Page 62 of A Wolf’s Wound

Hannah

The wind picks up, blowing that evil scent away and leaving injured and confused shifters in its wake.

I turn my attention from Ryder to the shifters that are milling around before us. I notice one is lying on the ground, clutching his leg.

“I’m going to help him,” I tell Ryder.

“Wait,” he says. “I don’t want you mingling with the shifters by yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say impatiently, but he’s looking past me and then waves at a figure in the back of the crowd.

“Sam!” Ryder calls, and a stocky wolf that I recognize from the Stone compound barbecue the other week makes his way to us. “Glad you’re here, man. You okay?”

“I’m fine. I followed the pack,” Sam says. “I figured something was up.”

“Yeah, you got that right,” Ryder says grimly. “I have to get back to the compound and get some equipment to deal with the body. Can you keep an eye on Hannah?”

“This is totally unnecessary,” I tell them both, but Sam’s already nodding.

“Sure, whatever you need.”

Ryder turns to me. “Hannah, humor me, please? I need to know you’ll be okay.”

I sigh. “All right, fine. I’ll see you soon?”

Ryder nods. “I promise. And my family will be here even sooner.”

As he rushes away, Sam follows me into the crowd. We make our way to the shifter I saw, but I notice a few other injured shifters on our way to him.

“I’m a doctor,” I tell the shifter as I reach his side. “Let me help you.”

“Thanks,” the shifter grunts. “I think it’s my ankle.”

“Any other wounded, bring them over here,” I tell Sam before turning my attention to the shifter’s ankle, which is swollen and bruised.

By the time I’m done wrapping what turns out to be a bad sprain, a short line of shifters are waiting for care. I work quickly, and Sam proves to be an able assistant as I stitch up cuts, bandage bruises, and splint joints.

“Hannah!” a woman’s voice calls out. I turn around and see Lori making her way toward me. “Are you okay?”

“Lori!” I cry in relief. “I am so glad to see you.” I finish taping down a bandage over some stitches before turning back to the shifter. “Come see me in the clinic in two days,” I instruct him, and he nods.

As the shifter leaves, Lori embraces me in a tight hug. “Oh, I was so worried!” she says.

“I’m okay. Are you? And the rest of the family?”

Lori nods. “We are, but oh my, this is a mess.”

I laugh ruefully. “That’s one way of putting this.”

“No humans were injured,” Lori tells me, and I nod as a wave of relief rushes over me.

“That’s amazing.”

“I know.” She surveys the chaos around us, the piles of ashes and charred remains along with the shifters that look shell-shocked and dazed. “Now we have to take care of our own.”

“Can we help with that?” a familiar voice asks.

I turn around, and my eyes fill with tears at the sight of my mother and stepfather. “Mom!”

“Hannah!” my mother cries, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Oh, sweetheart, I’ve been so worried about you!”

“How did you know to get here?” I ask.

“Ryder insisted that I call them,” Lori explains. “He thought you could use your parents right now.”

“He was right,” I say, finally pulling away from my mother. My stepdad immediately wraps me up in a huge hug.

“Thank you for calling us,” my mom tells Lori.

“You’re welcome, but the credit belongs to my son,” Lori says as Ryder returns to the area. “Ryder, these are Hannah’s parents.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you, even under these circumstances,” Ryder says as he shakes my stepdad’s hand. When he extends his hand to my mother, she laughs and gives him a hug.

“Anything we can do to help out, please let us know,” my stepfather tells Ryder and Lori.

“I could use more help with the medical side of things, actually,” I say. “Sam’s been super helpful, but another pair of hands would be even better.”

“Say no more,” my mother tells me. “Honey, make yourself useful somewhere else. I’m sure Ryder could use help with cleanup.”

“That’s an understatement,” Gavin says as he joins our group. He shakes my stepdad’s hand, too.

“This is quite a mess,” Gavin adds, surveying the scene. “At some point I’m going to need you two to tell me exactly what happened.”

“Later,” Ryder says quietly.

“There is one thing I need to know right now, I’m afraid,” Gavin says. “That scent.”

Ryder nods. “Yeah. Brian created it.”

“Why? And is it gone?”

“There’s no more here, but we’ll need to check his apartment,” Ryder says. “But explaining ‘why’ is a lot more difficult.”

“I don’t know if we’ll ever have a good answer,” I murmur in agreement.

“Okay, but he unleashed the scent and it drew the shifters here,” Gavin says.

“Right. He created a scent that would drive shifters to bite humans and try to turn them into wolves,” Ryder says.

“Oh my,” Lori says quietly, her face pale. “That’s incredibly dangerous.”

“I know.” Ryder sighs. “The bodies we found? Those were essentially test subjects. He was tinkering with the formula, and to find out if it would work he’d unleash the scent and see what happened.

Either shifters clawed themselves to death or humans were broken by a failed shift, all because Brian wanted to ‘help’ us no longer be oppressed by humanity.

” I shake my head. I never expected he’d become so obsessed with me that it would turn into this.

“So you smelled it too,” Gavin says to Ryder.

“Several times,” Ryder tells him.

Gavin furrows his brow. “But Hannah’s okay. Right? You didn’t bite her?”

“No,” Ryder says, looking at me.

“He fought it off. It was really intense, though. I didn’t know you were that strong,” I say to Ryder, and he blushes slightly.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Ryder says, and now I’m the one blushing.

My mother watches this exchange with amusement, but Gavin’s looking at both me and Ryder with a serious expression. I can’t figure out why.

“Really, I’m okay,” I say to Gavin. “No bites or anything.”

“But how did you…” Gavin begins but then trails off. “Ryder, I don’t think any shifter could have summoned up that kind of resistance, given how strong the scent was and how close it was to you.”

“It was bad,” Ryder allows. “But then I became aware of another scent and it, I don’t know, it cleared my mind. It made me unable to hurt Hannah.”

“Shit,” Gavin hisses, but he doesn’t sound mad. If anything, he sounds impressed.

“What?” I ask.

“The mate bond,” Gavin says.

“You think so?” Lori asks, even as my mom starts nodding.

“I can see it now,” my mom tells her.

“What are you guys talking about?” I ask uneasily because I think I already know.

“The scent Ryder smelled,” Gavin begins.

But Ryder interrupts him. “Wait, really? I wasn’t sure.”

“Really, man.”

“Will someone tell me what’s going on!” I yell. “It has been a very long night and I’m tired and smell like death. I don’t need people talking in code about me while I’m standing right here!”

“Sorry, Hannah,” Gavin says. “But the scent that Ryder smelled that stopped him? That’s the mate bond. You’re his mate.”

What the actual fuck ? I whirl around and stare at Ryder.