the feeling that the good doctor would rather have traded places with him. “This is healing faster than I would have thought it would.” He only had the cuts on his shoulder and arm to go by, but Matthew would swear that the outside of the wound was closing almost as fast as the one caused by the wrought iron sculpture.
“I cut away as much damaged tissue as I could, especially around the entrance wounds.” Explained the doctor. Everyone eyed the police and ambulances, expecting them to change their minds about letting them go.
“And his heart?”
“I could only do so much there. I trimmed out the worst of it. I was afraid of doing more harm than good. I read that shape shifters can regenerate quite a bit of tissue, even bone and organs. I just don’t know how it would apply to something as vital as the heart.” He was quiet a moment, following the truck as he gathered his thoughts. “And the silver. Your lady-friend wasn’t kidding about the damage that could do.”
“Thank you for everything.” Matthew meant it. He looked down at Brandon. The wolven’s breaths were so shallow, that they were almost nonexistent. His body temperature had dropped to below the human range, making him feel cool and clammy in addition to the fine tremor that had started in the wolven’s muscles. With his enhanced hearing, Matthew could hear the damaged heart’s labored attempt to keep pumping blood.
“I think he’s in shock,” he announced. The car slowed and moved to the right hand lane. “No. Keep driving.” Acting on instinct once more, he shifted so that each of his hands touched bare skin on the other man. His next words were soft, absent as he tried to listen to the faintest of music in his head. It was a beat, barely audible, with magic and vital instructions. “He needs to be with his Pack.” Matthew’s left hand pressed against his neck, the right burrowed under the blanket to press his palm as close to Brandon’s heart as possible.
Following the sound of the music, he created a conduit, trickling power to the struggling organ. He hoped the infusion would aid the silver-blocked supernatural ability to heal. Breathing steadily, Matthew felt himself slipping further into a calm state where he could better direct the power. His eyes blinked heavily. Once, twice. He exhaled and let go.
Pale sunlight warmed his cheeks. Frowning, he opened his eyes to find himself in a forest. How did he get here? A canine growl from behind him made Matthew turn carefully. In doing so, he noticed the tiger stripes down his arms. Somehow, he’d transitioned back into the multi-werecat form again. In front of him crouched a dark brown wolf that he recognized as Brandon’s. Behind the wolf, a huge saber-toothed cat from some distant time past, watched Matthew with vague interest, saving its real focus for the injured man laying between it and the wolf. Like the wolf, the cat was a dark brown, having a faint grayish pattern that striped down its neck. Faint spots also flecked the cat’s fur.
“How odd.” said a werecat creature, as she stepped from thin air. She tilted her feline head. She had more of the characteristics of a regular cat except for the facial markings outlining wide almond eyes and pink kitty nose. Spots of all shapes mingled interestingly with stripes on its fur. Power, warm and humming, no- purring, brushed along Matthew’s body. Midway down its torso was wrapped in shimmering gold cloth that tucked into flowing red slacks that very reminiscent of samurai pants.
The werecat frowned, at least that’s what Matthew thought she did, wrinkling her forehead and tilting her ears forward as she folded her well defined arms over a small but well formed female chest. The cat regarded Brandon, the wolf, and the saber-toothed tiger with undisguised curiosity. “He should not be able to separate the parts of himself.” She turned her head slightly, pinning Matthew with alien intelligenc
e in her glowing green cat eyes. “Then again, you are not supposed to be able to cross the species boundary. It was one of the original precepts.”
Oops, thought Matthew, unrepentant. He did not want to deprive his sister of her husband or her children of their father.
“Oops?” The cat woman’s voice dipped low. The previously warm power nipped at Matthew’s skin like crackling electricity. And not in a pleasant way. “I tell you that you’ve broken one of the few laws set down for your kind, and you answer is, oops?”
Matthew’s rational mind wanted to create a normal, believable reason why he was in the middle of a forest with Brandon, a wolf, a saber-toothed tiger, and an irritated super-powerful mind reading multi-feline shape shifter lady who blinked in from nowhere. Drugs. Psychotic breakdown. Either of those options sounded credible.
