Page 3 of Midnight Mate
Then its legs buckled.
The wolf went down hard, collapsing onto the grass with a thud Clint felt through the ground.
He covered the distance at a run, dropping to his knees beside the wolf. Up close, the injury looked worse. Deep gashes raked across its side, and the leg was definitely broken. Blood matted the dark fur, still wet and fresh.
Whatever had done this had been recent.
A low sound escaped it, something between a groan and a whine, making Clint’s training override his common sense.
“Okay. Okay, we’re not doing this out here.” He set down the bag and moved to the wolf’s side, hands hovering over its body while he assessed the situation. Too heavy to carry. He’d have to support it, and hope it could manage some of its own weight.
Carefully, he worked one arm under its shoulders and the other along its flank, avoiding the obvious injury. The fur was surprisingly soft under his hands, warm despite the blood loss.
“Come on. Work with me here, big guy. We need to get you inside where I can actually see what I’m doing.”
Whether it understood or just operated on the same desperate survival instinct that drove any wounded creature toward shelter, the wolf tried. It pushed with its hind legs while Clint hauled.
The animal’s weight made Clint grunt with effort. Muscle and bone pressed against him, warm despite the cool night air, and the wolf’s breathing roughened further with the movement.
Each step toward the house felt precarious. Clint’s back protested the strain, his shoulders burning, but he kept moving.
Every rational part of his brain screamed about inviting a predator into his home.
A shifter, no less.
Someone who could change into a person, who might have enemies, who might bring whatever trouble had caused this injury right to Clint’s door.
But the wolf’s breathing really was getting worse, and blood was soaking into Clint’s shirt, and he’d taken an oath a long time ago about helping creatures in pain.
Even the ones that could talk back.
But the alternative was leaving an injured person in his yard to bleed out, and that wasn’t really an alternative at all.
Whatever else shifters might be, they were still people.
Mostly.
The taxonomy got fuzzy.
Half carrying, half dragging a wolf that probably weighed more than he did was not on the list of things Clint had planned for tonight.
Neither was getting blood all over his entryway or praying that he wasn’t making the kind of mistake that ended with his face on the evening news.
But the wolf tried to help, pushing with its back legs when it could, and somehow, they made it through the door and into his living room.
Clint eased the creature down, grimacing at the blood now smeared across his hardwood.
That was a problem for later.
Right now, he needed to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it before his unexpected patient died on his living room floor.
Blood soaked through another towel, turning white cotton pink and then red. Clint grabbed fresh gauze from his bag, pressing it against the deepest gash while his other hand felt along the wolf’s ribs. Two definitely broken, maybe three. The breathing stayed shallow and rapid, not quite panting but close enough to worry him.
“Right, so here’s the situation.” Talking helped steady his hands, gave his brain something to focus on besides the absurdity of performing emergency veterinary care on someone who could probably bench-press him tomorrow. “You’ve got yourself some nasty lacerations here. The good news is they’re not arterial. Bad news is you’re still losing blood faster than I’d like.”
Saline solution ran clear, then pink, then red as he irrigated the wounds. Dirt and what looked like bits of tree bark came away with the blood. Whatever happened, the wolf had been running through rough terrain afterward. Running from something, most likely.
“Not my business,” Clint muttered, threading a suture needle. “Definitely not my business what a shifter was doing out there or who might have—”
