Page 42 of Healing Creek (Arena Dogs #3)

Chapter Thirty-Four

“I’ll be fine,” Grace softly promised.

Creek would gladly carry her on a trek around the equator of this unknown world to ensure those words were true.

Facing her family should be nothing. Only, it had been his responsibility to protect her and instead she’d saved him…

twice. He’d witnessed the horrible price her sacrifices were taking on her body.

The Hawley hovered briefly overhead before it zipped off into the night sky. The ship took with it the new family he’d become a part of. He’d expected he and Grace would be a part of that together.

“Creek, look at me. Please.” Grace reached up and cupped his cheek, drawing his gaze to hers.

“You look pale.” The moonlight made her always pale skin look luminescent, but he didn’t tell her that. She was ill and needed care he couldn’t provide.

Her lips tightened into a grimace before it softened into a smile that was only for him. “You’re still worried about me.”

Her words were whispered into the night that was alive with sound. Woodland creatures foraged, hunted, survived. Wind rustled the leaves in the trees that reached high over their heads.

“How will they know where to find us?” asked Jennifer. A purple bruise still covered one side of her face and her split lip was swollen and fat. They should have treated her on the Hawley . Hers was the type of trauma the emergency med-bay was intended for.

“The Hawley will let them know.” Creek breathed in the scent of the dense vegetation all around them along with Grace’s subtly off scent.

Like his almond cookies had been left in the oven a touch too long.

Did the slight difference in her scent mean Grace was right about her illness being nothing serious?

No. He’d seen the seizure. This was serious.

The mechanical drumming of a ship’s engine swelled to overwhelm the night sounds and the clearing flooded with light.

The vessel was small enough for only a few passengers, but several larger craft flew in the sky above, moving off toward the lab and its landing field.

The vessel, sleek and silver with a symbol painted near the front viewport, landed with a short hop in the grass.

The hatch slid open sideways, and a ramp extended.

“It’s a shuttle from the Spark ,” Grace assured him.

Creek headed toward the hatch with Grace still in his arms. He recognized the tall blond man who greeted them at the opening as their brother, David. He waved them inside. Creek waited and let Jennifer go up the ramp first and she stepped easily into her brother’s arms.

“God, Jen. You look terrible. They said Grace needed medical.”

“Just bruises for me. Grace needs regen.” Creek thought he sensed a lie in her statement, but he couldn’t be sure with the scent of the ship’s engine in the air.

David met Creek’s gaze as he stepped back, pulling Jennifer along under his arm, to let them enter.

How did one greet a human brother? He simply nodded and headed to one of the seats. It was small and tight, but he managed.

David maneuvered through the narrow interior with ease. He stopped in front of them, leaned over and kissed Grace on the cheek.

“David,” she said softly. “Thanks for coming.”

Creek scented the lie in her gratitude. She was wishing he was not there so they could have gone back to the Abundance . Maybe mad that David brought the Alliance when he’d agreed not to.

He met Creek’s gaze again. “Can you put her in a seat so I can strap her in?”

“I’ll hold her.” He wasn’t letting go of her unless he had to.

“Right,” David agreed, and Creek could also smell the false acceptance of his reply.

Why did this family feel the need to lie to one another?

He had only a dozen minutes to ponder the dynamics of their family before they were swallowed by the blackness of space and approached a larger silver vessel that must be the Spark .

It had the same sleek lines as the little shuttle and the same symbol emblazoned on the side.

It was less than half the size of the Abundance .

Another, larger vessel lurked behind the Spark , dark like a shadow and heavily armored. Alliance Enforcers.

An opening appeared in the side of the Spark and David flew the smaller craft into a shuttle bay only big enough for just the one shuttle.

The moment the hatch opened, Creek got to his feet and carried Grace in her brother’s wake.

David led the way through hallways with light that glowed from everywhere, even the walls.

Every few meters a colorful panel displayed data of some kind.

They arrived in the med-bay, greeted by a blue suited man readying a scanner and other equipment Creek didn’t recognize.

Grace had been uncharacteristically quiet, and she remained silent as Creek placed her on the med-bed.