But since yesterday, his world had completely changed and he was really lagging behind in the information department. Whoever this new player was, Matthew hoped to gain her help, not piss her off with his own ignorance. “How do we put him back together, then?”
Cat lady flicked an ear. So much for not pissing her off. The long spotted tail slapped at the ground, much like Ramses when the cat was unhappy. The saber-toothed tiger nudged Brandon, ignoring the growl from the wolf. The great cat followed with a head rub to the man’s shoulder, which the wolf took exception to, snapping and growling. The saber-toothed tiger responded with a swat of its huge paw that rocked the wolf back. They growled, hissed, and snapped, each taking possession of half of the man’s body. Neither cat or wolf wanted to share.
Matthew looked once more at the cat woman before crossing to the trio. She looked more unhappy, her arms still crossed over her narrow chest. No help would be forthcoming there. Maybe the best he could hope for would be the creature not hindering his efforts to save Brandon.
He let the wolf sniff his hand, hoping it would recognize him. The wolf sniffed, neck reaching as far from his stiff bodied posture where he lay across Brandon’s legs. Matthew took the lack of a negative reaction as acceptance of a sort. The saber-toothed tiger rumbled a greeting, stretching as far as he could for Matthew to lay a hand on his massive head. The great hazel-colored cat eyes half-closed in pleasure as he scratched the forehead. “You two are going to have to come to some kind of agreement, or you’re all going to die.” Did the wolf and cat look at him with understanding? God, he hoped so.
“Well, said.” Interrupted another voice. This one was more gravelly than the cat lady’s. The sudden appearance didn’t surprise Matthew so much as the creature’s silky red Irish setter features on a bulky humanoid body much more suited to that of a Rottweiler. A loose cotton shirt covered his torso, while pants tucked into boots that came up over the pirate dog man’s knee.
He laughed, his stature and shape was obviously a guy, throwing back his head and practically howled. The mirth subsided with him holding his sides. “A pirate! I love it!” the dog man wiped at his eyes with a long fingered hand as it looked at the exotic woman-cat. “You hear that, Bastet, sweetheart? Your Leo thinks I’m a dog pirate.”
“You are a pirate,” said Bastet with a narrow feline glare. The end of her tail still twitched and slapped at the ground. “An ill-mannered, thieving, degenerate, pirate. Now leave me in peace, Anubis.” Like any royally pissed cat, Bastet seemed to huddle in on herself, giving Anubis the feline cold shoulder while still keeping him within sight.
The dog man took the treatment in stride, angling his approach to brush against Bastet as he approached Matthew. Was that a shiver the cat lady just made, wondered Matthew. He wanted to think that Bastet’s features and form softened just a bit as she glared at Anubis. He wasn’t sure though. Ramses would probably love all of this.
Anubis, the pirate dog laughed again and glanced back at Bastet with friendly affection. “I like your new Leo. You should have made another one ages ago.” He held out a casual hand to the wolf, scratching him behind the ears as it whined and tried to get closer to Anubis without leaving Brandon’s legs.
“That is not your business,” Bastet came closer, eyes on Anubis. “Neither is this. Go back to your wandering.”
“Werewolves are my business, dearest. Just as the cat kin are yours.” He winked at Matthew. “Besides, it will take the two-,” he looked around and shrugged. “No four of us, counting us and all three parts of our fallen friend here, to put Humpty back together again.”
“No,” Bastet’s disapproving presence hovered near them now. “The precepts are that the base species cannot be mixed.”
“Then he will die,” Anubis looked straight at Bastet, the friendliness gone, replaced by compassion. In that moment, Matthew liked the dog man. Bastet, he wasn’t feeling much friendliness for. Anubis looked down at Brandon, running a red furred hand over the man’s shaggy brown hair. There was more than compassion in the dog man’s gaze. It was as if he truly knew and cared about Brandon.
His attention focused on Matthew once more. “Yes, little Leo. I know this one very well. And you are right. Brandon Hunter Starr Weis does not deserve to be abandoned to live or die on his own.” His canine visage hardened as he looked at Bastet again. “You will not allow my werewolf to die, my dear. Not this time.”
