“Well, I wish to hell they’d quiet down. They’re making the real patients nervous.”
“I’ll see if there’s anything I can do.” Drake had seen the girl when the boys had brought her in. She was scared and she was in pain.
The boys looked scared too, but they put up a tough front, snarling at anyone who approached, demanding a Were medic look at her and no one else. Drake’s instinct had been to help her, but she’d put in a call to Sophia Revnik, the medic who had worked in the ER for five years and who, after the Exodus, had announced to everyone she was a wolf Were. Drake liked the plucky blonde, but some of their colleagues had given Sophia the cold shoulder since discovering she was a Praetern.
“Why bother with them,” Harvey scoffed.
“Because that’s why we’re here,” Drake said, realizing that at the next ER staff meeting she’d have to bring up the schism developing around treating Praeterns. The bias had been subtle at first, but as each day passed, the prejudice was growing. The heated public debate over allowing Praeterns the rights of full citizenship hadn’t helped. Some, more each day it seemed, argued that the constitution only protected humans.
“Watch yourself,” Harvey grunted as she walked away.
She stopped in front of the cubicle, not foolish enough to surprise the boys when they were obviously upset.
“Hey,” she said to the curtain. “I’m Dr. McKennan. Can I help you at all? Can I come in?”
“No,” a rough male voice snapped back.
“Look—I can start an IV, maybe give her something for pain.”
“No one will touch her.”
Drake took a breath, kept her voice calm. “Someone’s going to have to.” She debated sliding back the curtain, but the sound of a commotion coming from the direction of the ER entrance diverted her.
A blonde strode toward her, but it wasn’t Sophia Revnik. This woman was taller and leaner than Sophia, with dusty blond waves that just brushed her collar in place of Sophia’s shoulder-length platinum locks.
Keen blue eyes that took in everything around her in one sharp sweep dominated her strong, angular face. Even dressed in jeans and a plain navy T-shirt, she exuded an unmistakable air of authority.
Everyone in her path backed away, hurriedly averting their gaze, but as the blonde bore down on her, Drake couldn’t look away. When the slate blue eyes fixed on hers, an unexpected wave of heat coursed through her. She had seen Sylvan Mir, the Special U.S. Councilor on Were Affairs, on television but the cameras had not done her justice.
They had made her look older than she obviously was and had muted her untamed beauty and charisma. She smelled wild too—burnt pine and cinnamon, with an undercurrent of tangy sensuality.
“Are you responsible for them?” Drake said, holding up one hand.
“I need to see the girl but they won’t let me in.” Slowing, Sylvan studied the woman standing almost protectively in front of the closed curtain. Her thick, collar-length black hair contrasted sharply with her ivory skin, as if her face were bathed in moonlight.
Her carved cheekbones and slightly square jaw reminded her of the stark beauty of sweeping mountain peaks. She wore scrubs the color of warm blood, and she blocked Sylvan’s path with unwavering courage.
This stranger should have been afraid—of her and of her nearly out-of-control adolescents behind the thin curtain—but her charcoal gray eyes radiated only calm. A calm that slid over Sylvan’s skin like the brush of warm lips. Sylvan shook off the unfamiliar urge to let down her guard, to rest for a moment in that seductive peacefulness. She could smell Misha’s pain, the boys’ rising aggression. They were hers to protect, and this human had put herself between her and her wolves. A very dangerous and foolish thing to do.
“Who are you?” Sylvan demanded.
“Dr. Drake McKennan.”
“You’re a human physician.”
“Yes. You’re the Were Alpha, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Sylvan said, impressed with the human’s use of the terms.
Many humans preferred to avoid a direct reference to her species or her status. “Sylvan Mir.”
Drake finally broke free of Sylvan’s hypnotic gaze and took in the whole of her long-limbed, rangy body. “You’re barefoot.” For just a second, Sylvan’s full, perfectly proportioned lips flickered, as if she might smile, but then her expression cooled. She moved forward so quickly, Drake barely had time to get out of her path.“You’ll excuse me.” Sylvan reached for the curtain. “I need to see to my young.”
“Can I help you?”
“No.” Sylvan pulled the curtain aside.
Drake stayed where she was. The Were Alpha hadn’t said she couldn’t watch.
“Alpha!” one of the boys exclaimed. Both boys, handsome dark-haired teenagers with startlingly beautiful dark green eyes, immediately ducked their heads, seeming to shrink in on themselves. The equally beautiful brunette girl on the stretcher whimpered.
“What happened?” Sylvan growled.
“Rogues,” one of the boys whispered. “They attacked us in the park. We fought them, Alpha, but—”
Drake jerked in shock and barely stifled a protest when Sylvan Mir grabbed the boy by the collar and yanked him up onto his toes, shaking him so hard his thick black hair flew into his face. The Alpha and the young male were nearly the same size, but she handled him as if he were half her weight.
“You brought Misha out of the Compound and then failed to protect her?” Sylvan roared.
The boy trembled in her grasp and the girl, to her credit, forced herself upright on the stretcher, even though she was in obvious pain.
“I don’t need males to protect me,” Misha cried, her dark brown irises circled in gold. “I am strong enough—” Sylvan whipped her head around and silenced the girl with a glare. “And you? You followed these brainless pups against my explicit orders? You want to be a soldier, yet cannot obey a simple command from your Alpha?”
The girl’s pale face blanched even whiter and she shuddered.
“She was attacked,” Drake exclaimed, instinctively wanting to shield the injured girl. There’d been a time when she had been the defenseless one, and no one had stood for her. She had stopped hoping for, stopped needing, that kind of caring a long time ago, but she couldn’t erase her bone-deep drive to defend the defenseless. “She’s hurt and in no condition—”
“This is none of your concern,” Sylvan snarled, rounding on Drake, lethal-looking canines flashing. Her eyes were no longer blue, but wolf-gold. “These are my wolves.” Drake stiffened, the memory of bruises inflicted by older, stronger youths in a group home suddenly as fresh as if the blows had been delivered yesterday. She heard a low rumble and her skin prickled, the fine hairs on her arms and neck quivering. Forcing herself to think, not react, Drake assessed the scene as she would an unknown clinical situation. The boy was limp in the Alpha’s grasp, the way Drake had seen young kittens and puppies go boneless in their mothers’ jaws.
The teenagers did not appear frightened or abused. Chastised, yes.
But not afraid. In fact, all three of them looked at Sylvan Mir with something close to adulation. Drake realized that no matter how human they appeared, these Weres did not live by human social and moral conventions, and she was out of her element.