Snow Wolf: Wolves of Willow Bend (Book 9) (10 page)

“How old were you, Dove?”

Her shoulder stiffened beneath his grasp, but she raised her chin. “Eleven when Claire left, fourteen when A.J. went to prison.” Which meant she was close to twenty-three.
A baby
.

Diesel hated himself.
Then again, what is time?
A chance to mature and to grow.

“You were a youth when these events happened,” he told her. “It is not unreasonable for you to tie them together. Claire is older. By our standards, those who are older hold the responsibility. While she may have been young herself, actions have consequences and we have to live with them.”

The sadness in her expression eased. “I don’t want to hate her. I don’t even think I’m really angry with her anymore. I did…I did something bad because she came back. I attacked her. All this rage inside of me boiled out, and I tried to make her fight me. She wouldn’t. She avoided every blow and moved like the wind.” Grudging respect reflected in the words. “Some days, I even like her.”

“You haven’t forgotten or forgiven.” He didn’t have to wait for her confirmation. “Dove, your brothers are men. From the sounds of it, men of quality. Are they happy now?”

“Yes.” Unqualified and unhesitating.

“Then why aren’t you?”

T
he wind chimes
saved her from answering the telling question. Diesel rose, set his plate aside, and went to the door. Chowder—would she ever get over calling their healer a name more suited to soup?—stood silhouetted in the open door. Without preamble, he said. “We have trouble.”

Shoving her chaotic emotions aside, Ranae put her plate down and slid off the sofa. Chowder shifted his gaze to her briefly then back to his Alpha.

“They called down. Four wounded and coming in.” Called down? That meant they’d been hurt above.

Diesel glanced at her. “If you’re coming with, grab your coat or shift. It will be too cold for you.” Considering he was bare-chested and only wore a pair of sweats, she wondered if he ever felt the cold.

Not experiencing any need to argue, she raised her hand, palm forward. “What would be more useful to you? Four feet or two hands?”

Diesel glanced at Chowder.

“Have you ever worked with a healer?”

“Only in a run and fetch capacity.”

Chowder nodded. “That will do. Get your coat.”

Pivoting, she ran for her room. It took her less than two minutes to throw on an extra layer of clothes and her heavier boots. Jacket, gloves and cap in hand, she sprinted to them. Diesel’s gaze swept over her once then he nodded to the door. She exited ahead of him. Her gut churned at the low light beyond the grassy room.

Fuck
. She’d forgotten he said it was the night cycle. The blackness wasn’t absolute, however, and overhead there was a hint of twinkling which added to the illumination. “Stars.”

“Chowder is getting his gear.” Diesel said before he took the lead. There was nowhere else to go but toward the next terraced garden. Chowder carried two heavy bags, and he tossed the first one to Diesel then the second to her. She caught it and slung it over her shoulder. It would take her a minute to pull on her jacket, but she would make it happen on the go. Four Tiki-like torches illuminated the patio garden. The flickering light held the darkness at bay and let her nagging fear be silent.

Diesel raised his eyebrows in silent question. It was the first semi-mention he’d made since her meltdown earlier. “I’m all right,” she murmured.

He nodded once. After the healer pulled out one more bag, which he slung across his body, he shut his door and fell in as Diesel led the way. They didn’t encounter many wolves until they reached a central exchange she recognized from her first pass earlier. She saw no sign of Julian either. Where was the Chief Enforcer?

Belatedly, it dawned on her that Chowder and Diesel both lived in an area dedicated to the wolves who roamed above. Momentarily fascinated by a dynamic that created a place for wolves that likely never used it, she slowed. When Diesel and Chowder pulled away, she had to hurry to catch up to them. The Alpha shot her another look, a hint of reproach, but he said nothing more.

When they reached the door toward the stairs, her heart started to thump. The door swung out to the antechamber, and she could have wept. It was ablaze with lights. Diesel thrust out his hand for her bag. “Jacket.”

Obedience was the better part of valor. They had an emergency, and she was rendering aid. She surrendered the bag and shrugged into her jacket. Chowder and Diesel waited. Neither radiated urgent energy, but she didn’t take her time, either. Once the jacket was on, she stuffed her hands into the gloves, then pulled the knit cap over her hair. Fortunately, the wild mass was dry. Too bad she hadn’t remembered to bring a ponytail holder.

Giving her a critical once over, Diesel held out both bags. “Can you handle them?” It was a fair question. The one she’d carried was damn heavy. Shouldering the first one, she took the second in her free hand and nodded.

“Got them.”

