Page 2 of Wolf Bane (Marked #3)

“Well, I can just get your address from your file, and I’ll let the county know a dog in that area bit you unprovoked.

Unless you want to clarify things for me, Mr. Robards?

” Was it a goddamn wolf, Mr. Robards, or just your neighbor’s mutt?

The wound would require two layers of stitching, something I was not terribly fond of but had plenty of experience doing.

Though my patients were usually a little less active and vascular than Mr. Robards.

“Oh, good lord, Doctor Babin, it’s just a bite!

I scared the poor thing when I went out to the car this morning—it was sniffin’ ‘round under my porch, probably scentin’ a mole or something.

I stepped down, it yelped and chomp .” He forced a laugh, eyeing me warily as I put in the first stitch.

When I didn’t say anything, just placed the next stitch, he huffed.

“The dog’s not rabid! It’s a perfectly healthy little thing.

They’ve had it for a year or so now; I’ve seen the youngest one playing with it many times.

It just got scared is all. The Clemens—Ow! Watch it!””

He stared a moment or two longer, long enough for me to place two more stitches.

Finally, he unbent a little and nodded. “They got it around, oh, late August? Maybe early September. Must’ve been September—we had that freak cold snap, remember?

It never gets that cold here in September, but there we were, frost on the ground and everything.

I wish this climate change stuff could decide which way to go.

When I was a boy, we had snow regularly each winter up here, then it stopped, now it’s back again!

I don’t know if I need to get snow tires or invest in sunblock! ”

It was my turn to fake a laugh, adding another stitch as I went. “Did you speak with Vinnie after the bite, Mr. Robards? I’m sure he’d like to know if his, ah, dog is acting up.”

“Oh, you know he’s working at that new grocery store site they’re makin’ down at Lemmington, across the creek. I’m worried they’ll turn the damn thing into a strip mall with one of those huge HEBs right in the middle! Like we need a pawn shop and, oh, I don’t know, a chain bar, and?—”

I nodded along, my thoughts buzzing with a million different things.

I need to call Ethan. Shit, no, I need to call Cullen, maybe.

No, get it together, Landry. Talk to the Clemenses first. Press them about this dog bite thing because I’ll bet folding money little Melly’s going through some changes they’re not talking about. Fuck.

Mr. Robards rambled for the next twenty or so minutes while I finished up his stitches then took a blood sample, ostensibly to check for infection but… Well, if I sent it to the ICW labs, would they even deign to look at a human sample?

I stepped out to hand the sample box off to Reba. “Just a moment, Mr. Robards. We’re almost done here.”

He grunted, eyeing his bandaged wound. “I don’t want no trouble for those nice people, Doctor Babin. If you call the county about their dog, I’ll deny everything. I’ll tell ‘em you bit me if I have to!”

That startled a laugh out of me. “I won’t call the county, Mr. Robards. I promise.”

He grunted in satisfaction. “Good. Now I’m meetin’ my daughter in an hour for lunch, so…”

I nodded. “Of course.”

The rest of the morning moved in fits and starts.

Two human patients, one there for a follow up on an earache that just wasn’t clearing up, the other needing a referral for an endocrinologist. Right before lunch, there was a young woman who was nervous about a pregnancy scare.

To give her some peace of mind, I drew blood after reassuring her false negatives were rare, even on the cheapest home test. Reba signed her out and gave her the info for Planned Parenthood over in Dumfree,

“What about these?” Reba asked, pointing to the bright green sample box marked ICW—Specialty Testing. “I haven’t had to work with them before. They the same procedure as Lab Corp and Quest?”

Reba’s gaze was a little too sharp, a little too assessing. Or maybe I was imagining it out of my own uneasiness and a shred of guilt about lying to her. “Same procedure. If you have questions, the contact guy is Cullen. His number’s in the list.”

She made a thoughtful, humming sort of sound as she started prepping the paperwork for the other boxes, eyeing the ICW one.

“It’s weird, them just suddenly being a thing.

I mean, I know we didn’t send out a lot of labs at the ME’s office, but as far as I knew there were just the big three or four companies we worked with. ”

I forced a chuckle, which made Reba’s eyes narrow just a tiny bit more.

“It’s not like the box showed up by magic or something.

” I mean, it kind of did. Not magically.

It just sort of showed up though. It was sitting on my desk the day before the clinic officially opened.

