“I wish we could take her to the hospital, too,” I finally looked up at Tegan to explain myself. “We risk her life if we do. You know the Hunter won’t stop. He intended to hurt her. He might have planned to kill her. What will he do if he learns his plan didn’t succeed? You said he was speeding up?”
Tegan nodded shakily, tears filling her eyes as I continued, “He knows where we live. He proved that by walking along our pack borders. He didn’t need Zee to find us. He didn’t even let her get close. He was using her as a weapon. We already know he’s watching us. He obviously saw Zee with me or with you. He knew she meant something to us, and he attacked her.”
Tegan searched my face for a moment and then looked down at Zee’s still form. She nodded her head and reached out to hold Zee’s uninjured hand again. I could hear Jarren’s howls off in the distance, letting me know he was on his way to the house. I also heard vehicles coming from the direction of the pack house.
I looked up to watch the jeep drive slowly up, stopping a few feet from where we knelt with Zee’s body. The truck pulled around to park by the wrecked car. Delaney jumped from the jeep and came to a halt. Her gaze flicked from Zee on the ground to the car for a moment and then she ran around to open the back of the jeep.
“Tegan, I need you to help me,” I told her. “I can lift her, but I need you to steady her arm. I don’t want to do any more damage to it.” Tegan nodded and with her help I had Zee cradled in my arms. Wyatt picked up the blankets and followed us to the rear of the jeep.
Delaney had filled the back of the jeep with blankets. She was up inside and with her help we managed to get Zee settled into the nest of blankets. We covered her with the blankets from her car and I climbed in to tuck them in tightly around her. Her lips were an unnatural shade of blue and I worried that hypothermia had set in.
I glanced up at Delaney and found her watching me, “Can you drive?” She nodded and climbed through to the front seat and started the jeep. “Wyatt, help Ryker get the car out of here. Clean everything up. We’ll meet you back at the house.” Wyatt shut the back end of the jeep and Delaney turned the car around. She drove as fast as she could on the slick roads, but it took longer than I liked to get back to the house.
A dark panel van sat in the driveway as we pulled up. I could see Jarren waiting on the porch, and I knew the van belonged to his friend. He came down the stairs and opened the back of the jeep. I scented the air and didn’t pick up the smell from the hunter. I did pick up the smell of an unknown wolf, and I fought the territorial growl that wanted to work up into my chest.
“Eli’s setting up one of the rooms on the first floor,” Jarren said. “There’s a backboard in his van. He said to use it in case she has any spinal injuries, so they won’t be worsened.” With that Jarren turned and jogged to the van. When he came back, he had what looked like a backboard from an ambulance. He slid in beside Zee and with Tegan stabilizing her left arm we lifted Zee while Delaney moved the board under her. Once she was buckled in place Jarren and I took her into the house.
Mackenzie was running into the kitchen as we walked in. I heard her running water. Aaron silently led us to the room Jarren’s friend had set up. An IV was already set up on a pole, ready for Zee, and a heart monitor beside it. The bed had been stripped down to the plain white sheets and a table had been set up in the room. It was covered in instruments; many I didn’t recognize.
A male stood by the bed, body tense, but full of an air of authority. He was the source of the new wolf smell. A growl rumbled in my chest as I halted just inside the room. The male didn’t defer to me but held my gaze. It wasn’t defiance, but more like mutual respect. He rubbed the alpha in me the wrong way, much like Jarren had the first time we met.
“Leave her buckled to the board and put it on the bed,” the male, who Jarren had called Eli, motioned to the bed as he snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. We did as he said, and the others backed away. I couldn’t force myself to move away from Zee.
I watched the male move quickly and efficiently around the bed. He deftly inserted the needle in her good arm and hooked up the IV. With shears he cut away her shirt and attached the heart monitor pads in several places on her body. A quick flick on the machine and it started beeping with her heartbeat. He used a penlight to look into each of her eyes, and then tested the feeling in her toes and fingers.
I watched him, waiting for some sign that things were going good or bad. On occasion he would frown, but her heart rate seemed to please him and her reactions when he tested for feeling made his lips turn up in a tight smile. He unbuckled her and motioned for my help. We rolled her to her right side, and he ran his hand gently along her spine.
Finally, he nodded, “Okay keep her stable right there and I’ll move this board.” He eased the board out
