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“Stay with me buddy,” I ordered, hopping on the table and starting chest compressions. We were fucking wolves, this shouldn’t happen. We didn’t wound easily and we certainly didn’t die from burns. His eyes flickered open so I kept talking as I worked now that I could stop compressions. “I don’t think you have a choice buddy, you have to shift. You’ll have scarring but you’ll live through it.” He didn’t say anything or move, just breathed as his head lulled back and forth. I hopped down and moved to his head, tapping his cheeks to rouse him again.Fuck, please wake up!
“Daniel. Shift now!” Callum ordered, alpha power in the command. The smaller wolf shifted instantly, and Callum did the same, clothes shredding as he climbed on the table behind him. We had two pressed together so there was a bit of room left still. Enough for the twins to do the same, forming a puppy pile to help his healing along.
Daniel’s burns were still visible so I went to the cabinet and started searching for my burn salve. Thank fuck it was magic and not silver or we’d have lost the poor kid already.
“Is Nyx a healer?” Vanya whispered to Leven. I didn’t answer, but smiled as I started treating his burn patches, wrapping them in a light gauze.
“He’s full of surprises,” Leven said. The respect in his tone had me flushing with pride before I tuned them out completely.
Now that his actual wounds were tended to, I went back to my cabinet of dried herbs, mixing together a blend to help accelerate the healing. The scent of florals and herbs filled the space, the smell feeling like home to me. Before too long I had it ready, opening his jaw enough to cover his tongue. The wolf licked instinctively, swallowing it down and grimacing through the taste. Herbal healing never promised a good taste, just results.
“That’s all I can do,” I finally announced, stepping back. Sweat had spread across my brow and my hands started to shake as the adrenaline wore off.
“Let’s play back the feeds,” Vanya suggested. “Maybe we can make sense of it while they rest.”
“Good idea,” Leven said, impressed yet again as he took a seat in Antonio’s usual post. It took him quite a bit longer than our seasoned techie, but soon enough he had the feed back to the point of Daniel circling around the perimeter. Just as he hit the Bluffs at the back camera, he seemed to hit a wall. There was nothing there, yet he was thrown back, flying through the air much like Leven had before slamming down, flames dancing over his body in a flash before dwindling away. It was short lived but caused its damage.
“How did Callum know?” Vanya asked quietly, her voice shaking slightly. Leven reached back and took her hand.
“Antonio was watching feeds, it’s our version of back up on quiet days. Or what is supposed to be quiet,” he answered.
But my mind didn’t take this attack at face value. There was something more here. The fact he wasn’t present was telling enough, but what was his real goal?
“This isn’t it,” I said. Both Leven and Vanya turned to me, confused. “There’s more to this. He wasn’t even there.”
“But it was likely just a trap, right?” she asked.
“No. I don’t think so. There’s something he was doing during this distraction and I want to know what it is. Move, Leven,” I ordered. The stubborn wolf listened for once, lifting off of his chair and trying to make sense of my thought process.
“But he couldn’t get in,” he pointed out. “What else could he be doing?”
“Why are you so sure he can’t? You got out over the wall during the midnight run,” she countered. “I know you had jumping points, but he could have placed his own. Plus he has magic.”
The feeds all looked quiet when I pulled them all up to that exact time. I hit play; all of the screens lit up with different vantage points. We even had several inside the walls. Nothing seemed to move as they played forward, but my eyes shifted from one to the next rapidly, trying not to miss anything.
“There!” I shouted, pulling that one up full screen. Replaying it, we watched a wolf scale the wall in a single jump that shouldn’t have been possible, but that seemed to be this asshole’s calling card at this point. He walked out of frame so I pulled up the rest, watching him walk from frame to frame. His eyes met the cameras more than once. He was taunting us now, learning our security system.
“What the fuck? Did he just disappear?!” Vanya asked as the wolf blinked out of view and didn’t return on a single feed.
This is so much worse than we thought.
* * *
Vanya
He’sloose in our community.That thought continued to blare in my mind as the others jumped into action.
“What do we do with Vanya?” Leven asked frantically, pausing in the doorway of the triage room.
“Ask her,” Nyx suggested as he pulled on tactical gear, tucking guns into his holsters and a dagger for good measure. He was pissed, eyes hard and far more serious than I’d seen him yet.
“What’s going on?” Carlo asked as he stepped out with Leven. I looked away as he got dressed, putting on the same gear.
“I’m going wolf,” Leven said. “But to summarize, the tracker is somehow invisible and loose in the Bluffs. We have to find him and capture him. I don’t want him dead if we can help it, we need some fucking answers.”
“Give me gear,” I insisted. “Or I’m going wolf with Leven.”
“We don’t have any small enough,” Carlo winced.
