Page 20 of Meant for Them
“Yeah? Did you find something?”
“I'm going to need you to bring out the ATV. Yeah, I found…something. Female wolf, on the smaller side, pretty rough condition. She’s got a stick piercing her leg pretty good.”
I’m met with silence, and I creep closer to see if I can figure out more about the poor animal.
“Awolfwolf, or shifter? And where are you at?”
I look around, trying to find some sort of marker. “Honestly? Not quite sure yet. I called you before I investigated too much. She’s maybe 50 feet west of marker 12? I'll send you my pin. I'mgoing to try and get a closer look; I don't think she's going to make it much longer otherwise. It looks like she's been here for a while.”
My brother starts cussing, but I don’t have time to calm him right now. I need all my attention to be on this pretty wolf that needs me.
“Hey there beautiful, I'm not going to hurt you, okay? I'm here to help you. I'd appreciate it if you kept your teeth firmly in your mouth.”
Up until now, she hasn't even moved. I can see from her rib cage that she's still breathing, at least somewhat, but her breaths are growing shallower by the minute.
I try and talk to her while looking at her mangled leg, wanting the stick out but wary of making her bleed out. “I'm so sorry this happened to you, we're going take care of you though, alright?”
She's still not really reacting and judging by her size I think she's a regular wolf, but as I get close enough to her to touch her, I can smell she's actually a shifter. That should make this easier, and safer. In theory. Should also make this situation about a thousand times more interesting.
I carefully prod around her injury, trying to see how bloody it might get if we pull it out; as soon as I start working though, she's whimpering, and it goes right to my chest. “I know, I know. It hurts. You must have been too exhausted to get this out yourself. This isn’t going to feel great, but it will only take a second, and then we'll make sure you're taken care of, alright? I’m going to get my jacket wrapped tight around that leg to try and staunch the bleeding as soon as I get this nasty stick out. I’m hoping your shifter healing will kick in.”
I take a deep breath so I can be steady for her, preparing for a snarl or something when I pull the stick out, but she's tooweak to even fight me. In addition to the open wound in her leg where she clearly tried to gnaw herself free and only succeeded in getting more injured, she's also dehydrated and lethargic.
“I'm going to carry you over here and then my brother's gonna come pick us up, okay? That way I can get you home faster. I’d just carry you back, but that would be pretty bumpy, and I don't want to jostle you too much. So short walk, and then we're home free. I don't know if you can hear me or not, but you're welcome to shift back if you feel like it. I'll give you my shirt to cover up if you want.”
Still no response, but that's okay. I grab the water bottle I fortunately brought with me and trickle some into her mouth, tipping her head back so she can swallow without choking.
That gets her attention; she shows a little bit of life as she tries to get as much water as possible. “That's it, drink it up. Plenty more where this came from soon as we get home.”
While I wait for Wiley to come get us, I start walking, wishing there was something else I could do to make her more comfortable. There’s a lead weight in my stomach when I try to imagine how badly it must have hurt to have that in there as long as it was, and I wish I could take all the pain for her.
When we get back, she's going to be pampered, and me and my brothers are going to make sure we do everything we can to help her feel better as fast as possible.
Wiley doesn't say much when he picks us up, he's too worried about her. I know we'll be checking the cameras later to figure out maybe where she entered our property and when she got the stick through her leg, but there’s a lot of blank space between cameras.
The other thing weighing heavily on my mind, and likely my brother’s too, is the fact that a female shifter just landed in our territory, and that kind of changes the stakes.
“I know, don't even say it. We need to be focusing on her and her health, though.”
Wiley rolls his eyes. “I'm not dumb enough to think we need to be considering anything, I just think it's interesting is all. Jake is going to be pissed he wasn't here. I swear the guy has a knight in shining armor complex.”
I look down at the beautiful dark wolf on my lap, petting her head softly. “Don't listen to him. He says stupid shit.”
“Rude. She’ll be more herself soon enough. Aren’t you a pretty wolf? I'm Wiley, by the way. The nice man holding you is Troy. I don't know how you got all the way into the middle of our territory, but you're more than welcome. We don't have a lot out here, but we do all right.”
Unloading her as smoothly as possible, I bring her straight to the bathroom so that we can give her a bath and get all the mud, sticks, and blood out of her fur. By the time I've got her wrapped in the biggest towel I can find, Wiley’s there with a steak he must have just grilled. He even cut it up so she won't have to spend too much energy tearing into it.
“I know you don't feel good, but eat something for me, would you? I'm going to wrap up your leg with some clean bandages so it can heal a little bit better,” Wiley coaxes her.
She sniffs a little towards the plate before diving into it, whimpering when she puts too much weight on her injured leg. That whimper damn near breaks my heart.
“Shh, come here, beautiful. I’ve got you, okay?” I scoop her onto my lap carefully once more, cradling the hurt leg so it doesn’tget disturbed, and I pick up a bite at a time for her to swallow. She takes the meat from my hands gently, trying her best not to injure me.
I can already feel some sort of bond attempting to form, and it’s so hard not to give into that, but I can’t do that to her. She’s likely just passing through and needs somewhere to crash while she heals. Never mind that there are very few people that could find themselves so far into our property. Big fan of sticking my head in the sand when I’m scared to want something good.
My brother is staring at me, clearly reading my internal struggle, but I don’t pay him any mind.
All my attention is on the wolf. “There you go, sweetheart. Good stuff? Yeah, he does pretty alright with the grill. Here, let’s get some more water in you.”