With the medic on one side of the bed and Jennifer on the other, Creek backed away to let them take care of her.

Her eyes did the talking her lips had withheld.

Don’t leave me , they begged. He stopped just beyond the reach of the medic and held her gaze.

I’ll stay , he replied without words. She reached out a hand as if to pull him back to her side.

A commotion at the door held him back from acting on the longing in his heart.

“Gracie!” The silver-blonde woman wearing a silver and gray pantsuit marched into the room like a whipmaster ready to lash everyone into line. She pushed her way to Grace and took her outstretched hand. “My baby girl, what happened?”

“I’m fine, Mother. Jenny’s the one that’s been through an ordeal.”

Helen Hobbs looked up at her other daughter. “Jennifer, are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Just bruises.” Jennifer was working efficiently and had several instruments in place. “Step back, Mom, I need to start the scan.”

“Yes, of course.” Helen released Grace’s hand and took a single step back. Creek had to step to the side to avoid her. Surprised, she looked him over with a more calculated gaze than she had her daughter.

“Creek,” he said simply.

Her eyebrows lifted and she nodded in acknowledgement.

“Sixty percent cellular degradation.” Jennifer read from her instruments as she prepped another device Creek wasn’t familiar with. “That’s high, Grace. We can’t wait for you to recover at the rate you’re going.”

“I didn’t have the equipment or the time for a cellular scan or I could have boosted my nutrition.”

Jennifer glanced his way before saying to Grace, “We can get you up to a safer level in a few hours, but we’ll need to induce coma to make that bearable for you.”

Grace met his gaze. “You’ll wait for me. We need to talk.”

He wasn’t sure he could leave her, even if it meant leaving his new family to stay with her “Yes. We’ll talk.”

He stepped forward and took her hand. She squeezed his hand tight. Creek looked up into Jennifer’s battered face. She had a hypo-injector ready. She nodded.

He looked down to Grace and watched as her gaze softened and her eyes fluttered close. Gently, he put her hand down on the edge of the bed and stepped back.

Helen spoke up. “I have the bridge crew holding off the Alliance Enforcer lieutenant who boarded before you arrived, but we can’t hold him off for long. David, you go and distract him a bit longer. I want to speak to Creek.”

She barked the orders like an alpha leading a pack. David obeyed his mother at once, practically jogging out of the room. Creek had seen the Alliance vessel. He supposed it had been too much to hope he could avoid them.

“Jennifer, you finish up here and then leave Grace’s care to the medic and come and join us in the executive meeting room. As the victim, your statement will be most important. We can try to keep him focused on that.”

When Helen turned and strode into the hall, Creek followed.

Helen didn’t look back. The hallway widened to a large observation point.

It was clearly a busy thoroughfare for the ship and the crew’s eyes watched him as they strode past. He followed Helen to one side of the observation port where she spun on her heel to face him.

Her cheeks were flushed red and her breathing was heavy, but her words were calm.

“Creek, I can’t thank you enough for the role you and your people have played in rescuing Grace and Jennifer from danger.”

His heart thumped slow with the shame. He’d done so little. But she wasn’t through talking.

“I can see Grace is very attached to you. But you’re a smart man. You can see that she needs special care.”

He didn’t need to listen to all her reasons why he shouldn’t be with Grace. He couldn’t bear it. “And my life is full of danger.”

“Yes, exactly. That’s why I must insist you leave her here with us.” Helen heaved a sigh. “She has always been fragile.”

That he could not let stand. “You might find she is stronger than you believe. At the laboratory she saved herself and her sister.”

“Was that before or after her seizure?” Her raised voice drew the attention of passing crew members.

His jaw clenched as he choked down any further argument.

He would not convince this woman that Grace was strong.

In the end, Helen was right that Grace was ill.

Too ill for the war they would be walking into if they stayed with Mercury’s pack.

And staying with Grace didn’t seem to be on the table.

Even if it was, could he walk away from the war to free his people? Could he walk away from his heart?

“Mother? Creek? Everything okay?” Jennifer appeared at his shoulder. Her face and lip were less swollen. She’d washed her face and brushed her hair.

