He attempted to lay her on the sheet-covered gurney without hurting her further, but it was problematic. Her back was injured, but they were afraid she would suffocate if they put her on her stomach. Nolan, after some impatient prompting by the aide, finally laid her on her side, and they supported her upper body with pillows in the front and the back before letting her weight relax against the pillows.
Paul strapped her down, and they moved down a hallway. Nolan would remember all the different rooms, the lab-like feel of one room in particular, but his mind remained focused on his mate, then the doctor when he appeared.
The doctor arrived with a wave of power, all six feet six and two hundred forty pounds of muscle, if Nolan did not miss his guess. The guy was enormous yet slender.
Nolan shook hands automatically, then noticed the blood on his hands and immediately looked back to Alex. She was still so pale.
“My name is Dr. Thomas Waverly. Please wait over there, Ulfric. I will see to your wounds as soon as I can. For now, you must trust us.”
“Why isn’t she healing? She looks so pale. She’s were. She shouldn’t be failing like this.”
“I’m not sure, but I will do my best to stabilize her. You must let go of the gurney and let us help her. She’s losing ground as we speak.”
“Losing ground?” Nolan did not like the sound of that.
“She’s failing like a human and not healing like a were. I’ve only seen a few weres ever reach this stage and they were grossly and savagely wounded. She has a few scratches from what I understand and should have healed, not deteriorated. Now I must leave you here.” His voice was full of steel, the voice of authority, while remaining professional.
Nolan could not think straight. He looked down at his hand with a death grip on the side bar of the gurney. Is she really dying?
He looked up at the doctor and the compassion in the physician’s eyes scared him more than the words. He realized he was hurting her by not letting go and loosened his grip. He stood back and let them roll her away. The beast within him roared at the loss of its injured mate. The tainted smell in the blood had not escaped the beast side of him, and the human side had no idea what to do about it other than let the doctor treat her.
For one horrific moment, as she disappeared into a room, he had the feeling he would never see her again. Then he let out a howl that echoed throughout the mostly empty basement and came back to him. The reverberation of the sound emphasized the loneliness and sadness of his howl, a reflection of how he felt.
How could he lose his mate so soon after finding her?
CHAPTER NINE
Roxy waited at the lodge in her chair for her second in command. For twenty years now, she had dared anyone to defy her. At sixteen, she had been the youngest female ever to lead their pack thanks in part to Boris.
She had first seen him hiding in the forest, his fur raggedy. Thin from hunger, he had growled at her, and she had snarled back. But she had offered him part of her kill and her body. He had been loyal to her ever since.
She had seen right away that if she could get Boris’s backing, she would have what she needed to take down her uncle. He did not think women should be allowed to hold positions of power. Their place consisted of staying on the reservation, hunting, mating, and protecting the resulting young. It did not sit well with most of the women in the pack as they had been used to more freedoms under previous alphas. Roxy refused to abide by his opinion. She had more power than most of the males she knew, even at a young age.
She had wanted more out of life than to be somebody’s bitch. With Boris, she had found someone to manipulate who would act as her bodyguard.
The rush of beating the former alpha filled her now as the memories bounced around in her mind. Boris had kept others out of the fray until she had had what she wanted: a true death match.
The loud crack of the door of the lodge which operated as the pack’s headquarters burst open, interrupting her pleasant memories. Boris and Jason popped through, both looking afraid, Jason more so. As he should. She held no loyalty to him.
“What?” Roxy’s sultry voice held promise of retribution. She moved like a cat in human form, all sinewy grace. Deadly grace, as her submissives well knew.
“Red got away with Littlebull. It’s his fault,” Jason stated, indicating Boris. “I was in the car, getting it started. Boris let her go!”
Boris growled low in his throat. Jason paled, the pigments in his face going from rich dark brown to a sickly brown-gray within a heartbeat. Boris grinned in satisfaction. He was still alpha male of the pack.
“What the hell are you grinning at, Boris? Perhaps you’d like to share with us.” Although her voice was low and smooth as century-old brandy, he would be stupid to believe she had forgiven them.
“I—” Roxy enjoyed Boris’ response. So maybe he wasn’t the smartest wolf in the pack, but he had not worked his way up and kept his position as second in command by being stupid with her. “I’m sorry,” he said, arms out, palms down, and head bowed in deference.
Slowly moving to his side, Roxy placed a hand on his head and drew her fingers through his hair. “See, Jason? This is how it’s done. Show me proper repentance and all will be forgiven. After an appropriate punishment, of course.” She circled Boris while speaking, leaving one hand ruffling his head.
She enjoyed the smell of fear coming off Boris. Jason’s fear stank because it was deep-rooted terror. But Boris’s smell held a tinge of arousal and excitement. In a swift move, she changed and scored Boris’s back from neck to waist, leaving her mark. Changing to human, then back without the usual hesitation or tiredness was one of many things that made her a formidable leader. Before Boris finished letting out his groan of pain, Roxy leaped from him to Jason, who fell flat on his back.
Snarling in her wolf voice that still managed to sound feminine, she spoke to Jason. “Never challenge my second again or I will let him at you no matter what he’s done. I hate failure, but I hate cowards more.”
