Derek
Sometime in mid-August, Cal still hadn’t shifted back. He now spent nights on the other side of the large bed, but at pillow level. Close enough to touch, but not close enough to accidentally hurt Derek if startled. At least that’s what Derek thought the reasoning had to be.
Derek and Kit were painting the rebuilt outbuilding in a red shade that Mikael had said was traditional, and the cat roamed around the yard, peering into nooks and crannies, surveying its territory.
“He’s closer to the surface now,” Kit spoke quietly. “I’ve been feeling him much closer whenever I’m next to the cat.”
Derek nodded. He’d thought he felt the same thing, but without actual shifter senses, he couldn’t be sure.
Suddenly he saw the cat freeze in his peripheral vision. At the same time, Kit’s head whipped around in that direction.
Kit had just enough time to say, “Something’s coming” before a fluffy gray and black dog burst through the brushes from the woods and into the yard.
It seemed friendly when it saw Derek and Kit, but then the cat moved and the dog’s gaze locked on to the tabby form.
“No!” Derek yelled and ran toward the dog. “Go! Get away from here!”
The cat moved in that slinky, dangerous way to get between the threat and its family. It fluffed up and hissed, looking dangerous as hell.
The dog didn’t seem to think so, and before Derek got to them, it attacked.
The growls and hissing yowls were horrible, and all he could do was to stand there and watch the ball of animals rolling around.
“Dad, no!” Kit screamed, and Derek grabbed him as he tried to run past him.
“No Kit! Call Mikael, right now!”
There was a horrible shriek of pain and Derek couldn’t tell which animal it came from. Then all of a sudden, a loud growling filled the yard and Derek froze completely. Kit had run inside for his phone, and when Derek ever so slowly turned his head, he saw two large wolves running from behind him and into the fray.
The dog was startled enough that it stopped fighting, but not before it gave the much smaller cat body one final shake.
One of the wolves charged the dog and managed to knock it down. The dog yelped and fell, and didn’t get up.
As Derek watched, the cat’s body jerked as if having a seizure and then Cal was lying on the grass, bleeding from… somewhere.
The wolves shifted seamlessly, Rider going to the dog and Sean to Cal. Derek made it to his mate at the same time with Sean.
“He’s injured, but not too badly, let’s get him inside,” Sean said and Derek went into rescue mode.
That, he could do. He wasn’t sure what was happening to Cal, but he guessed that the cat had freaked out enough to let Cal push through.
Cal let out a pained sound when Sean and Derek lifted him, but didn’t regain consciousness.
“It shook him around the shoulder, not the neck,” Sean said as they moved as one up the stairs.
Derek felt his knees shake with relief.
“I don’t know where the dog came from,” he said. “It was just there, and looked friendly, and then….”
“It’s a Norwegian Elkhound. They’re used in moose and bear hunting here. I forgot to tell you it’s now officially hunting season so hunting dogs can be off-leash.”
Derek nodded. “Do you get a lot of them here?”
“Not really,” Sean grunted as he lifted Cal onto the bed where Kit had already spread clean towels.
“It’s alive,” Rider said from the doorway. “I put it in the wood shed. It’s waking up. It had this on,” he lifted a hand, showing a bright orange collar with a bulky thing attached.
“Ah, a tracking collar. Does it have a phone number?” Sean asked as he turned to his mate.