Bastet had the grace to look away. “That was not my fault. You always say that you do not pick favorites. But you do. And you never tell the rest of us which ones have your favor.”
“Guys. Er, gods?” Matthew wanted to squirm under their sudden attention. He had a feeling he was stepping right in the middle of some lover’s quarrel. “Sorry, but you two can work things out between yourselves later. Brandon doesn’t look very well.” He gestured down to the very pale man. Both the wolf and the cat had laid their heads down. They too looked tired and not well. “Even I can tell that he’s going to die unless we do something. Now.”
Bastet hissed and the electrical bite shocked Mathew. “You dare reprimand me? I am your patron. Your creator…” He clenched his teeth and hands, remembering that he wasn’t human anymore as the tips of his claws bit into his palms.
“You’re over-evolved, self-indulgent, and a pain in the ass.” Matthew said through the pain.
The sensation suddenly stopped as Bastet’s mouth dropped open. Delicate, yet deadly sharp teeth were visible. She looked at Matthew with more than a little evaluation. “No mortal speaks to me that way and lives.”
Anubis shook his head. “You keep killing your Leos for having a backbone and your people will never find themselves.”
Bastet’s anger found a new target. “Silence dog. We are supposed to uphold the precepts. You cannot bend the rules to your whim. That is exactly the faithlessness that you are good at.”
“I protect my people,” growled Anubis. “I don’t demand that they kiss my ass. When is the last time that you saw through your people’s eyes instead of making them see through yours? Visions and directions. Bah! Get out of your tower princess and live a little. ”
Matthew had had enough. These two were going to snipe at each other until Brandon died. Then they were going to blame each other for it. They’d moved until they were nose to nose. Talk about nasty breakups. Sparks and heat practically swirled around them as they fought.
Kneeling down, Matthew placed both his hands on Brandon’s still chest. The look of cat’s claws didn’t suit him, so he concentrated, forcing his body back into his human shape. The magic did not want to relinquish its hold on him. Tough. Matthew was an old hand at corralling the power inside him. The very essence of the seductive heartbeat music of it whispered to be free. The magic wanted to be let loose, to give power, to aid him in living. So he gave it to Brandon.
Chapter Sixteen
Naomi sucked in a breath at the snap of connection within her. Nathan suddenly swerved off the highway, braking hard on the side of the road. He gulped in a shuddering breath and rested his head against the steering wheel. “What happened?” she whispered, knowing the answer in the silent, dormant thread that had connec
ted her to Matthew.
Nathan didn’t answer. He sucked in another breath and forcibly straightened himself in the driver’s seat. Ahead of them the car that held the wolven Matthew had desperately been trying to save, sped up, passed, and left them behind.
“Why?” Naomi’s brain tried to wrap around the concept that their people had had their leader for not even two days. No one had believed but Nathan. She touched the panther’s arm. “How? Why?”
“Because the cat god is careful in choosing.” Nathan’s voice was hoarse with unshed tears. “The Leo has to be strong enough and compassionate enough to deal with a people who have had no leader since before Christ.”
“But why?” Naomi understood what the panther was trying to say, she couldn’t accept that what they’d just lost. No, what she had just lost. Before she’d had the chance to accept the possibility of being Matthew’s mate. “Why over a wolf?” she demanded, slamming a fist into the resilient foam of the dash. It reformed without leaving a dent.
Wrapping her arms around her waist, she touched her head to her knees. Why? Why, why, why? She hadn’t known Matthew before last night. Save for her dreams. She should not have so much grief that it surpassed anything that the scientists had done to her over the last two years. Still the pain radiated from her heart, spilling out in hot tears.
“Would you respect a man who wouldn’t sacrifice for his family?” Nathan’s voice reached her from far away. She looked up at the shine of tears in Nathan’s eyes. The panther gave her a sad smile. “If Matthew was not willing to sacrifice himself for his sister’s mate. To send his mother’s adopted son home, then how is he supposed to be a leader to the cat clans?”
Without another word, Nathan put the truck back into gear and carefully pulled back onto the highway. He knew where the car was going. The question was, who was giving directions to the driver?
Cat Scratch Fever; Blue-Collar Werewolves V Page 15
