***
"No way," my nephew whined, averting his eyes quickly from the naked woman displayed on the operating table in front of us. The boy had been willing to shed blood just a moment earlier, but I could tell that this wasn't the kind of ichor that the fourteen-year-old wanted to see. "Aunt Terra can do it. Look, I'll just go sit over here in the corner out of the way." My nephew started to suit action to words, but his father's voice cracked out a command that stopped the kid in his tracks.
"Keith," Dale said, his voice almost approaching the intensity levels of an alpha werewolf and definitely capturing the attention of his wayward son. How had I not realized my brother-in-law possessed this level of command when he was vainly begging his only offspring to eat his vegetables a few months prior? Perhaps Dale had simply been biding his time then, waiting until he really needed his son to obey. Whatever the reason, every eye in the room now met the doctor's as he took his son to task. "This isn't a game," my brother-in-law continued. "Everyone here needs to pull their own weight. Wade will guard the window, Terra will guard the door, and you will help me with the miracle of life—delivering a new baby into this world."
The doctor's voice slowly eased as his unaccustomed rant wound down, and I could tell that my brother-in-law really did consider Sarah's child to be a miracle...even if the baby was going to come out sporting a tail and fur instead of human features. Among shifters, bloodlings weren't really considered sentient until they made their first shift to stand two-legged around Keith's age, and my heart warmed yet further to think that my kind-hearted brother-in-law was able to make that distinction now, having never even seen a bloodling baby in real life. I just hoped that the rest of our clan could do the same, and that we'd be able to provide Sarah's baby with the type of care that our own bloodling alpha had basked in at the hands of his adopted mother and milk brother. Because, whether or not Sarah survived this difficult pregnancy, the teenaged pack princess would definitely require the help of a village if she wanted her bloodling child to survive and thrive. And it looked like our pack was going to be that village, whether we wanted to be or not.
"Terra, will you show Keith how to scrub up and find some gloves?" Dale asked now, bringing my attention back to the present. The doctor was using his fingers to expand the scalpel's cut, ripping the flesh on Sarah's stomach apart and creating a gaping hole that exposed the bulging membrane underneath. I winced before looking away. Like any shifter, I'd butchered my share of chickens and deer over the last couple of decades, and I was startled to find my brother-in-law's gesture so familiar...startled, and sickened. Good thing Keith was going to be the doctor's assistant and not me.
So I was quick to escape the operating arena after demonstrating the same hand-washing procedure that Dale had explained to me, but I paused when my gaze passed over Sarah's face. The girl couldn't have felt any pain, but she still flinched as Dale's fingers widened the hole above her gut, and I couldn't resist taking the patient's hand and trying to think of a way to bring her a modicum of comfort. "Do you want me to rig some sort of a sheet between you and Dale so you can't see what's happening?" I asked the girl quietly, pretty sure that, had we been in a proper hospital, the patient wouldn't have been able to observe the doctor ripping his way into her womb. But Sarah simply shook her head, and after a moment—when the sounds of fighting seemed to be growing yet closer—I headed back toward my post.
***
Despite his initial squeamishness, Keith turned out to be an able assistant. My nephew might have been part werewolf, but Dale's blood also flowed quite strongly through his veins, and the kid's hands didn't shake as he used tweezers to pull upwards on a membrane, allowing his father to slice through the proffered layer without touching the baby that lay underneath. I was also surprised by the relative paucity of blood, at least until I noticed that Dale had handed his son a suction tube that removed the liquid as soon as it pooled on the surface. An ambidextrous and unsqueamish assistant—perhaps Keith had a future as the nation's first shifter doctor.
"Terra." Wade's quiet voice returned my attention to the window, which had previously been a reflective mirror against the night. But now a light was approaching, along with the sound of voices, and Wade was swiftly but calmly stripping out of his clothes in preparation for a shift. I responded by locking the door behind me and hurrying to the yahoo's side, but not before I heard Keith gasp and saw the furry nose of a living bloodling poke through the hole in Sarah's belly.