She set her muzzle so that her hot breath flowed across the small hairs of his neck, and then slowly moved across to his shoulder. She licked the skin of his neck before making a short tear in his shirt, exposing the flesh. She nipped it and felt his fear spike. Growling low in her throat, she took a chunk out of his shoulder and swallowed it.
Jason’s scream filled the lodge.
She changed back, the blood still clinging to her mouth. “Go see the healer, both of you. And pray she doesn’t kill you for tying up her child. I would. And it’s well within her rights. I will not stop her if she asks for that right under the Roil-roil-pam law.” They stared at her like trapped deer. “Why are you two still here? Get out of my sight,” she demanded.
She smiled at the fast retreating bloody forms of her two henchmen. Roil-roil-pam roughly translated to English as mouse, or mouse country. An old tradition among them, it allowed stronger members to fight in place of weaker ones that were ill-used. It helped keep weres around who were good trackers or gatherers but not good at fighting or were weak physically.
Rarely did she let others claim that right. She did not want a smaller pack to form. Most of the weaker members were under her protection as leader. Like Red. Roxy was still angry at Boris for attacking Red after giving her their bleeding serum. The scratch she had given him did not come close to expressing the anger swelling up inside her mind. He had better hope Red lived. Roxy had waited years for the visions of having the Wahpawhat’s ulfric under her heel to come true.
She scowled as it occurred to her that Boris might be getting old. But then again, Nolan complicated things. He always did. She changed back to wolf form and left the lodge. She spent more time at the lodge than her own home. Right now, she needed a run. And maybe some blood.
No, no maybe.
She needed to take something down to hold back her rage at this setback in her plans. She needed Boris. He had never failed her before, and she suspected he would not have now if the healer had not
been involved.
Being a pack healer gave the were special rights and leverage within the pack which had been the equivalent of putting a leash on Boris. He was much more effective when unleashed. Unfortunately, she needed both mother and daughter.
Fury ripped through Roxy. She hated having to bide her time. Playing the political game set her teeth on edge. Unfortunately, having the brute force to defend the pack meant having weres strong enough to challenge her. It was only a matter of time before she had both packs under her control. The prize was worth the trouble. A reminder she had to tell herself every day when the urge to go out in full battle mode and attack the Wahpawhat pack became almost unbearable.
She ran with no direction in mind. Her intermittent low growls faded from her hearing as she ran, feeling her muscles ripple under her skin. The freedom of running as wolf exhilarated her. A winter jackrabbit was startled from its nest as she ran. She clamped down hard on its neck with her jaw and shook it, enjoying the spurt of blood. When the rabbit was dead, she tossed it to the side. With the worst of the anger released with her kill, she walked back to the lodge at a more leisurely pace. When she arrived, a group of her submissives were milling around the lodge. She stayed in her wolf form and sauntered past them, watching for anyone who would dare challenge her.
None did. She almost wished they had. She was spoiling for a fight, a need killing the rabbit had not assuaged, and having this group greet her return brought the anger back full force.
She moved into her personal quarters just off the lodge’s main room, the place she reserved for her special parties. She changed into human and started choosing an outfit. She put on a red soft V-neck sweater, skintight black jeans, red heels, and real gold loop earrings.
She went into the bathroom off of her private room and reapplied her makeup. She was making a statement. One, by forcing them to wait, she was reiterating her position, and two, by looking good, she made the males want her to choose them as her mate.
She smiled, her perfectly straight teeth gleaming white in the mirror. She had long ago eaten her true mate when he dared to defy her. She would mate again, though. As soon as her plan with the Wahpawhat’s ulfric came to fruition.
Satisfied with how she looked and the length of time she’d made them wait, she stepped out. Only two were in the waiting area. She sat in the chair higher up on the dais. “What is it?”
The taller of the two stepped forward, head bowed, his long hair hiding his features. What was his name?
“We couldn’t keep them from leaving. The cats were helping them.” He never looked up, his voice even and apologetic. She narrowed her eyes at him. She would have to watch him closely. Someone with his kind of cool under fire would be a danger to her power if he were to lead a rebellion.
“The cats,” she spat, and the second messenger stepped back. She had a personal rivalry with Sherona. Some of their hunting grounds overlapped in areas that only those capable of being alpha dared to range. More than once, Roxy had tried to kill the jaguars’ queen.
“And that’s not all,” he continued. Brian. His name is Brian, she remembered finally. Curiously, his voice, so even in the earlier pronunciation, now warbled. If she was not mistaken, it held a don’t-kill-the-messenger quality—fear. If announcing the werecats involvement had not filled him with fear, what had?
She waited, but it became evident he wanted her permission to speak further. “Out with it,” she snapped.
“Nolan. He shifted.” Now his voice outright shook. “Only his hands and arms.” By the end of his sentence, she could barely hear him.
“Excuse me?” Shock and displeasure moved through her, keeping her immobile.
“He partially shifted,” he repeated, his words now tumbling over each other in a rush. “Then he and the others rushed us, and many of us were wounded and we seek permission to see the healer immediately.”