Weres and shifters only . Any blood work I couldn’t do in office got sent to the ICW’s labs, the nearest one being Dallas.

Weres and shifters were a lot like regular humans, but a few things would ping as off—certain enzyme readings, blood pressure, basal temperature, heart rate, red blood count, that sort of thing.

Just off enough to make a regular lab mark it as an issue.

“They’re owned by the group that funded the clinic,” I added, already backing towards my office, hoping she didn’t follow like she sometimes did.

“Still…”

“Their focus is on underserved populations. Some of the patients have a history with this group already so…” I shrugged. “We’re not having to pay for the pick up, so I’m not gonna argue about it, so long as they keep doing their job.”

Reba’s pursed lips told me she was still uncertain, but she just nodded and turned back to the paperwork for the midday pick up.

Shit. This was gonna be a thing. I just knew it.

Not for the first time, I wondered about bringing Reba into the loop, so to speak.

She was—sigh—one of my very best friends, she’d been working with me for years now, and honestly if she hadn’t already noticed some weirdness, she would soon.

It was going to be almost impossible to keep hiding things from her if this clinic lasted more than a year.

* * *

It was unsettling, seeing patients like a regular doctor.

Though I suppose I was one now, since I’d done my recertification and all of my patients had a pulse.

Stepping out of my tiny office bathroom, I caught Reba’s eye.

From where she sat at the front desk, she had a view down the patient hallway to the waiting area.

She was currently, very pointedly, not looking towards the patients.

“What?”

She shook her head, lips pursed in displeasure as she cut a glance towards the waiting area. “The Clemenses are back,” she muttered. “They’re walk ins this time.”

I bit back a groan. The Clemenses had rocketed to the head of my list of problem patients on day one and were holding steady almost a month and a half later.

They’d come at least once a week for one kid or another, for icks and ailments that frankly didn’t really need a doctor’s assessment, but who was I to turn them away.

Though, as Reba reminded me more than once, it was perfectly legal to refuse a problematic patient, but I knew down to my toes that shunning the Clemens bunch would just cause more friction between Ethan and the clan. And maybe Ethan and me.

Still, the temptation was getting greater, what with their frequent late arrivals, treating the waiting area like a playground for rambunctious werewolf kiddos, skating dangerously close to the line when it came to making their true nature known to the humans waiting with them, and frequently demanding second, third, and fourth opinions when they didn’t like my diagnoses.

They only came to the clinic, I was sure, because they wanted to make my life hell.

Ethan tried to reassure me it was because they could actually see a doctor who knew what they were, who they were safe with, but he also hadn’t heard Celestine threaten to call animal control on me if she ever saw me shift.

I bet they were also fun at parties.

“All of them?”

“Minus the baby,” she sing-songed. “You ready?”

Groaning, I shook my head but went down the corridor to the exam room anyway, Reba’s soft snort of laughter following.

“About damn time,” Vinnie Clemens snarled the moment I opened the door.

A tall man, I had to crane my neck to meet his glare as he towered over me; Vinnie had been on my periphery for years as someone I should avoid as much as possible if I wanted to keep from getting my ass kicked.

He was one of the handful of shifters and weres in the area that had definite thoughts not just on my very existence but on my involvement with Ethan Stone, former sheriff for Belmarais and current(ish) clan leader and local go-to for all the weres and shifters.

And by thoughts, I mean he wished I would disappear and would be happy to make it happen himself .

“Vincent,” Celestine Clemens—matriarch of the Clemens clan and general pain in everyone’s ass, especially Vinnie’s—hissed. “Shut up for once, would you?”

Vinnie stared down at me for a long moment, channeling his inner Michael Meyers, before stomping back to sit on the flimsy plastic chair next to the room’s tiny desk. Celestine shot him a sharp, quelling glare before turning her gaze to me.

“You smell,” she said flatly. “You stink like wet dog. You been rollin’ around with one of the Stone boys?”

“Hey, y’all,” I said with forced cheer, “what brings you to the office today? Melly, how’s that rash?”

Melanie, all of six and about ninety percent dirt, popped her fingers out of her mouth and glared at me. “It’s not a rash. It’s just a beauty mark.”

The oozing rash on her neck begged to differ.

I glanced at Celestine. “Have you been applying the ointment I sent home last time?”