Everyone shut up. They weren’t scared, they were confused and frustrated. But it gave me a space to break in, because I sure couldn’t speak loud enough to be heard over all that yelling.
I said, “Manuel!”
He ran up to the sofa, grabbed my hand, and said, “They’re trying to make me break pack laws. Nick, you’re my real alpha. Tell them I can’t. I just can’t!”
I looked up at them and said, “He can’t. It’s a wolf thing.”
Hal came over too. He said, “Then what? Do we really all have to go stand over that pack while the kid runs the gauntlet?”
I thought about it. It did seem like the only way. Then I remembered Manuel saying, “You’re my real alpha.”
Pack laws are funny things. They work because wolves believe in them. Leave a pack the way it says you should, and that’s the last time its laws have a hold over you. Join a new pack, and you’re bound by new laws. Everything had gotten so fucked up and confusing by the time I left the pack, maybe I really was still Manuel’s alpha. Or maybe all we needed was for him and me to believe it.
I spoke to him wolf to wolf, like those other guys weren’t even there. “Do you accept me as your alpha?”
He nodded.
I said, “Then you only have to get past me.”
Destiny shouted, “Nick, don’t! It’s too soon!”
She was too late. I shifted. Right away, I realized what she’d meant. All the needles and stuff pulled out, and my bandages came loose. Blood started soaking into my fur. And it wasn’t just that. Shifting takes energy that I couldn’t afford to lose. All of a sudden, breathing was back to being this enormous effort.
But Manuel’s hand was right there in front of my muzzle. I bit him, just hard enough to draw blood. Then I gave him a little nudge, which was all I could manage. He stood up and took a step past me. And that was it. He was through the gauntlet.
The last thing I wanted was to shift again, but I had to. I was his alpha, so he was my responsibility. So I turned back into a man. It fucking hurt. All the bandages and stuff had slid around when I was a wolf, and when I shifted back, they broke or came off or tightened in the wrong places and made me bleed more.
I was covered in blankets, so Manuel couldn’t see what shifting had done to me. I had to get him the fuck out of there before he found out.
I gathered the strength I had left, which wasn’t much, and said, “Go to the other pack, right now. And don’t join another fucking gang. That’s my last order to you as your alpha.”
“Sure,” Manuel said. “I’m done with that anyway. Thanks, Nick. I’ll write. Rafa will fly me there, to make sure I arrive safe.”
Hal nodded at Rafa, and he grabbed Manuel and hustled him out.
I might have pulled the wool over the kid’s eyes, but not over the team’s. The second the door closed, Hal yanked off my blankets with one hand and pressed the other right down on my chest where Price had bitten me. It didn’t hurt, which by then I knew was bad news.
Hal yelled, “Destiny, get the first aid kit! Fiona, call in a helo for Dr. Bedford! Nick, keep breathing!”
My body obeyed him automatically, just like his team ran to obey him and Manuel had obeyed me.
I thought, Now that’s a good alpha. And before I could remind myself that he wasn’t my alpha or that there were more important things to think about, like that I might be dying, I blacked out.
When I woke up again, I could tell that days had gone by. I felt way better, and the number of things hooked up to me was down by at least half. Also, I’d been moved. Finally. I was in a tiny bedroom. Hal was there too, perched on a chair that was way too small for him and reading a book.
He looked up almost as soon as I opened my eyes. “Good to have you back with us. Dr. Bedford thought you’d be waking up about now.”
I said, “Did you bring me to your fucking house?”
Hal shook his head. “Nah, this is still the office. We had two spare rooms, so I put a bed in one. I’ll probably put a bed in the other one too. We work around the clock often enough that we could use them.”
It was weird to finally be able to have a conversation with him. Before, he’d just been talking to me. Now that I could talk back, I wasn’t sure what to say. We obviously weren’t still enemies, but we weren’t friends, either. I didn’t know what we were.
“Thanks for saving my life,” I said. “And for finding a place for Manuel. He needed a pack, and he sure as hell couldn’t go back to mine. Or whoever the fuck’s it is by now.”
“Price took over,” Hal said.
“Fuck!” I banged my fist into the mattress. Bad move. My whole body hurt like hell now that I was out of shock and off the painkillers. But I was so furious, it steamrollered the pain. “I fucking knew it. I’m going to kill that motherfucker.”