In other words, not only could Nolan partially shift, he fought well enough to do serious damage. Only those seriously wounded would need the healer’s help. He had been partially shifting long enough to retain control even in a fight to the death. Maybe it was a good thing Boris had scratched Red after all. Having Nolan emotional may detract from his ability to control the partial shifting.
“Permission granted,” she said, barely restraining herself from killing Brian and nearly laughing out loud at their eagerness to leave. When this war was over, it was going to be nice to kill when provoked. Something she had not allowed herself in more than five years except in extreme circumstances. Not since she had come up with “the plan.” Not since she had met Nolan Littlebull in person.
One day I will have the ulfric. His earlier rejection would be punished. She would have her revenge. His power only sweetened the deal. This time, nothing would stand in her way. Not even that pipsqueak Red.
CHAPTER TEN
Although he would never admit it, the fear gripping his heart was paralyzing. The howl only emphasized the loneliness in store for him. His weak legs felt ready to buckle under him so he did as the doctor had ordered and found the chair along the wall.
With his elbows on his thighs and bent over so his forehead rested in his hands, he sat and stewed. All at once, he shot his head up. The doctor had called him “ulfric.” How had the doctor known? Was he telepathic as well? Damn my ability and its inconsistencies. If Nolan hadn’t been so worried about his mate, he might have heard some much-needed information.
He looked around for Sherona, but she had disappeared. He stood up and paced, a low growl emanating from him as the minutes passed. He tried to act like a cop and put the personal aspect of it to the side. What did he know? Boris and at least one accomplice, Jason, kidnapped Alex. She had somehow escaped after being drugged. Boris hurt her, and she would not stop bleeding. He had to find out who knew she would be at his house. But what else did he know?
Precious little, that’s what he knew. Who the hell would purposefully do this to anyone, much less a were? As he contemplated Alex’s condition and its possible causes, a thought struck him. A doctor could come up with a concoction to hurt weres but so could a healer. Grimly he considered the consequences to him personally if he accused his mate’s mother of being responsible. And what of Boris? How much of this was planned on his part?
After what he had heard about Alex’s upbringing, he did not think he should count on the mother not turning on Alex. Maybe she was forced into it, not knowing who the victim would be. That made more sense. He knew how the feral pack worked. He frowned as he tried to recall the pack member who had adopted a young one from someone in Roxy’s pack fearful the child would be killed because its fur was a different color. The details would come to him later.
It was hard for him to imagine giving up your child because your pack would not protect it. The concept went against everything Nolan believed in and brought out his protective instincts. He could not fathom living in a pack that forced you to do things to other pack members that not only could hurt or maim but possibly kill.
He was thirty years old, and for the first time in years, he thought maybe his dad’s brand of justice might have been necessary to keep the Wahpawahts from turning into a feral pack reminiscent of their cousins deep on the reservation. Things were different now.
The Internet kept them in contact with packs around the world and helped them to feel less alone, less alien in a world that could not accept difference. But underneath it all, the weres had animal instincts that helped keep them alive when controlled but tore them up and sent them down dark paths when not combined with rational reasoning and choices by their human half.
Instead, in packs like Roxy’s, the human side would use its rationality and upper cerebral functioning to support its animal half and help it be more wild and ferocious. The evil of Boris’s nature had flourished under her leadership. How many others were pushed to go down a road of intolerance and violence, reluctantly following as they’d been taught? How many others resisted as Alex and her mother had
?
He wished Sherona would talk to him. How had Dr. Waverly known he was the ulfric? He needed to quit stressing over his mate and clear his mind. What was the point of having an extra ability if he couldn’t use it under duress?
He continued pacing, both thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his jeans to keep him from literally pulling his hair out when thinking of Alex’s fate. Since he wore his hiking boots instead of his cowboy boots for the hunt for Alex, his feet did not make the habitual sound he was used to hearing when he paced at the precinct.
It distracted him enough to calm his mind and an occasional phrase wisped through his thoughts.
“Bad…”
“I’ve never seen so much blood from a were.”
“Shit.” The last one was Sherona.
Anger ripped through him, and the beast roared in denial. His mate was dying.
“Cool it, ulfric. Your emotions are causing havoc back here.”
“Fine,” he said. “But start sending me updates now that I’ve gotten a handle on this.”
He felt as if a wall of darkness shrouded his mind for a moment. It was strange. He thought that somehow Sherona had built a barrier to have a private conversation. He really needed to learn this ability. When she came back, the darkness lifted. Definitely her.
“We will give you updates. Try to put the buzz around our medical conversation and listen for your name. You need the practice in control.”
A low growl started deep in his throat.
“Don’t growl at me, Ulfric. It’s nothing less than the truth. You nearly made the doctor drop his scalpel when your anger ripped through him and started the change. Down boy,” she finished with a touch of humor.
Ironically, the implied insult did what nothing else had done. It calmed him. If Sherona could tease him, Alex had a good chance at living. Therefore, Nolan would do best to practice as Sherona had suggested. Knowing she would catch the thought, he did not bother sending it directly and distracting them further.
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