Page 15 of Fool Moon First Aid

“It’s Brody. You paged me,” I reply, my pulse quickening.

“Oh, I sure as fuck did,” she answers, her gum snapping in the background. It’s a sound that has become a familiar backdrop to our conversations. It tells me how annoyed she is at any given moment by the number of snaps she makes with her gum. “Your pack is on their way in. They said you’d want to handle this case. Tell Mercy in surgical to prep the OR.”

A frown creases my forehead. “Did they say why?”

“No clue. ETA is five,” she answers briskly before the line goes dead.

“Go,” Dr. Martin says again. “We’ll handle this.”

I hesitate for a moment, my suggestion to divert humans to their hospitals lingering unsaid on my lips. Instead, I look at Mercy, her dampire features a blend of ethereal beauty and hidden strength. “Prep the OR,” I instruct.

“Why?” she asks, her eyebrow arching in a way that accentuates her otherworldly features.

“No idea. Ethan and Tyler called it in,” I reply, my gaze fixed on the clock. Time is slipping away, and I need to hurry.

I don’t know why, but something inside me is telling me that it isn’t just important, it’s a matter that involves my future.

Brody

I rush out of the room, the corridor blurring as I move. I silently thank Ethan and Tyler for pulling me out of a difficult conversation. With the hunter attacks escalating in boldness and malice, the idea of taking my pack and leaving Mystic Falls becomes a siren’s call in my mind. It would be easy to pack up and move farther into the wilderness than we already are. The fear of another victim, another life torn apart by hatred, looms over me as I prepare to face whatever waits in the ED.

I won’t ever leave, though. Despite the omnipresent shadow of death, I love it here—the pulsing heart of the community, the adrenaline of my job, the sense of purpose that anchors me. Mystic Falls is a small town surrounded by forests, where we live. It’s close enough I can run to work in my wolf form without anyone freaking out, and the forest is dense enough to keep the hunters out.

Avoiding the elevator, I opt for the stairs, descending into the belly of the ED. Each step brings a contrast of sounds, from the hushed calm of the stairwell to the imminent chaos awaiting below. As I’m a floor away, the murmurs of voices start seeping through the walls. The scents of antiseptic, blood, fear, and relief mingle to form a potent cocktail that hits me before I even see the first patient.

It’s a sensory overload that few shifters can handle, but I’ve never used a plug for my nose or a de-scenter. Perhaps it’s the part of me that still clings to the fantasy of a mate walking through those doors—a fiery, nurse she-wolf, or a mystifying witch. We’d lock eyes, imprint, and then tumble into a love story written in the stars, but reality isn’t so kind or predictable.

With a deep, steadying inhale, my hand resting on the cold metal door that separates me from my domain, I brace for impact and push through with just a minute to spare. The cacophony of the ED hits me like a tidal wave. The overlapping voices, the distant wails and cries, and the symphony of human suffering and hope is a twisted kind of music to my ears.

Perhaps there’s a streak of masochism in me.

“B-dawg!” A male nurse with eyes so blue, they border on ethereal, slaps my shoulder. “Bay one.”

“Kael, what’s the siren doing in the ED?” I ask, striding alongside him to bay one. We scrub in, the ritualistic washing of hands grounding me, even as nerves tickle my throat. Kael, a siren, has a gift for calming the emotions in our patients and is a rare treasure in the ED.

“Huggie called me,” Kael replies, his voice laced with concern. His worry is a palpable wave that washes over me. “Said he might need me.”

“Ethan called?” I mutter, glancing toward the bay door that rolls open with an ominous creak. It opens right into a trauma room. Huggie is Ethan’s nickname, a moniker that he earned time and time again. “What have they brought us this time?” I murmur, more to myself than to him.

“No clue. I’m as in the dark as you are,” Kael responds, his gaze flicking toward Marcus, our resident ghost nurse. Marcus floats by, his spectral form shimmering slightly. He’s the ghostly guardian of the night shift with the ability to move through floors to alert other doctors as we need them.

The moment the ambulance backs into the bay, my instincts kick into high gear. Kael moves with a fluidity born of countless emergencies, his hands already gloved and ready. As I shake my hands dry, Marcus dives through the ambulance doors, his ethereal form slipping past the barriers of the physical world to peek at what we have coming in.

Ethan leaps out of the ambulance driver’s seat, his sizeable frame imposing yet dwarfed slightly by mine in height. His eyes, deep pools of chocolate brown, lock onto mine with an intensity that sends an electric current down my spine. He’s cut off our bond, and I can’t help but wonder why.

I don’t have to wait long to understand, as he opens the doors to reveal Tyler and a patient hidden behind his lean frame.

As the scent of blood fills the air, a softer, more delicate aroma weaves through it—lavender and wildflowers. It’s a scent that tugs at something primal within me. When Ty reveals the stretcher with a woman lying on it, bleeding and broken, every fiber of my being understands the urgency of their call. This is no ordinary case.

Mate.

Every instinct in me screams, a mixture of primal urges clashing with the trained discipline of a doctor. As I focus on the patient, her fragile human form contrasts sharply with the spiritkin resilience I’m accustomed to, and she is human, as far as I can tell. She doesn’t have the unique scent of spiritkin lingering on her. Her heart rate, a slow, ominous beep on the monitor, is alarmingly sluggish, and she’s bleeding profusely. The space is thick with the metallic scent of blood, and her pale skin, marred by bruises and the stark red of her wounds, paints a picture of vulnerability. She’s human with severe injuries—broken ribs, which I can tell are hindering her breathing, a visibly swollen and misshapen ankle, and a snow globe, its whimsical contents now a dangerous shard embedded in her leg, threatening catastrophic blood loss.

“Fuck,” I mutter, my voice a low growl of concern as Ty and I carefully maneuver her onto the hospital bed. Her eyes, stormy and defiant under furrowed brows, flicker with a tumult of pain and strength, barely staying open.

Our mate is severely wounded. Fear pulses through my veins, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t tamp it down.

“Are you guys always this rough with your patients, or am I just lucky?” Her attempt at humor comes out as a raspy whisper, her voice strained yet laced with a stubborn tenacity. Despite her fading consciousness, her spirit remains unbroken.

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