“Good.” Before she could slide away, he cupped her face in his hands and closed his mouth over hers. It stunned her senses, all wildness and heat. It stormed through her, demanding she respond, and she drew on his tongue as he delved inside. Her nostrils flaring at the potency of his scent. Her heart hammered against her ribs. As swiftly as he’d grasped her, he let her go. “You wear my scent. My wolves will not touch you.”

He turned away before she could sag with her confused relief. Her whole body seemed to be a riot of sensory overload. Chowder grinned at her and, for the first time in her life, she might have blushed. Since Diesel had already begun his ascent, she nodded to the healer to go as well and she brought up the rear. Unsurprisingly, no one else followed them. The door hushed closed and she took the stairs two at a time, measuring her pace against the wolves ahead of her.

At the top, the door opened before she arrived and then they were in the antechamber behind the wall. No sooner did she slide inside than the door below closed and the door to the cabin opened to raucous calls and the sharp, telling scents of blood.

A lot of blood.

All thoughts of lust fled in the face of disaster. Chowder stopped next to a young man who’d all but been disemboweled. The stench of blood mingled with feces, and she wanted to gag but refused the reaction. She was a Hunter. These people needed her.

“Here,” Chowder ordered, and she dropped the first bag next to him then second. “Grip here and here.” He took her gloved hands and put them in place. She actually found herself holding the wound closed.

Blood soaked her gloves, but she ignored the sensation. The wolf in her grip let out another yowl, and his eyes blazed gold as he spotted her. He lunged upward and she twisted, using her elbow to push his chest down while keeping his innards inside his gut.

The healer moved with economical motions. He opened the first bag and pulled out a syringe then injected the wolf she was keeping in place. The struggle went out of him. Within moments, Chowder had an IV hooked up and he directed another wolf who stood nearby to hold it.

“Now we’re going to stuff the wound.” Chowder pulled out a series of sponges. “Use one hand to put them in, use the other to control the bleeding. I’ll get it stopped.” With that, he put his hands on the wolf and his face blanked.

It took them the better part of thirty minutes to stabilize the wolf. He sealed the wound with staples—a sound she hoped she never heard again—then clear tape.

“Let’s go,” he told her, and then they were up. The next wolf had torn and jagged legs and arms. It looked like something had chewed on him. “Fuck.” Chowder swore. “Brace him.”

Ranae didn’t wait to ask why. She peeled off her blood-soaked gloves and pinned the naked wolf. The man had been unconscious, or so she thought until Chowder wrenched the wolf’s leg. The audible snap of bone breaking sent the wolf she held upward and it took all her strength to keep him down. The beast in him snarled at her. She met his gaze and let her wolf glare at him. Between her grip and her wolf, they kept him down when Chowder rebroke the other leg.

Only once he’d finished the gruesome task did he repeat the shot and IV procedure he’d done on the first. “Clean these arms and legs, flush them out with the saline then use betadine.”

Grimacing at the very idea of pouring that crap on open wounds, she got to work. Sweat beaded along her brow from the intensity of the work. By the time she got to the wolf’s legs, she’d stripped her jacket. Someone took it from her, but she didn’t stop her actions. Once she was finished, she glanced around and found Chowder across the room working on another wolf, his face gray and his arms stained red with blood.

She pulled a blanket over the patient she’d worked on, then cleaned up her refuse before hauling the bag over to him.

“Take the next one. He just needs his wounds flushed. Exactly as you did with that one…” His words trailed off as a howl split through the noise. It was long, low and mournful. Another wolf joined the song, then a third and finally all the wolves, even those lying around her in damaged and battered condition joined in.

Tears burned in her eyes. She knew the music. It was the call of death. They’d lost someone. Sniffing once, she rose to go to the last man—no, not a man. He couldn’t have been more than a boy, all teenage awkwardness, long limbs, and too-lean body. Even his abdomen seemed hollow and sunken beneath his ribs.

His chest was a mottle of bruises, and one near his side concerned her. With as gentle a touch as she could manage, she brushed her fingers against his side. “I need to roll you over.”

The youth shifted, his face a grimace as he rolled onto his left side so she could see his back. Dark blue-black and purple discoloration lined his lower right quadrant.

“Chowder,” she said quietly because, unless the healer was in deep trance, he would hear her. “I think he might have lacerated a kidney.”

“Tend the rest, I’ll be there soon.”

