Warrior Wolf (Protection, Inc 4)

Then Rafa burst through the door. He caught sight of me and bristled. “What’s that fucking thug doing in our office?”

Hal had a phone in his hand; he hadn’t stopped calling people since I showed up. He covered it and said, “Not dying here, if I can help it. Give Fiona a hand.”

Rafa obeyed, but he sure didn’t look happy about it.

Destiny showed up last. She must’ve been out clubbing when she got Hal’s call, because she was in dance shoes and a sequined mini-dress. She stopped in the doorway, and her tiger glared at me out of her eyes. “So the gangster we’ve spent the last two months fighting gets hurt, and he comes running here for help?”

Manuel had been too worried about me or too intimidated to talk before, but that pissed him off. He said, “Nick called on shifters’ honor. If you won’t help him, what makes you any different from his gang?”

That got to everyone.

I don’t remember what all they did, but I’m sure I would’ve died without them. Mostly I remember Hal kind of coaching me, telling me to listen to my wolf and let him help fight for my life. I don’t know, it seemed to make sense at the time. Manuel sat on the floor and held my hand, which was about the only part of me that wasn’t bleeding all over the place.

Between him and Hal and my wolf and Hal’s team, who were trying hard to save me even though they didn’t like me, I felt like I had something to hold on to and people who’d catch me if I fell. All I had to do was stay awake and keep breathing. It doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, it was just as hard as walking the gauntlet. Only it went on for hours. There was no way I could’ve done it alone.

Finally a doctor showed up. Not that sleazy maybe-not-a-real-medic, an actual doctor. A black woman with cornrows and little wire-rimmed glasses. I found out later that her name was Dr. Bedford and she was a bear shifter from Hal’s hometown, and that he’d arranged a helicopter pickup for her. It landed on the roof, just like you did.

Hal asked if I should be transported to her office, but she said I’d bleed out if I was moved and anyway there wasn’t time. She gave me a shot to put me to sleep. Once I realized what she’d done, I said I was supposed to stay awake and she had to give me an antidote.

Hal put his hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s all right. You can rest now, Nick.”

My wolf agreed. Go to sleep. Your battle’s done.

I tried to ask, Did we win?

But I was out before I heard the answer.

When I woke up, I was still on the sofa, but I was wrapped in bandages like a mummy and had tubes fucking everywhere. Fiona was watching over me, or maybe I should say glaring over me.

She said, “Don’t shift. The doctor said it’ll make you bleed out. Don’t try to get up. Same thing. Just lie still. You should be fine with that. You’re causing all the trouble you could possibly want just by being here.”

There was obviously nothing worth staying up for, so I went back to sleep.

I found out later that Dr. Bedford couldn’t do surgery on a sofa, so she had them lift me onto the nearest flat surface that could be disinfected. That was the lobby desk, which was an antique, and that was the end of it. After my gang and I spent months trying to trash the office without doing mu

ch more than annoy the team, I did thousands of dollars worth of damage just by bleeding on stuff. I had no idea carpeting was that expensive.

The team spent the next few days taking care of me. In their lobby, which meant they couldn’t see any clients as long as I was there. Except for Hal, they were pissed as hell about the whole thing. Whenever Hal and Manuel were off getting some sleep or something, Rafa would lecture me on how crime is bad and gangs ruin everything for everybody, Fiona would pull out a ledger with a running total of the money I’d cost them and demand that I pay them back the instant I was on my feet again, and Destiny would give me inspirational speeches on how it’s never too late to turn over a new leaf. It was exactly as annoying as it sounds, especially since I was on too many painkillers to make any comebacks.

But I’ll give them this: that was the only way they got back at me. I was in such bad shape, I couldn’t do anything for myself. If I wanted a drink of water, someone had to hold the glass and lift my head. Every single one of them did stuff like that for me, and they all did it like it was no big deal so I wouldn’t be embarrassed. Much. The reason I was loopy on painkillers was that they made sure I was never in pain for longer than it took them to notice and give me a pill.

I wasn’t crazy about being that dependent on people, especially my enemies, but my wolf didn’t mind at all. The water, especially — that’s a thing with wolves. If someone offers to let you drink from their hands, that’s a really big deal. It’s like becoming blood brothers. It made me feel weird, even though the team obviously had no clue about that. But my wolf thought it meant something whether the team knew it or not.

Wolves are pack animals. We’re supposed to depend on each other. Protection, Inc. wasn’t my pack, but my wolf was reacting like they were. So something about it felt all right to me.

Plus, they didn’t scold me the entire time. Hal never did, and after a while the others either got bored or felt guilty, and started talking to me like I was just a guy who was hurt and could use some company. I couldn’t talk back much — I mean, I physically couldn’t — so I mostly listened. Rafa and Destiny and Hal had all been in the military, and the way they talked about it, it sounded a lot like being in a pack. I could relate. Fiona’s traveled a lot, and she told me about parts of the world I’d never even heard of. It was a lot more interesting than I would’ve expected.

One day I woke up and found the entire team arguing with Manuel in the lobby. At first no one noticed I was awake, they were so focused on him. I didn’t feel up to jumping in, so I just lay there and listened.

Hal had decided Manuel wouldn’t be safe in Santa Martina as long as Price was around. All else aside, it turned out that the way Manuel had gotten me out of there was by hot-wiring Price’s car. I’d thought it had looked familiar. So Hal had found Manuel a pack across the country that was happy to take him in. Not a gang, a family.

Manuel was fine with that. He was obviously done with being a gangster and hanging around all those criminals. There was just one snag. He hadn’t officially left the pack yet. He’d been thinking of staying with Protection, Inc. as “laying low for a while,” but once it came to moving to another state and joining a new pack, his wolf instincts kicked in big-time.

He was insisting that he had to go back and walk the gauntlet, and he couldn’t leave until he did. He looked like he was having a nervous breakdown — sweat pouring off him, shaking, breathing a mile a minute — and he was yelling that he’d fight anyone who tried to stop him. That’s what happens when you try to break pack laws, or someone else tries to make you break them. Your wolf fights you. Your body fights you.

The team wasn’t getting it. Hal was trying to explain that Price would kill him, Fiona was saying basically the same thing only more sarcastically, and Destiny was coaxing him with how much better life would be with a pack of good people who actually wanted him. Then Rafa threatened to pick him up and drag him, like it or not.

Manuel yelled, “Just try it. I’ll shift and rip your fucking throat out!”