I was as amazed by the wolf pup's birth as Keith was, but there was no time for awe. Instead, Wade and I had mere seconds to confer before the enemy was upon us. "Priorities," Wade said, the fast approach of our opponents eliminating complete sentences from his repertoire. Then, before I could answer, the younger shifter continued talking, making it clear that he had been given his marching orders from Wolfie at an earlier date. "The baby is number one priority, then Keith, then Dale," the yahoo said quickly.
"Then Sarah," I agreed, working my way down my mental list of the room's inhabitants from least to most able to defend themselves. Although the pack princess currently sported a gaping hole in her abdomen, I hoped that her ex-mate wouldn't be interested in spilling the girl's blood, and I knew that she was better able to hold off the invaders than either Keith or Dale might be. But she was still in obvious need of protection.
"No," Wade disagreed. "Then you." The yahoo's nostrils flared, but his eyes met mine firmly, refusing to back down even though he knew that I didn't like what he had to say.
"I can take care of myself," I rebutted, putting the full force of my alpha persona into my voice. But Wade just smiled and patted me on the shoulder before shifting into wolf form without a verbal reply.
I opened my mouth to continue arguing, but realized that further commands would do no good since the yahoo apparently considered Wolfie to be his one and only leader. Wade was never following my orders in the first place, I thought to myself, watching the way the yahoo angled his lupine body between mine and the source of potential ingress. The shifter beside me had done my bidding quite capably over the last few months, but it seemed now that the oldest yahoo had simply been carrying out the orders of his true alpha all along.
Which had been all well and good in the past since Wolfie and I would have agreed on the methods used to manage my troubled relatives, but our wishes were at odds at the moment. In fact, I had a sinking suspicion that one of the bloodling alpha's commands was for his yahoos to protect Wolfie's mate with his life, a command that Wade seemed intent on obeying with no thought for the safety of his own skin.
Okay, then. There was no time to further argue the point, so I'd simply have to watch my companion's back at the same time that he was guarding mine. Working together, surely we could both come out of the upcoming confrontation unscathed. And then Wolfie, Wade, and I could iron out our differences at a later date, when the world wasn't imploding all around us.
Speaking of implosions, I'd barely shifted into lupine form when the window shattered inward, a length of metal pipe spinning through the air to clatter onto the ceramic tiles at my feet. I spared one second to glance behind me, saw that Dale was carefully stitching up his patient's belly, and then returned my gaze to the danger at hand. My brother-in-law clearly trusted me and Wade to do our jobs, having moved his son and the baby wolf pup around to the opposite side of the table but leaving his own unprotected back facing the battle at the window. So the yahoo and I would have to ensure that the doctor's trust wasn't misplaced, despite the sheer number of wolves milling around outside.
The first enemy leapt through the window before the shards had all been knocked out of the frame, and my focus narrowed to his sharp teeth and large paws. The impatient wolf grazed one shoulder on a jagged splinter in the process, but he didn't yelp or pause, just angled himself to connect with Wade's smaller form so that the two went down together. The combatants tumbled across the floor, paws sliding on tile as each attempted to gain a foothold that would allow him an a
dvantage, and I itched to come to the yahoo's aid. But, behind the initial intruder, another wolf had entered more carefully, and this new enemy was stalking in a stealthy circle in preparation for joining the melee from an unexpected side.
As the second wolf angled in my direction, he briefly glanced at my face, then dismissed me as he came to the obvious conclusion—that a female shifter, even in lupine form, was no threat. His erroneous assumption gave me the opening I needed to lunge forward and bite down hard on one hind leg, catching the second invader before he could tag team Wade's opponent. The stranger yelped and whirled as he felt my teeth bite closed, but I held tight, not relenting until I heard bone snap beneath my jaws.
