“You have my word as the alpha of my pack that no harm will come to you.” Lisa shook her head and muttered, “I’m not touching that with a fifty-foot pole.” She returned her attention to the naked man and saw that he had a bad chest wound. Quickly pulling off her jacket, she put it over the wound. “Push down on this hard. The wound needs pressure to help staunch the bleeding. Can you pick him up?” The man on the ground seemed just as big as his friend, and she didn’t see how he’d be able to lift someone so solid. But the large man had muscles that Lisa knew she really shouldn’t be noticing in the midst of such a crisis.
“I can carry him. My name is Tyler.” He slipped his arms under his friend and lifted him as if he weighed no more than a child.
Lisa blinked and stood. She followed him to her car and muttered, “Still not touching it. Just going to pretend this is all completely normal. Nothing is weird about this. Just a hit-and-run victim that needs help. No naked wolf men or men who appear out of nowhere.”
“Are you able to drive, or are you too busy losing your shit?” Tyler asked her.
She shot him a glare. “I can always leave you here in the middle of the road.”
His lips turned up in a small smirk after laying the unconscious man in the back seat. “That’s good.”
Lisa frowned. “What’s good?”
“That you’ve got claws.” He walked around to the passenger side and somehow folded his large body into the small vehicle. “You’re going to need them where we’re going.”
She climbed into the driver seat and shoved the keys into the ignition. “I’m going to need claws at the hospital?” She shrugged and started the engine. “You’re not wrong, actually. A bunch of female nurses working together for thirteen to fifteen hours straight—claws definitely come out.” She put the car in drive and started to turn the vehicle around to head back to the hospital where she worked.
Tyler put his hand on the steering wheel, stopping her motion effortlessly. “Not the hospital. We take him back to the pack. You have medical training?”
No, no, no, she chanted in her mind. Say no. “Yes.” Dammit, why did I say yes? Because I’m wearing scrubs, genius. With a damn hospital badge.
“If you get him stable, he will heal on his own.”
Her eyes widened. “He has a massive gash in his chest, and he’s lost a lot of blood. There was a river of it on the road, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I promised you that no harm will come to you, and I keep my word. I will also compensate you well if you will do this.” Tyler glanced over his shoulder to the man in the back. “He can’t go to a hospital. If he phased in the middle of being sewn up, it probably wouldn’t go over well.”
“I have no idea what the hell phasing is unless it’s something he’s going through that he’s going to grow out of,” she muttered. “Fine. Where to?”
Lisa’s mind returned to the present when she heard her phone ring. She walked over to where it hung on the wall and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Lisa, it’s Rose.”
Lisa sighed. “Hi, Rose. It’s good to hear from you.”
“Is my daughter there?” The female alpha’s voice was filled with worry. “She was supposed to call when she arrived, but I haven’t heard from her.”
“Yes, they got here safely. Tanya has gone for a run. She said she needed to stretch her legs after such a long journey in the van. Not to mention, she probably needed fresh air after being stuck in there with those three males.”
Rose chuckled though it sounded forced. “Yes, I imagine she did.” She cleared her throat, and Lisa knew what Tanya’s mother was going to ask. “Is she alright? When I spoke to her before, she sounded like something was off. She usually talks to me. It’s not like her to keep stuff from me.”
“You know it’s not my place to share what Tanya tells me, Rose,” Lisa said gently. “She’s a grown woman. It’s her decision if and when she talks to you if there is something bothering her.”
“I know.” The alpha sounded completely helpless. Lisa hated that she couldn’t share. She cared about Rose, even if she was mated to an asshat. “I just worry about her.”
“As a good parent should. But you’ve got to let her grow up.” Lisa felt a little strange giving parenting advice, considering she didn’t have any children. Not to mention, Rose Ellis was a hell of a lot older than her, even if she didn’t look a day over forty.
“Will you remind her to call me? Tell her I won’t meddle. I just want to hear her voice.”
“I can do that,” Lisa assured her. They said their goodbyes, and Lisa put the phone back on its cradle. Her arm felt so tired just from holding the phone to her ear for that brief conversation. The rest of her felt just as exhausted. Her medical treatments took more and more of her strength every time she went in. Tyler had cussed a blue streak when she’d told him about the cancer. Over the years, they’d become as close as family. She looked at him as an older brother, though she looked much older than him than when she met him thirty years ago. She’d come to the pack mansion that dark night and helped a man named Eric—a man who wasn’t just a man. She’d learned all about the Canis lupus, and Tyler had trusted her with that information. He’d let her leave without so much as a threat, knowing that she could have told someone. But she didn’t. And Tyler called her again when another of their pack was injured. Eventually, Tyler insisted she just work for the pack. He made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, and she’d been there ever since.
Lisa looked over at the food she’d laid out on the counter. She wanted to cook for Tanya, but she needed a little rest before she could do it. She’d just lay down for a half hour to regain her strength. As she walked slowly to her room, she thought about Tanya and the pain she’d seen in her eyes when she’d told Lisa about her true mate. She’d known the man all of ten minutes, and already she’d written him off. Lisa didn’t fully understand the true mate bond, but she understood human relationships and human emotions. She understood that people could love more than once whether that was “romantic” or not. The case was that regardless of Tanya and Dillon’s fate, they were going to have to choose to be together and not just rely on the mate bond. Their relationship had begun with pain, and it would take time to heal. Lisa just hoped Tanya wouldn’t give up before she even gave it a chance.
Chapter
Seven
“When life gives you lemons, squeeze them in your enemies’ eyes.” ~Dillon
