He growled but otherwise ignored her as he continued working.
“I know wolves typically don’t, but this is life or death. Let me call. Or drive him to a hospital.”
“He doesn’t have that kind of time.”
“What?”
“Closest hospital is two hours away. Volunteer firefighters take almost an hour to get out to Harmony Ridge when humans call. So even if he’d let me, there isn’t time.”
She knew just enough wolf history to understand their shunning of human medicine. Still she would have resisted Aaron’s decision if there were a hospital at the end of the road. Instead she worked even harder alongside the pack’s medic, doing whatever he told her.
But in the next ten minutes Malachi’s pallor sharpened, and his breaths became shallow and rapid. Meanwhile voices came from the living room—sharp words, distraught growls—along with the vague sense that Rhett’s house now brimmed with people. The entire pack waited for news, though the wolves must already know Malachi’s condition was critical.
Aaron’s monologue had degraded to a two-word mantra. “Please, Mal, please, Mal, please, Mal, please…”
Then Ezra stepped into the doorway. “Aaron.”
“Not now,” Aaron said without looking up.
“You know the wolves know that scent. We—we want to see him, all of us. His pack wants to see him.”
“The last thing he needs is the odor of y’all’s fear for him in close quarters. Adding stress to hemorrhagic shock—no, Ezra.”
“We want to see our alpha,” Ezra said quietly.
“You can see him when I’ve got him stable. Now don’t distract me.”
Ezra left silently, but his dark-green eyes held stark fear and…grief.
“Aaron,” April said. “What scent?”
He said nothing, kept his head down, his hands like April’s pressed to wounds that would not stop bleeding. But he didn’t need to answer. She had known already. The wolves could smell death in this room.
“What can we do?” she said.
“This. What we’re doing.” Aaron’s voice sounded suddenly heavy.
“What about his pain?”
Aaron bared his teeth silently. An awful acknowledgment.
“Can’t we do something to—to ease it? Anything to ease it?”
“He doesn’t want me to.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“He made me promise a long time ago. If he weren’t lucid to make the call, never to administer any drugs—not for pain, not for sedation. Nothing.”
“I doubt his theorized scenarios included facing down a rifle squad!”
Aaron winced but said nothing. Of course he wouldn’t go against his alpha’s choice. And she had no idea how to inject pain medication—or even how to identify the medications in his kit.
“He won’t linger long, April.”
“What?” The word poked the air like a needle.
“He’s bleeding out, and I can’t stop it. He’s still breathing only because he’s a freaking seventeen-percent alpha wolf whose body doesn’t know how to quit. I can’t—” Aaron pushed a stray curl out of his eyes and left a smear of blood across his forehead. “I can’t help him.”
