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Not after protecting me so fiercely.
Not after his unbelievable sacrifice.
“I’ll help you,” I whispered. “I will, so help me.”
Luka was a big wolf and very heavy, almost too heavy for me to scoop up and carry into the cabin. But tearful, stubborn determination gave me strength I didn’t know I could drum up, and somehow I managed to carry my loyal friend into the cabin, laying him down on the braided rug in front of the fireplace.
Luka panted fast and hard, whimpering painfully. Squatting down to examine the wound, I saw that the bleeding had stopped, but not the oozing gray liquid.
What was that?
It was more pungent than the last time. I winced at the sharp, metallic smell, recalling the same order that first day Bryant had been shot. He had said that the bullet had been laced with a poison, one that had been counteracted and healed by the herbs he had me grind and spit into.
“Right!”
I raced over to the kitchen and grabbed the mortar and pestle, grabbed the clattering bottles of herbs that I hoped I remembered corrected. Furiously I ground them together, spitting into the bowl again and again. Finished, I rushed back over to Luka.
Then froze in my tracks.
Bryant laid there on the rug, curling into himself, gripping the wound at the base of his neck. “H-Hurry, l-love. It’s...faster...this time.”
“Oh, God,” I breathed.
Oh, God!
I couldn’t move, my fingers almost losing its grip and dropping the bowl and its precious medicine.
“H-hurry,” he rasped. “Please.”
Bryant’s desperate words snapped me out of my trance, and I raced over to apply the herbal mixture, refusing to contemplate just yet what I saw, what this meant. No time to analyze anything, or he was dead. Only time for action now.
“No! C-cut out...”
“The bullet, right. I remember.”
“Hurry.”
I ran to the kitchen and grabbed up the paring knife, then back over to Bryant. Swallowing hard, I stuck the tip of the blade into the wound to open it more, then plunged my fingers into the wound and felt around for the bullet. Bryant hissed and growled from the pain, ignoring my frantic apologies.
Miraculously I found and extracted the silver bullet and tossed it aside, then wiped away the excess blood and gray ooze before pushing in the herbal mixture.
Its effects took another excruciating minute, but I knew when it was working when Bryant heaved a ragged breath and his body slightly relaxed.
“Thank you. Thank you,” he breathed with great relief.
He wasn’t yet able to rise from the carpet, so I grabbed the nearest blanket and placed it over his naked body and a pillow for his sweating head.
When Bryant began to relax and breathe easier, I knew he was safely on the mend. Enough that I now had time to consider what I had just disturbingly witnessed—a wolf that had turned into a man.
But my wolf. And my man.
My logical brain refused to believe this at first, tried to reason it out. Still, I couldn’t deny what I had seen with my own eyes.
“So this was your big secret,” I said quietly. “You’re a werewolf.”
“Hmm.”
Yeah, I could see where this would be a difficult subject to bring up for our morning breakfast discussion.
