by Monica Rossi
She had driven further away from the lump than she realized, and in the dim light she still couldn’t make out what it was, all she could tell was that it was large. As she got closer, she slowed down, looking for any signs of life that would indicate she wasn’t wasting her time. There it was, the stilted rise and fall of the chest, the animal was breathing… but for how long? She had to get closer and see what kind of wounds it had.
As she got nearer, she realized that its back was to her, making it harder to be sure that it wasn’t a bear that was going to tear a hole in her torso for her trouble. The hair was a dark auburn and mottled with dirt and blood, she could see the movement of the chest better now and the breathing looked steady, that was a good sign. If she could just get close enough to see what she was dealing with she’d know if she needed to call a game warden to hit it with the tranquilizer gun or if she could use some of the tranks she had in her medicine bag. If it was unconscious that would be a godsend.
She slowed down, wondering if she were seeing things. The hind legs looked like… no that couldn’t be right. Could it be? Her mind dismissed the idea of a dog out of hand, no dogs or wolves got that big, but the closer she got the less she could deny what she was looking at.
She was shocked into stillness; it was a wolf, or a wolf bear hybrid. How could it have gotten so large, surely it must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds. A genetic mutation? A rare breed of superwolf? Eating too much engineered chicken?
A whine pulled her out of her questioning and she found herself staring into huge bright golden eyes. She walked a little closer and its tail thumped halfheartedly and its head fell back to the ground, obviously too tired to hold it up.
“Crap.” Sidney resigned herself to her task and ran back to the Jeep for her bag. Approaching the wolf again, this time with less apprehension and more of a mind towards her job, she warned with it the last of her caution, “If you eat me I swear to god I’ll give you indigestion.”
All the gashes she could see were superficial, after warily feeling his legs she could tell that one of them was broken, he also probably had a few broken ribs, but the light wasn’t good enough to thoroughly assess all of his injuries. There was no denying was pretty banged up though. She needed to get him somewhere she could examine him properly. Who did she know who would come help her? If she called the game warden he’d probably shoot the poor creature on sight as a public, nuisance and she didn’t know anyone well enough to call and say, “Hey this is Sidney, I’ve found an injured wolf on the side of the road that could probably kill us with very little effort, could you come help me pick him up?” There was no way she could pick him up herself.
She put her hand on his shoulder, still staying well away from those powerful jaws and tried to speak reassuringly, “Hey, wolf. Hey boy,” He picked his head up and looked at her, “I’m going to back the Jeep up here and I’m going to try to get you into the back of it. If you feel like helping out that’s fine too. Just keep those sharp teeth to yourself.” His tail thumped twice against the ground and she took that as assent.
Quickly she backed up as close to him as she could without actually running over him, and threw open the back hatch, chunking clothes and all the random debris that always seemed to collect in her car into the front seat before laying the back seats down flat. In the clutter she’d found a muzzle and held it in her hand speculatively. Was it large enough and was she daring enough to try to put it on him while he was still conscious?
“Hey, there’s a good boy. I’m just going to slip this on your face and hope you don’t decide to take off my hand while I do it, is that ok? Because it’d make me feel a lot better about trying to heave a wounded wolf into the back of my car if there were a piece of leather between me and your razor sharp teeth, even if it wouldn’t actually stop you from doing anything.” She slowly extended her hands toward his face and as she got closer he lifted his head up off the ground as if to help her get the muzzle on him. “Now that is a good boy.” She stood up and sighed in relief, squaring her shoulders to the task at hand and squatting back down in preparation to hoist him up with nothing more than sheer willpower and thigh muscles that hadn’t seen a gym in months, but before she could even get her arms under him, he started trying to lift his own weight.
“Ok, ok, easy now, I’ve got you,” she helped him get on his feet but he did most of the work himself, “Steady now boy, just a little lift into the Jeep and I’ll get you home and all fixed up, come on, come on.” Amazingly, it was as if he understood what she wanted, he got himself mostly into the back with very little effort on her part. Which was good, considering she’d probably have thrown her back out trying to pick him up, not to mention the pain her inevitably clumsiness would have caused him. Maybe he could sense that she wanted to help him. “Alright brave boy, we’ll get you straightened out,” she patted him quickly before closing the hatch. Now all she had to do was get him home, unload him, get him into the house, sew him up, bandage him, and spend the rest of the night worried he was going to tear her throat out in her sleep. Easy peasy.
Chapter Two
The second half of her nightly commute was considerably more interesting than the first half. She’d driven very slowly since every bump or turn she made caused a whine of pain to emit from behind, reminding her that she had a very large patient in the backseat, and bumps were hard to avoid. The old Jeep wasn’t known for its superior shocks, after all.
Getting him in her house had been easier than she’d thought it would be, again he seemed to sense what it was she wanted from him and only needed minimal help getting himself out of the backseat and into her kitchen, where he was taking up the majority of the floor and panting heavily. The short walk had probably taken the last of his energy. Watching him limp into the house, whimpering with each step almost brought her to tears. He was trying so hard.