Helen folded her arms across her chest and glared at Creek. “Do we understand each other?”

“Yes.” At his decisive confirmation her glare eased.

“Then everything is fine.” She took Jennifer’s hand. “Let’s go deal with the Enforcer.”

Creek followed in their wake.

They found David and the Enforcer outside the room where they were to meet. The Enforcer, introduced as Lieutenant Clayton, wore a crisp, deep green uniform, and looked Creek over with sharp gray eyes. He smelled of chemi-wash and the heavy metals of an overburdened air processor.

“Lieutenant, this is my daughter, Jennifer.” Helen put an arm around her daughter then waved a hand over her shoulder at him. “And this is Creek, a cousin on my mother’s side of the family.”

The woman lied as smooth as sandsilk.

The Lieutenant’s mouth opened as if he would speak then closed a moment before he made a humph of acknowledgement despite not being at all convinced.

Helen and Jennifer preceded them into the room and sat at one end of the long narrow table. David positioned himself at Creek’s side and he was grateful. That left the Lieutenant opposite them.

Creek sat quietly and listened to Jennifer recount her story of how Roma’s men had kidnapped her and forced her to work in the lab.

Clayton questioned her extensively on how she knew the men worked for Roma and how she knew the work she was doing was for Roma’s benefit.

It was clear to Creek that the Lieutenant was looking for a way to avoid taking action against the very formidable Roma.

Despite the obvious reluctance, Jennifer’s testimony was clear and convincing…until she got to how she’d escaped. They’d had no time to discuss their story and she looked to him as she spoke. It mattered not what she said, he would back her up.

Clayton finally grew frustrated with the sparsity of information Jennifer provided and turned to him. “Mr. Creek, how exactly did you locate the lab where Jennifer was working?”

Helen interrupted. “You mean, where she was being forced to work with regular beatings and threats against the life of her sister?”

“Yes, of course.”

Creek kept his level gaze on Clayton. “After Grace Hobbs-Venter escaped her captor, she came to me and asked for help locating her sister. We hired a mercenary who located the lab and brought us to the planet.” Feeona was more of a smuggler than a mercenary, but he thought it sounded plausible enough—and left out a lot of people he needed to protect.

“I’ll need the identity of this mercenary.”

“You will understand that we agreed to keep their involvement anonymous, considering they would incur the wrath of Roma in helping us.”

Clayton scowled then sighed when he saw Creek would not answer. “And I suppose that is who provided us with your coordinates on the planet surface.”

“Yes,” said Creek.

“And you and this mercenary took down all of the men we found in the lab?” Clayton looked satisfied with his own assumption, but Creek couldn’t resist the urge to contradict him.

“No.” Creek turned his gaze on Helen. “That was Jennifer and Grace. They used some chemical to knock the men out.” That much was true.

“Are you going to tell me they also slashed up half the guards?” The Lieutenant caught his attention with the question.

“Not at all. I don’t know how that happened. Perhaps a wild animal got into the lab.”

Clayton eyed his hands and the newly regenerated claws.

Helen slapped a hand down on the table. “I think you have enough explanation to take action against Roma in this matter.”

“We certainly have enough information to move forward against Dr. Smith and the guards at the lab. We’ll have to investigate to proceed beyond that.”

From there the conversation turned to the need to question Grace.

Creek’s jaw clenched as Helen and Jennifer explained that Grace was in a coma.

They informed Clayton that they would send him a recorded statement when she was well enough.

Helen also protested when the Lieutenant wanted to subject Creek to a DNA identity check.

He was glad to have such a strong alpha arguing on their behalf.

She could be trusted to look after Grace.

His heart beat slower in his chest and his muscles weakened as if he was once again bleeding out from a gaping hole in his shoulder, only this time Grace would not save him, and this time instead of his shoulder, it was his heart. He would never again allow her to risk her own life for his.

He’d been ready to give up his life the day of the auction. Now, he had far too much to do before he could surrender to sweet death. Yet, somehow his senses told him he was already in the grave.