Then, while my adversary was paralyzed by the sudden agony of a broken bone, I released my hold and pivoted in a tight circle to latch onto his throat. This was the technique that my father had used to vanquish me a few weeks prior, and I now understood the heady power of having another werewolf entirely at my mercy. Unlike my father, though, I would gladly have let the shifter beneath me escape if I thought he would scamper away, tail between his legs. I didn't want my first shifter kill to occur right now, in front of my fourteen-year-old nephew. In fact, I'd be quite happy if my first shifter kill never occurred at all.
But there was no time for mercy. Instead, I bit down as hard as I could, salty blood flooding my mouth as the other werewolf spasmed beneath my hold. Then I shook my head from side to side, tearing my opponent's throat wide open and splattering red liquid across the clinic's clean tiles.
Despite my previous worries about my lupine half's bloodthirsty nature, it was my human side who was firmly in control at this moment and I could tell that my wolf was sickened by the sight. Stop, she told me, but I had no experience killing another shifter and was afraid to let go. In fact, I might have stood like that for hours had I not smelled a depressingly familiar scent and heard my nephew's sudden exclamation from the other side of the room.
Looking up at last, the aroma of gun metal and the smiling face of my mate's brother struck me at the same moment. Justin was holding the already-bloody scalpel to my terrified nephew's throat, and nearby both my brother-in-law and the bloodling pup were lying alive but dazed at the alpha's feet. I whimpered, knowing that I'd been too slow to protect the innocents who had been placed into my care, and the bloodling mewled a thready reply.
But Justin wasn't paying any attention to either me or to his child. Instead, the invading alpha merely nodded over my head, and in response another gasp was picked up by my opposite ear at the same time that agony churned through my gut. This intonation sounded so much like the last breath of the shifter who still lay beneath me that my feet froze to the ground, my entire body fighting against the most likely explanation for the sound, and for my own internal pain.
Too late, my wolf sighed, her voice nearly silent even within my own mind. But I refused to believe the evidence of our own ears. Surely my wolf and I were both wrong and, instead, Wade had managed to escape the wolves who poured through the window in their leader's wake. Even now, the eldest yahoo must be biting through one of the enemy's throats, and soon the yahoo would spring to my side to obey his alpha's command. Together, Wade and I would take Justin down before the enemy alpha could harm one hair on my nephew's head, and everyone I cared about would leave this room in one piece.
But I knew in my heart that the odds had been stacked too firmly against my companion. So, when I was finally able to crane my neck around to look in the other direction, I wasn't at all surprised to see Wade's lupine form slumping to the floor.
I wasn't at all surprised...but when the last spark of life fled from the yahoo's eyes, I knew that I'd never be able to forgive myself for the way Wade had succeeded in achieving his goal. The young werewolf had triumphed all the way to death...while I had once again failed to protect a shifter who I considered to be under my care.
Chapter 18
"Is my mate ready to go yet?" Justin asked, ignoring the rest of us in order to turn toward the human doctor whom he had knocked across the room mere moments before. Dale was too tongue-tied to reply, but Sarah answered for him, wordlessly picking herself up off the table, then shifting into lupine form the moment her feet hit the ground.
I fully expected the pack princess to leap toward her ex-mate with fangs bared as soon as she was standing on four paws, or at least to pick up the bloodling that had fallen out of Keith's arms and tumbled to the ground at his feet. After all, how could a mother ignore the tiny pup that was mewling loudly on the ground, begging for her attention? But, instead, the bloodling caught the ear of its father instead, whose foot struck out, knocking the baby wolf out of his way. Clearly, Justin didn't consider the baby to be his son or daughter, just an annoying animal to be silenced. And the bloodling obeyed, squealing once before going still.
I winced in sympathy, but mimicked the wolf pup's bid for invisibility, wracking my brain to think of a way to protect both the bloodling and my nephew from Justin's sadistic gaze. What we really needed, I decided, was a distraction so that the bloodling's mother would have the opportunity to come to her child's aid. To my relief, I saw that my brother-in-law had come up with the exact same idea, which he immediately acted upon by taking a step toward his own son.