“It’s alright now boy, we’ll get you fixed up,” his golden eyes stared up at her, full of what she imagined was trust and thanks. She had a problem with anthropomorphizing her patients but she couldn’t shake the feeling that this one really was different. Be-gloved, sterilized and surrounded with all of the equipment she could scrounge up from around her house and car, she began a more thorough examination. Broken leg, probably broken ribs like she’d guessed, and large gashes around his throat area and stomach. Her immediate assumption had been that he’d been hit by a car, but that was wrong, he had been in a fight. What in the world could do this much damage to an animal this size? He must have gotten away and collapsed on the road, his body just too beat up to continue.
After she’d given him a good dose of pain medicine, she began talking to him as she gently cleaned his wounds and sewed them up. Working slowly and steadily, she hoped she wasn’t causing him any more pain than necessary.
“You know you really shouldn’t be fighting anything big enough to harm you. Who’d you pick a fight with? Big Foot? The Abominable Snowman? Godzilla? You should be at the very tippy top of the food chain and yet here you are, broken and bleeding all over my kitchen floor. It’s a shame really, that good sense and size in mammals doesn’t have a higher correlation.”
Finished with her ministrations she rubbed his head between his ears, his eyes blinking as he fought off unconsciousness. “You really are a beautiful boy, with all this red and cream hair. Cleaned up you’re probably a sight to see, majestic as hell, king of the mountain, hmm?” He made a sound deep in his throat, “Oh you like that description do you? Well, next time try not getting your ass kicked and laying down in the middle of the road where someone without the compassion of a saint might run right over you without a thought in the world.”
Sidney stood up and surveyed herself and her surroundings. She was covered in blood and wolf hair and so was everything else in the kitchen. Letting out a huff, she started cleaning up the mess strewn around the large sleeping shape on the floor, “No good deed goes unpunished I guess.”
Chapter Three
Showering h
ad felt marvelous after such an exhausting, and dirty, experience. She wrapped a big fluffy towel around herself and another one around her hair and walked into the kitchen to check on her patient. He was still lying on the floor but upright instead of on his side, his eyes alert and on her. A shiver of fear raced down her spine. How stupid was she to have brought a wild animal, a wolf, into her house? Very, she concluded. She was a very very stupid girl. The pain medicine she’d given him should have knocked him out for at least half the night, but obviously she hadn’t given him a large enough dose, because it had only been an hour since she last checked on him and he was fully alert. It was hard to gauge for an animal that size when she was used to treating 25lb yippee dogs and 35lb lazy cats. At least he still had the muzzle on.
“Um, hey there buddy, awake already?” He wagged his tail. “So you must be thirsty huh? Maybe a little hungry too?” Did she dare take the muzzle of to let him eat? Did she dare let him get hungry while he was in her house? She pondered her choices. She would definitely take a full wolf in her house over a hungry one. Careful not to make any sudden movements, she walked around him to the freezer and shuffled through the pitiful contents. Among the graveyard of half eaten pints of ice cream and unwanted Lean Gourmet dinners, she found one pound of ground beef, a solitary chicken breast, and some fish sticks. Well it’d have to do, she pulled it all out and laid it on the counter, at least she’d given up on being a vegetarian in high school or she’d really have a problem.
“Well it’s not fresh off the bone and bloody, but microwaved and lukewarm will have to do for you tonight.” She unwrapped the food and deposited it all on a plate before shoving it in the microwave. Leaning against the counter while she waited, she studied the wolf and the wolf studied her.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. I can’t keep you here and when you’re better I can’t just release you into a neighborhood full of people. And tasty children.” What was she going to do with him? She should think things through better before acting so impulsively, this lesson, if nothing else, should have hit home by now.
“Maybe I can teach you how to do tricks and sell you to the circus. Can you sit?” The wolf seemed to quirk an eyebrow and painstakingly raised himself into a sitting position.
Sidney gaped. Was that a coincidence or did this freaking oversized dire wolf just obey a command. “Are you being serious with me right now wolf? Because this is nothing to joke about.” The wolf sat there staring back at her. “Okay, can you shake?” She lowered her hand in the universal ‘shake’ gesture and he shifted the weight on his haunches and put his massive paw in her hand. Slack jawed she stared at him and it all began to make sense in her head. How easily he had trusted her and followed her to the car, then into her house, how calm he had been when she’d treated his wounds, even now, how patiently he was waiting to be fed and tried his best to obey her commands, even while he was hurt. Fury surged through her body, the wolf noticed it and his body tensed. She dropped his paw and tried to calm herself. “Its ok wolf,” she reassured him as she sank down to her knees and looked him directly in his huge glittering eyes. As she slipped her hands around the back of his head and unbuckled the muzzle she made him a promise, “Nobody will ever hurt you again, not while I’m around. No more fighting dogs for someone’s sick entertainment, you’ll be free soon.”
Table of Contents
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A Sample of Wounded: Dogs of War MC Book One
