Page 5 of Midnight Mate
“What a Monday,” he said, and realized it was actually Tuesday now. Past midnight, probably closer to one. “What a Tuesday, then.”
The wolf’s breathing had evened out some. Still too fast but less ragged. The immediate crisis had passed, leaving Clint with a two-hundred-pound predator on his living room floor and no idea what to do next.
Call someone? Who? Animal control would laugh at him. No human hospital would admit a wolf. Dr. Reeves—the emergency backup who’d helped during last month’s parvo outbreak—would ask questions Clint couldn’t answer.
Hey, I’ve got a werewolf bleeding out on my floor. What’s the protocol for that?
“Guess you’re staying here tonight.” Clint grabbed a clean towel from his bag, wiping the worst of the blood from his hands. “Fair warning, the accommodations are pretty basic. No room service.”
Mabel’s ear twitched.
Exhaustion hit him all at once, fourteen hours at the clinic plus emergency wolf surgery finally catching up. His shoulders ached. His back protested when he stood. Every part of him wanted to collapse into bed and pretend this was someone else's problem.
But the wolf was still watching him with those too-intelligent eyes, and Clint had already crossed whatever line existed between sensible caution and reckless compassion.
“I’m getting water,” he announced. “For both of us. You’ve lost too much blood to not be dehydrated.”
In the kitchen, he filled two bowls with water and grabbed a handful of clean dish towels. The wolf might not be able to drink easily while lying down, but he could at least drip water into its mouth if needed. Basic hydration was better than nothing.
When he returned, the wolf had shifted position slightly, curled more on its side to take pressure off the injured leg. Smart. Also concerning, since movement meant consciousness, and consciousness meant pain.
“Here.” Clint set one bowl within reach of the wolf’s muzzle. “If you can manage it.”
The wolf’s nose twitched, nostrils flaring. After a moment, its tongue emerged, lapping weakly at the water. Good sign. If it could drink, its body was still fighting.
Clint took a long drink of his own water, copper still hanging in the back of his throat, and tried to process the reality of his situation.
Injured shifter on his floor. Blood everywhere. No backup plan if things went wrong.
“My life used to be simple,” he said to no one in particular. “Wake up, go to work, come home. Rinse. Repeat. Now I’m apparently running a supernatural emergency ward.”
The wolf had stopped drinking, eyes growing heavy, exhaustion finally winning over vigilance. Made sense. Blood loss, trauma, and pain took their toll on any creature.
“You’re lucky I have a hero complex,” he told the sleeping wolf. “And terrible judgment. Really, spectacularly bad judgment.”
Grabbing a throw blanket from the couch, Clint draped it carefully over the wolf’s body, avoiding the bandaged areas. Probably pointless since the thing had fur, but it felt wrong to leave an injured... person... lying exposed on his floor.
Clint should probably sleep too, but leaving the wolf alone felt wrong. If it took a turn for the worse, if the bleeding started again, if whoever had hurt it came looking...
Too many ifs.
Moving to the chair, he settled in where he could watch the wolf without hovering. His shirt stuck to his skin where blood had soaked through, and exhaustion pulled at him like gravity. But leaving felt wrong. If something went sideways, if the wolf stopped breathing or started bleeding again, someone should be there.
Someone who apparently had no sense of self-preservation.
Mabel jumped down from her perch and padded over to him, butting her head against his shin before curling up on his feet. Her purr rumbled through the quiet room.
“At least one of us has good judgment,” he murmured, reaching down to scratch behind its ears.
Across the room, the wolf’s breathing had evened out into something approaching normal sleep. Blood no longer seeped through the bandages. The strange marks on its side seemed less angry in the soft lamplight.
Outside, wind rattled the windows. Inside, his living room had transformed into some kind of supernatural emergency ward, complete with a patient who might wake up human and have questions Clint had no answer to.
Like why he’d helped.
Like why he was still sitting here, watching over a stranger who’d shown up bleeding on his lawn.
Like why the sight of those too-intelligent eyes had made him throw caution aside and drag two hundred pounds of predator into his home.
