Page 79 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

“You’ll see it when you get here.”

It was cruel to be so vague, but I didn’t want to waste time explaining. I moved to the door on the opposite end of the room, wondering what hell it would lead me to.

It would have been better to wait for my friends and make sure our exit was secured, but the creatures around me were beginning to grunt in distress. I couldn’t just stand there staring at them.

I found another empty test tube rack and went through the second door, making sure to prop it open. I really wasn’t sure what to anticipate, but what was waiting for me was surprisingly banal. Just a long, empty hallway lined with simple brown doors on either side. For a moment, I wondered if I was dreaming, because it seemed like the nonchalant sort of logic such things used, but then I heard the faintest sound all the way at the end of the hall. Muffled, as if it was in a soundproofed room. Soundproofing had never held up to shifter senses.

I didn’t need the lights to turn red or an orchestral score to tell me that wasn’t a good sound, but I found myself creeping toward it anyway. I tried to move as quietly as possible, keeping my heart beat low even though my heart wanted to ricochet out of my chest. My sense of dread grew with every single step. The tension in the air seemed to crescendo all around me.

When I finally reached the door, the sound was more consistent, but not more identifiable. It almost sounded like a shrieking wind from miles away muffled by a door stopper trying its best.

I had to find out.

I turned the knob quietly, carefully, then stepped inside.

Right into an operating room gallery.

The room was small, basically the equivalent to a box seat, and it looked over what I could only describe as a scene out of some sort of medical horror movie. Wizards—not warlocks, this time—and a couple of mind-walkers were actively carving out the chest of a subject who was very much awake and alive, screaming at the top of their lungs and trying to fight the restraints that bolted them to the table. They were in so much pain. Even if I couldn’t smell it, I could see it, I could hear it. Every ounce of calm I possessed vanished. I had to get that person off the table.

The group hadn’t noticed me yet, and I used that to my advantage. Without so much as another thought, I launched myself through the window, tackling one of the surgeons.

It was pandemonium. The whole room filled with steam as I rapidly shifted into my wolf form. Although I did keep in mind my promise to Vanessa, I was sure she wouldn’t object to me making sure I did whatever I needed to do to free the test subject.

And what I needed to do was rip some throats out.

I had long since learned that speed was key when you encountered magic casters, so I tried to blitz them as best I could. It worked to my advantage that wizards were more scholarly. Their magic didn’t come to them as naturally as it did to witches, warlocks, enchanters, and people otherwise born with inherent magic. I was able to tear through three before one got a fireball off. It hurt like hell, but it took me close enough to the subject for me to bite at one of the chains around their ankle.

It didn’t break right away—I hadn’t thought it would—so, I kicked out at another wizard who was muttering the base of some spell, sending him flying into a wall. I returned my attention to the chain. My instincts told me to yank it, but I didn’t want to accidentally rip the victim’s foot off. That would make escape a whole lot harder.

Luckily, it broke, but as I went to work on one of the restraints holding his wrist in place, a wizard threw himself toward the wall and hit a red button.

An alarmed wailed, nearly deafening me, and the entire energy of the building changed.

Uh-oh. I had most definitely fucked up.

I didn’t let that distract me, however. Running toward the wizard, I slammed into him, locking my jaws around his flailing arm. Let him cast one of his fancy spells without any hand movements. He screamed as I ripped it off, but the screams petered out when I let go of his unattached limb and closed my teeth around his throat.

I made quick work of the remaining two, and as I was about to turn my attention to the victim, another set of doors burst open, and more enemies poured in. Some were dressed like the security guards at the estate, and some wore lab coats. I even spotted some in those same collars I’d seen the brothers use on my pack. Suddenly, it was twenty-to-one in a very enclosed space.

Not exactly great odds.

I had taken on way more than that at Chadwicke’s, but that had been an entirely different situation. I hadn’t fought more than a chunk of ten at one time, and there had only been two magic users in that entire fight—not counting the warlock. The ratio in this situation would be way different.

Most of all, though, I knew I had to get back to Ven and Ricky. What if they were being attacked?

Saying an internal apology to the person lying on the table and promising I would return for them, I then left right back out the surgical window and raced through the hall. The caged creatures were now almost all roused, and if they could make noise, they were. Some of them were even reaching out of the bars of their cage, no doubt pleading me to take them with me. It hurt right down to my core to leave them behind, but I had to. I had fucked up, but I would make it right. I would make it better. Iwouldreturn. No matter what.

It didn’t take me long to reach that same room I had been locked in, but this time Ven was at the door, trying to pry it open, while Ricky was clearly still fighting with the panel.

“What did you do? What did you do?” I heard her demand in a panic.

“It wasn’t me!” Ricky shouted.

I knew I shouldn’t, but I shifted into my human form. I had to tell them what had happened in case things got even worse.

“Oh, my God, Leo! We’ll get you out! I swear, we almost have it!”

“I’m the one who set off the alarm,” I said as quickly as I could. “There’s a whole lot of people about to pour in here who really wanna hurt us.”

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