Page 126 of Mortal Shift
Ryker narrowed his eyes, then threw his head back and laughed. Around us, I was vaguely aware of the gathered students exchanging confused and wary looks, and I worked hard to keep my face blank.
“That’s either the smartest thing any of these fuckers has ever said, or the most naïve.” He raked his eyes over me, his expression impenetrable and his eyes speculative. “What kind of human throws themselves in front of a pissed off wolf? I don’t know if that was the bravest or the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. Sure as fuck was the more ferocious, though. See you on the moon hunt, Ellis.”
I blinked, dumbstruck, and Ryker’s gaze snapped to Tristan, still down and twitching in the dirt behind me, watching us warily. “Get that worthless piece of shit out of my sight. And the rest of you, back to training!”
He stalked away, presumably to resume the lesson, but not before I caught the dark looks Kallan, Harvey, and Eva were sending my way, and it took me a moment to realize why. If I was on the moon hunt—however the hell that was going to work—it meant they weren’t. Great. That was what I needed. More enemies.
I blew out a breath and crouched next to Tristan.
“Can you shift? I don’t think you’re going to be walking on that front leg.”
His whole body seemed to shudder, then his outline blurred. He snarled and snapped at the air and inch by inch, his body shrank down and warped and twisted until he was back in human form, holding his broken arm against his chest. I looked him over, trying to gauge how badly injured he was. He’d been limping on his right hind in wolf form, and I glanced down at his leg folded under him. It didn’t look broken, at least.
I offered him my hand and he stared at it for a long moment before accepting it. He hissed in pain as I hauled him up, and I ran my eyes over him again.
“Can you walk?”
He nodded. “It’s just the arm that’s broken. Maybe a couple of ribs.”
He took one step and stumbled, almost crashing to the floor. I caught him and wrapped an arm around his waist, ignoring the wolf whistle from one of the idiots watching.
“Twisted ankle,” Tristan said. “I’ve had worse.”
“Yeah, but probably not with a broken arm and a couple of broken ribs at the same time. Come on, let’s get you to the infirmary.”
It took us a while to make it with Tristan hobbling along beside me, not that I minded—wasn’t like I had any reason to hurry back to the lesson, after all. I only turned up because I was pretty sure it pissed Ryker off—though I was starting to have my doubts about that. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’d looked at me with respect when I threw myself between Kallan and Tristan. Maybe I could make him hate me again in time to get out of the moon hunt. Bad enough when I’d thought Cole was going to have to carry me.
Shit. I hoped he was doing okay. Those bruises I’d seen on him… I clenched my jaw and pressed on, glad once we finally made it to the infirmary. The guard was still posted on the door and he raked his eyes over Tristan then stepped aside with a grunt.
I reached for the door, and he stretched an arm in front of me, barring my path.
“Not you. Just him.”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s got a twisted ankle. He can’t walk on his own.”
“Then he can fucking crawl. Patients only.”
“With a broken arm? Yeah, that’s going to work. Look, he can’t make it on his own, so either help him, or let me.”
He gave me a hard stare and I gave it right back. It took a lot more than a mean look to scare me these days. Most of the time, anyway. Eventually, he narrowed his eyes but dropped his arm, and I didn’t waste any time getting Tristan inside.
He grunted his thanks, and as the door swung shut behind us, the same older guy I’d seen the last time I’d been this way looked over at us and exhaled heavily.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” he said, gesturing to one of four empty beds on one side of the room. “Put him over there.”
I helped Tristan over to the bed, taking the opportunity to look around as he hobbled to it stiffly. I hadn’t been in many hospitals—in truth, I tended to avoid the places, and I’d never been injured badly enough that I couldn’t get better on my own—but this looked like I’d imagine any quiet ward in any hospital to look. At the far end, there was a small area sectioned off by a white curtain, and my heart rate spiked. There was only one person who could be behind there. Thaden.
“What happened?” a crisp voice demanded from behind me, and I jumped and turned to the healer as Thaden eased himself onto the edge of the bed.
“Um…training accident,” I said. “Of a kind.”
The healer’s brow furrowed in disapproval. “Yes, I can very well imagine the kind. As if I don’t have better things to do than waste my energy on a shifter who would heal in his own time if he could stay out of trouble long enough.”
“Sorry,” Tristan said, ducking the healer’s eye like a naughty schoolchild.
“Perhaps you should have considered the consequences of your actions before you did whatever you did to end up in this predicament,” the healer tutted.
“He couldn’t help being jumped by three shifters,” I said. “No-one could have won that fight.”
