Malachi growled. None of the three wolves even blinked at it, so he wasn’t wielding his alpha power right now. He was interacting with them…as a friend. Unguarded and vulnerable, though stubborn. April had never seen this side of him before, and her heart grew tender. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. With his other hand he raised the tumbler and took a long drink…and kept drinking. He must have nearly drained the whole thing by the time he stopped.
“That answers one question,” Aaron said. “Extreme thirst?”
Malachi nodded.
“Normal. Just please keep drinking all the water you can stand for the next twenty-four hours.”
Another nod.
“Your scars don’t look great. Are they sore at all?”
“Yes,” Malachi said.
Aaron waited, then sighed when Malachi said nothing more. “Very sore? What’s your pain level right now?”
“Tolerable.”
Aaron shoved the stray curl out of his eyes. “Mal, I need to know.”
“I’ll live, thanks to you and April—and to all my pack.”
“You felt us?” Ezra said. “Like April said?”
“I felt you individually in the room. And I felt you as a whole.”
“Wow.”
“And I’m here with my pack, alive, so any pain is tolerable.”
“I still need to monitor your condition.” Aaron’s voice held an edge. “It’s my responsibility to you and to the pack.”
“Go ahead.”
“Just tell me how you’re feeling, Mal, please. Spare us both the twenty questions.”
For a long minute, Malachi was quiet. At last he said, his rasp impossibly rough, “I feel the path of each bullet, where it entered and where it left and the path between. They ache.”
“A faint ache? Or a strong ache?”
“They’re…not faint.”
“Okay.” Aaron’s voice hushed, as though Malachi’s admission were something fragile and rare. “Okay, thanks. I’m not sure if that’s worrisome or not. I mean, I’ve got nothing for comparison here, not in George’s notes or my experience.”
“I’m in no danger from it.”
“You’re sure?”
Malachi leveled a look at him that spoke of long history between these two—Aaron as beta, as medic, as friend, and yes, perhaps as worrier. But then the glower softened, and he said, “Trust me, Aaron.”
“Yeah. Okay. Is there anything else I need to know right now that I haven’t asked you?”
This pause lasted even longer. At last Malachi said, “I’m weak.”
“Okay,” Aaron said again, almost gentle. “Well, you lost probably half the blood volume of your entire body, Mal. And that was like…less than three hours ago. Medically speaking, I’d expect you to be weak.” He cocked one dark eyebrow. “In fact it’s kind of ridiculous that you’re lucid and sitting up.”
Malachi growled with a sudden unleashing of authority that caused the other wolves to bow their heads. Then he subsided, and his friends relaxed.
“It’s not acceptable for the alpha to be physically compromised right now,” he said quietly.
