Page 68 of Wolf Forgotten

"I don't know! I followed his scent to his favorite place to think and found him like this. I couldn't pick up any other scents besides him." Eli was moving as fast as he could with a large wolf in his arms and we climbed the steps. "You called Sara, right?"

"Yes. She should-"

"Bloody hell! What happened?" Sara led the way down to the basement and opened a door I'd never even thought about. Inside looked like an operating room with four large metal tables.

Eli put him down, his entire front covered in blood. He grabbed a pair of clippers and started shaving Cole's side.

"I think I'm going to be sick." I turned, bumping right into Xander, who was paler than a ghost with terrified eyes. "Hey, let's wait upstairs." I put my hand on his cheek and backed him out of the room.

As soon as we reached the top of the stairs, he went to Eli's room and shut himself inside. The state Cole was in had triggered him and I wanted to know why, but it would have to wait.

I paced the hall outside the door leading to the basement. If I had just told Cole what happened that morning, this never would have happened.

Looking down the steps, I could see and smell Cole's blood on the stairs. A bitter smell hit my nose along with the blood. I didn't know what it was, but my wolf didn't like it.

My feet started moving down the steps; the sounds from below were frantic. As I made my way to the door where they'd taken Cole, the scene unfolded before me.

Cole was splayed out on a metal table, his side shaved for easy access to his abdomen, which had been opened to reveal more than I wanted to see. A puddle of blood was on the floor, drops of blood occasionally falling off the side of the table to join the pool of red.

Eli glanced at me before saying something to Dante, who turned and looked at me. He nodded and then walked past me and up the stairs, shutting the door behind him. When had he'd come in?

"There's a tunnel from the den." Eli lifted his chin toward a door on the opposite side of the room. "That's why we keep the basement door locked."

There were so many things I had to learn and I wanted Cole to be the one who shared those things, but he looked half-dead. Bringing my hand to my mouth, I covered a sob that spilled out.

“Hand me the staple gun.” Sara’s voice cut off my thoughts and my attention was back on Cole.

They packed his wound with an herb that smelled musky and floral. Eli handed her the surgical staple gun, and I watched as Eli held the incision together while Sara stapled it closed and put some kind of glue on it. She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm and stepped back.

“He should be okay in a few days. The poison is what's going to take some time to burn off.”

Poison?

I approached the table and looked down at Cole, who was still lifeless with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. My eyes went to the blood covering him, Eli, Sara, and the floor. There was so much, it was a miracle he wasn’t going to die.

By the time they had finished cleaning up the mess and Sara left, it was nearly midnight. My stomach growled and Eli gave me a small smile. "He's probably going to be out the rest of the night. Let's go upstairs and I'll feed you. Shit, Xander is probably starving."

"What's going on there?" I stayed in the chair I had moved from the kitchen table to sit beside the table Cole was resting on.

"What do you mean?" He washed his hands in the sink and dried them on a clean rag.

"You've been protective of him and been with him in your room." I ran my hand over Cole's snout to make sure he was still breathing. I had been checking every so often because his breaths were shallow. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

He laughed. "It's my job to take care of injured pack members or members who might need comfort."

"Well, if there was something-"

"There's not." He frowned at me. "You're my mate."

"But if there was, it would be fine to, you know... explore that." What an awkward conversation to have with someone.

"I'll keep that in mind." He gave me a funny look and pulled a blanket from a cabinet. "You aren't going to leave his side, are you?"

"We can't move him up to his bed?"

"Not until he shifts back. Those are his own rules." Eli tucked the blanket around Cole and then pulled me to my feet, wrapping his arms around me. At some point during my frazzled mental state, he'd pulled on clothes. "He'll be okay. I found him soon enough."

"What is the poison?" I rubbed my cheek on the soft fabric of his shirt, the faint smell of Cole's blood and fabric softener mixing.

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