And, although my brother-in-law's forward momentum was instantly quelled by Justin's glare, Dale's sally had worked. However momentarily, the alpha's eyes had left his mate, and I shot the girl a quick glance, hoping that Sarah would realize that this distraction was the opening she needed to protect her child. The pack princess was close enough to grab the bloodling in her teeth and leap through the window before Justin's underlings could prevent her escape, and I knew from experience that, in lupine form, the exertion wouldn't be beyond the new mother's abilities despite her recent surgery. So I tensed, ready to head off the shifters who still gathered around Wade's body beneath the open window...and then I gaped as the mother wolf instead used her teeth to gently pick up my discarded black dress before padding over to rub one shoulder affectionately against her mate's leg.
"Good," Justin said shortly, but the single word was enough to set the pack princess's tail wagging and my mind whirling. I'd clearly read the entire situation incorrectly, thinking that Sarah held no value for her mate and he none for her. Why had I never taken the time to analyze her inner wolf's behavior when the pair crossed paths at All-Pack? Given the affection that seemed to be flowing between Sarah and Justin now, it was obvious that the pack princess's wolf must have been frolicking at the sight of her mate a few days earlier just as mine had in Wolfie's proximity—only a fool could have missed those obvious signs. A fool...or someone who sorely wished to believe that Sarah really was my friend and pack mate, not a traitor coldly planted into our midst.
Meanwhile, Justin's wolf appeared to share Sarah's tender feelings, even if his human side hid the attraction beneath an impassive exterior. And, as I met Dale's gaze from across the room, I belatedly realized the purpose behind the duo's deception. The doctor currently facing off against werewolves with me was the only medical professional with the knowledge to operate on a shifter...and thus Dale was the only doctor likely to ensure that a werewolf pregnant with a bloodling baby would survive. Which in turn suggested that Sarah hadn't been the only one pulling the wool over my eyes. Justin must have tossed his mate in our direction with the full knowledge that Wolfie and I were likely to bring Dale into the picture as soon as we realized Sarah's state. Meanwhile, the pack princess had simply played along with my assumptions, waiting until she was shed of the wolf pup within her womb before returning to the arms of her loving spouse.
Well, loving might have been an overstatement. But after pulling my nephew alongside him as he edged his way to the window, Justin did bark at his underlings until several turned two-legged and carefully lifted the pack princess out of the room. The others soon followed in her wake, and then Justin was the final invader remaining inside the clinic, my nephew clutched in one strong arm t
o ensure the alpha's own safe escape.
Only then did Justin deign to meet my eyes, the grin that reminded me so much of my mate's spreading across his equally handsome face. "You really shouldn't play games that you can't win," Wolfie's brother said after a long, gloating pause. Then, pushing Keith in my direction, the alpha leveraged his body through the window-shaped hole and was gone.
It was then, as I took in the crumpled form of my nephew, my beaten brother-in-law, the quiet bloodling, and the dead yahoo who had protected me with his life, that I knew that Justin was right. I shouldn't have embarked on a campaign that required skills so far beyond my capabilities. When it came right down to it, Justin had played me as easily as my father had. And both times, the opposing alpha had won.
***
"Wade is dead," I greeted my mate, barely able to speak the words as Wolfie came down the hallway at a run. And I might as well have killed him myself, I finished silently. There was no breathing room to castigate myself in public, though, not when our few remaining pack mates required the support of a strong leader to raise their flagging spirits and to tend to their wounds. But it was hard to stand tall when my own weakness had been the cause of Justin's escape and of the death of a shifter under my care.
At least Wade appeared to have been the only casualty. Behind Wolfie, David was pressing his shirt into a large gash that cut across Blaze's ribs, but both shifters were walking easily, so I quickly dismissed them from my attention. Meanwhile, the tiny wolf pup that I'd scooped up moments earlier was gnawing at my finger with needle teeth, and both Keith and his father were standing unharmed at my back, but even the bloodling's furry warmth couldn't make up for the loss of the yahoo who had stood so staunchly by my side...and whom I'd been unable to save.
Pack Princess: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure (Wolf Rampant Book 2) Page 14
