Page 4 of Midnight Mate
The wolf’s ear twitched. Just once, but enough to let him know it was listening.
“Yeah, I know. Terrible bedside manner. The gerbils at the clinic complain about it too.”
Suturing took concentration. The wolf’s skin was tougher than a regular canine’s, requiring more force to push the needle through. Each stitch pulled the edges of torn flesh together, neat rows marching across the worst of the damage. His fingers moved on autopilot, muscle memory from thousands of similar procedures, though usually on creatures that couldn’t later shake his hand and thank him.
Or sue him for malpractice.
Did shifters sue? Everyone sued these days.
“Almost done with this part,” he said, tying off another suture. “Then we’ll deal with that leg.” He resumed working, trying not to think about what he’d gotten himself into. “Mom always said I had terrible judgment. ‘Clint,’ she’d say, ‘why can’t you date nice people? Why can’t you have normal problems?’ Well, Mom, here’s your answer. I don’t date anyone because my life is too bizarre for nice men.”
The wolf’s eyes snapped to him, like it agreed with Clint.
Setting the break would hurt. No way around it. Even with the wolf barely conscious, manipulating broken bone would trigger a pain response. But leaving it meant the bone might heal wrong, assuming the shifter healing eventually kicked in.
Strange marks caught his attention as he worked lower, cleaning blood away from the wolf’s flank. Not cuts or bruises, but something else. Faint lines traced across the skin under the fur, darker than the surrounding tissue. Almost like...
“Huh.” Clint leaned closer, parting the fur carefully. “These look like burn marks. Or maybe electrical burns?”
Scorch marks, really. Thin lines that branched like lightning across maybe six inches of skin. Old enough to have started healing but recent enough to still be visible. Whatever caused them had happened before tonight’s injuries.
The wolf’s breathing hitched.
“Sorry. Won’t poke at them.” Clint moved his attention back to the immediate problems. “Though if you’re regularly getting electrocuted, we need to talk about your life choices.”
From her perch on the armchair, Mabel watched the proceedings with feline disdain. Her tail flicked once, twice, before she settled into a loaf position that suggested she’d appointed herself supervisor of this disaster.
“Don’t give me that look,” Clint told her. “Yes, I brought home a giant predator. Yes, it’s bleeding on our floor. No, I don’t have a good explanation.”
Mabel’s slow blink conveyed exactly what she thought of his decision-making skills.
The leg came next. Clint’s hands moved along the bone, feeling the break through fur and muscle. Clean fracture of the tibia, thankfully. Could have been worse. Could have been compound, bone through skin, or shattered beyond his ability to set it properly.
“This is going to hurt,” he warned, though the wolf seemed barely conscious now. “If you can hear me, try not to bite my face off.”
Aligning the bone took steady pressure. Pull to separate the broken ends, rotate slightly to match the alignment, then ease them back together. The wolf’s whole body went rigid, a sound escaping that wasn’t quite animal or human.
“I know, I know. I’m an asshole.” Clint grabbed the splinting materials. “But it’s better than having your leg heal sideways. Trust me on that one.”
Clint worked quickly after that, splinting the leg with materials meant for much smaller animals. Gauze wrapped around and around, then rigid supports on either side, then more gauze. Not pretty, but it would hold the bone in place until the shifter magic did its thing.
If it did its thing.
Why wasn’t it doing its thing?
“There we go. Worst part’s over. Probably. I mean you still might die, but at least your leg will be straight when you do.” Clint sat back on his heels, surveying his work. Bandages covered the worst wounds, the leg was immobilized, and the bleeding had mostly stopped.
Blood loss was still a concern, as was shock and whatever had prevented the healing in the first place. But those were problems beyond his ability to fix with needle and thread.
“You’re way too calm about this.” He taped the last bandage in place. “Either you’re in shock or you’ve done this before. Neither option makes me feel better about my life choices tonight.”
The wolf’s eyes hadn’t closed through any of it. Dark amber in the lamplight, they tracked Clint’s movements without aggression or fear. Just watching. Trust, maybe. Or maybe just too exhausted to do anything else.
“You need fluids,” Clint said, more to himself than the wolf. “And antibiotics, though I’m not sure what dosage to give someone who’s technically two species at once. Is your metabolism more human or more wolf? Do you process medications differently when shifted?”
Questions he had no answers for. His veterinary training hadn’t covered this particular scenario. The semester on exotic animals had included nothing about treating people who turned into animals when the moon was full or they were pissed off or whatever triggered it.
Blood had dried on his hands, under his fingernails, across his shirt. The living room smelled like copper and antiseptic and wet dog. His coffee table had become a makeshift surgical platform, supplies scattered across its surface. The living room looked like a crime scene. Which, technically, it might be.
