Page 37 of Pixie Problems
After a few hour nap at home, Naut and I teleported back to the shop. It was dark, even though it wasn’t even seven-thirty at night. We’d been getting cooler temps lately in Moonhaven as we were heading into fall, and cooler temps meant the sun had started going down a lot earlier than I’d gotten used to.
Just before I put my hand on the glass so the magic recognized me, Naut growled, and his hackles raised as he stared at a dark corner of the street.
Seriously, where were the street lights? This place was a thief and homicidal maniac’s best friend. I reached for my gun in my waistband. I didn’t have any offensive spells on the shop yet, or else I’d hurry in there and let the shop eat whoever was stalking me in the dark.
“Show yourself!” I called.
Out from the darkness stepped ten coyote shifters, all in their coyote forms.
Oh boy. I was tough, but I wasn’t dumb. Just as I was about to grab Naut’s ruff, and tell him to teleport usanywhereelse, they jumped us. Three of them separated Naut and I, getting him away from me. I didn’t know how, but they’d obviously heard that he was a teleporting wolf. Naut snarled and attacked, while I loaded a magazine, flicked the safety off, racked a bullet into the chamber, and got a couple shots in before a snarling grey coyote took me to the ground. It nailed me so hard that when I hit the ground, I saw stars. I wheezed, trying to force air back into my spasming lungs, but my lungs refused to cooperate with me.Get up, get up! You can’t stay on the ground!
I reached for my knife in the sheaf around my ankle, but before I could grab it, a different coyote snarled and ripped into the hand that held my gun. I screamed in pain, and managed to grab my knife with my non-mangled hand. I got enough space to maneuver by kicking one of them in the head, and slashing another one. They both released me with a sharp whine, but another two pounced on me before I could drag myself to my feet and attacked my leg. They bit down through my jeans hard enough to draw blood.
I screamed. I dropped the knife and reached blindly for my gun, bringing it up again with a hand that was shaking terribly, I swung it toward the coyotes still mauling my leg and shot them at close range.Bam, bam, bam.I took three down, but the rest swarmed me, all at once. I growled in frustration. I might be going down, but I was taking as many of them with me as I could. I savagely wished I had some kind of transferrable disease so they would all get it and suffer before my untimely demise.
A gray coyote, bigger than a Great Dane, ripped open my side, and I screamed even as I headbutted him, knocking him away. His sharp cry as he fell seemed to egg the others on to a greater frenzy.
The sound of tires peeling across the pavement and a door slamming made me rally and I became a wild thing as I tried to fight harder. I bit, scratched, kicked, punched, and in one case, busted some coyote eyeballs.
Into the fray waded Rhys. He’d made a club out of starlight, and he started bashing heads with it. He tossed me one, and I looked at it in severe dislike, before wrapping my bloody right hand around it and picking it up. It felt like I’d submerged my hand into a bucket of ice, but the coldburnedlikedragon fire.I yelped, but somehow managed to keep a hold of it long enough to swing and hit the two coyotes that were pinning me down. I cracked it down on the head of the one that was going for my throat, then smashed it into the other one. When the last one went down, all was silent.
The starlight club disappeared from my hand as Rhys knelt next to me. “Where are you bit?” he asked frantically.
I sat up with a grimace. Ugh, I think I was bruised everywhere. “My hand mostly, some on my leg and my side. They got in a few shallow bites and scratches elsewhere, but they aren’t as deep, I think.”
He pulled me into his lap and gently took my hand, then winced when he saw the deep, bloody gashes. He looked like he wanted to bash the coyotes’ heads in all over again.
My head shot up. “Naut!” Rhys helped me stand, and I staggered as the whole world tilted. He steadied me as I looked around the area frantically for my wolf, ignoring that I was staggering around like I’d had a six pack of soda.
“Oh, Naut,” I whispered as I knelt next to him.
They’d got him good. He whined and licked my hand as I pet him. I pulled my cell phone out and dialed Finn. I hated the delay for Naut, but we needed cops to come down and take the coyotes away.
“Tell me,” he barked into the phone.
“I was attacked in front of my shop. Ten coyotes. Rhys helped me take them out. Knocked out, not dead,” I said succinctly. “Get here fast. I have to take my wolf to Ben.”
Ben, like he was Mary Poppins or something, popped out of the ether and hurried to Naut’s side. “Never mind. Ben’s here,” I said incredulously. “I’m going with him to his clinic. Rhys will wait here until you come to take them away.”
Rhys was protesting behind me, but I ignored him until I hung up, then I turned. He was swearing as one of the coyotes had come to and chomped down on his leg out of spite. He knocked it out again with a glazey silver magic, and I waited until he looked at me. “Rhys.”
“Yes.” He looked about as happy as a polar bear coming out of hibernation and twice as hungry.
“Thank you,” I said fervently. I hugged him, and kissed his cheek. “You saved my life.”
He held me tenderly. I could feel him shaking. I didn’t know if it was adrenalin, or if he’d beenthatafraid for me, but he was shaking more than a hula dancer after an energy drink. My head rested against his muscled chest as he ran a hand over my hair. I let him, because I sensed it was needed as much for him as for myself. He kissed the top of my head very gently, and my heart melted.Oh, star elf. You’re going to be the death of me.I pulled back reluctantly, nodded at Rhys, and then turned back to Ben and held onto his shirtsleeve.
“Naut,” Ben said firmly. “The clinic.”
I blinked and we were standing in one of the large operating rooms at Ben’s clinic. There was a raised operation platform bed and lots of things around the room that I didn’t know the use of. I took it all in with a single glance, and then focused my attention on my poor wolf. Ben and I lifted him onto the bed, and Ben used his hands like a scanner as a faint golden magic radiated from his hands. He moved them up and down Naut’s body very slowly and carefully, as though he were completing a highly detailed scan. For about the thousandth time I wished my Insight worked on animals. It didn’t, and that sucked.
“Torn ligaments and skin. No damage to any organs. No broken bones,” Ben said. He looked up at me. “His magic is helping to repair him already, and that’s good. It’ll give him the boost he needs to heal quicker.” Ben moved and let me slip into his spot near Naut’s head. “Just talk to him. Keep him calm.”
So I did. I babbled endlessly while Naut was medicated, shaved and stitched up, about my new shop and the beings I would be able to help. I told Naut all about Finn and how he was a good alpha and a good police chief, and then I told him some stories about Lucky. Things that had happened prior to the time he’d joined our household. Finally, I told him about Rhys, how I was falling for him, but that I was afraid he would hurt me. Afraid that I was too much for him. I realized that I was just babbling at the end, talking to Naut about anything and everything so he didn’t feel alone.
I didn’t even realize I was crying messily until Naut whined and licked my face. “Ick. Naut slobber!” I teased him with a small sob, and he whined again, his tail thumping.
I turned to Ben. “Is he in pain?” I demanded.