“You can lay down again,” she told him and the boy sagged to his back once more. He swallowed once, then blinked rapidly. “My name is Ranae,” she told him as she began using saline to clean out the deep lacerations along his shoulder. What the hell had mauled him? Because there was no mistaking the tell-tale marks of claws and teeth along his trunk and down his right arm. The wrist had been mangled, tearing away the flesh to reveal damaged muscle and tendon beneath.

“Demon,” the child said.

“Demon?” Her eyebrows lifted and she tried to keep her tone light. “Let me guess, your mother gave you that name.”

A hint of a smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Yes. She said I was her little demon and it stuck.”

“Well, I think that’s what all children are supposed to be to their parents.” She grimaced at his sucked in breath when she reached the wrist. The saline had to hurt like a bitch. The betadine wouldn’t be much better. They were wolves, they could heal a lot of injuries, but they still had to worry about infections.

Tooth and claw had a way of spreading bacteria deep into the body. “I—was—a special—case.” Demon put the words out with harsh gasps in between. She tried to move as fast as she could. The last time she’d had to flush wounds had been the summer before when a Kyle Huston’s year group set a series of dangerous traps on one of the obstacle courses and two of the boys pissed off a porcupine. It had been ugly. She and three other Hunters spent hours pulling quills and cleaning wounds because Emma told them they had to learn from their mistakes.

The Willow Bend healer might be a gentle, kind soul, but she also believed stupidity should be its own reward. Demon’s damage, however, didn’t seem caused by foolhardiness. Or at least she hoped it wasn’t, because unless he walked up on a bear and took a piss on it, she couldn’t imagine what action could have warranted so much hurt.

Another mournful howl split the night. A new song. A new death. Tears fell from her eyes. These weren’t her wolves and not her pack, but it didn’t matter. The ache she felt for them seemed to encompass every breath she took. Demon let out a strangled sob. She gripped his uninjured hand and shifted so she could block his head from view.

“It’s all right,” she murmured, remembering all the times her mother had done the same for her. “You can cry on me. I won’t melt.”

The kid looked up at her then he turned his face into her hip and let a sob free. The cleaning could wait. She held him while he cried, sparing a brief glance at Chowder as he joined her. He took the saline from her hand and went to work while she stroked the boy’s hair.

When the song changed for a third time, she glanced at the healer. Her heart ached for him. With the bruised look around his eyes and his skin gone gray with fatigue, he seemed to age three decades right in front of her. “How many total?” She tried to keep voice down, but what was the point? They were all wolves.

“Too many,” Chowder answered. He gave the boy a shot, and bit by bit, his sobs tapered off. By the time he set up an IV, Demon had gone to sleep. Ranae brushed the damp hair away from his forehead.

“He’s so young.”

“It was his first winter to run with them.” Chowder sighed, then he rolled his head in a slow circle as though trying to loosen the tension in his neck. “Give me a little time, and he will run with them again.” Then his focus was on the youth, and his eyes closed.

Trusting his confidence and taking her cue from his concentration, she glanced around the cabin’s main room. A fire burned, keeping the chill away. The makeshift infirmary only housed four patients. Whatever other wolves had been there seemed to have left during her time spent with Demon.

Glancing at the healer, she gave his shoulder a light squeeze before she stood. Diesel was also gone, likely out into the icy night to deal with the dark song of loss. Whatever had done this—whomever—she wished them a painful and brutal death. It wasn’t in her to be forgiving and, while adults might settle their battles in blood and fisticuffs, Demon wasn’t there yet. He was still more boy than man.

She made a circuit of Chowder’s patients, checking each one. They were all in deep, healing sleeps. Satisfied none of them needed her, she went to Chowder’s bags of supplies and rooted around until she found tea. During one of her training sessions, Owen explained to her that healers would burn themselves out. It was up to the Hunters with them to make sure they took care of themselves.

Tea in one hand, she found what looked like trail mix and jerky. Both would give him protein and sustenance. She set them aside then washed her hands before setting a kettle onto the fire to heat. By the time Chowder came to sit next to her, she had tea ready for him and pressed the food into his hands.

With a weary smile, he ate and drank but said nothing.

Outside, the song changed again.

H
ours had passed
since he’d last set his gaze on Ranae, but the wolves he’d left guarding her and Chowder checked in, their song carrying on the breeze between the calls to mourning. He stood in the snow, bare skinned to the brutal cold, and it could do nothing to ease the fury in his chest. Four wolves gravely injured and another four dead.

A family group and two of his Sentries.

The wolves had done what they dedicated themselves to do—they’d given their lives to save the pack. Without a doubt, if not for their sacrifice, it would be eight bodies he stood over, maybe more.