“Malachi,” she whispered.
The wolf’s eyes opened, and they were his eyes. Deep, thoughtful, and beautiful gold. He saw her, and his heavy tail thumped once against the table. He gave a long, tired sigh. She took a step toward him, this beautiful wolf with the soul of Malachi. Her wolf.
“April—” Aaron moved to keep her back.
She set her hand gently on Aaron’s chest and nudged him aside. “He needs me close.”
No telling how she knew, but she did. The wildfire was coursing through her again, urgent and sure. But before either of them could move nearer to the table, the wolf shuddered, whined, and then the change happened again. Within a few seconds, Malachi lay in his human form, naked now.
Aaron picked up the ruined sweatpants and draped his friend as if modesty mattered in this moment. This time he didn’t try to stop April when she approached.
Malachi lay on his back, eyes closed, panting faintly. His wounds were sealed with angry red scars, almost too fresh. She reached toward them but stopped.
“Are they…painful?”
“I don’t know.” Aaron’s voice was hushed. “I’ve never seen this before. Anything like this. I didn’t know he could.”
“He didn’t believe me when I told him before.”
He darted a look at her but then refocused on his patient. “After a full night under the moon, our injuries look older than this. The scars look older, not so…raw.”
“Well, he wasn’t in wolf form very long. Stubborn alpha.” She blinked away a few tears. “But he’ll be all right now?”
Aaron tugged off his gloves, turning them inside-out in the process, then pressed two fingers to Malachi’s wrist. “His body temperature isn’t coming up. His pulse…” He cursed. “He’s fading. Malachi? Mal, wake up.”
“But that’s not—that’s not supposed to happen. He’s not bleeding anymore. The wolf form heals.”
“He was already deep in shock, and the change takes a huge energy toll, and he just changedtwicein two minutes. If he’s too weak, stopping the blood loss might not be enough.”
Too weak, after he had shown just how strong he was.
“April, quick, we need blankets. A lot of blankets.”
Yes. For shock. She knew that. She darted to the living room.
Behind her, Aaron said, “Mal, come on, man. Please wake up.”
Wolves and their mates huddled in a haze of distress so thick she could almost see it in the air. Before she had to ask, Willow thrust a heavy armful of fleece blankets toward her.
“Here, we found these,” Willow said. “Can we do anything else?”
“No, I don’t think so, I don’t know,” April blurted and ran back to the kitchen.
She bundled the blankets around Malachi, overlapped the layers so as to cover every inch of him from his neck to his feet. Beneath the blankets Aaron kept two fingers on his left wrist.
“Better?” she said when the fifth blanket was spread over the others and tucked in.
“I’m losing him,” Aaron said, his voice hardly a sound.
“Tell me what to do next.”
“Nothing. There’s nothing else.”
No. April shut her eyes and tried to think. Tried to understand what her wolf needed. He wasn’t meant to die tonight. She knew this all the way to her bones. She heard his rasping voice echo back from all their conversations, and she fought to piece together the full picture of Malachi. What would pick him up when he couldn’t pick himself up, lift him from the pit of shock and blood loss, pour lost strength back into him….
That was it.
“Bring the pack in here,” she said.
