Amber Flame Read online

  She set her phone on the dash-holder. She tapped ‘speaker’, hit the automatic garage door and cursed the damn thing for being so slow.

  Turning the key, she revved the engine and as soon as she had clearance, she drove out, bouncing off the curved driveway and shooting down the street.

  A deep wolf’s voice hit the airwaves. “Warren, here. Who’s this?”

  “Dr. Mary Somers from Revel. I’m a friend of Fergus’s and a trained veterinarian. He contacted me.” She debated for a moment. She didn’t want to get into the whole dreamglide situation, especially since she didn’t understand why Fergus had the ability to even create one. He was a wolf, not a fae. “That is, Fergus reached me telepathically. He’s in the Graveyard and he’s still alive, though barely. There’s a chance we can save him. But I’ll need your help getting him into the sling and back to my surgery. He said he needs wolf blood.”

  A long, tense pause followed, then, “Where in the Graveyard?” Exactly the words she needed to hear.

  “Not far from the bombing that took place about three months ago, you know, the one involving the witch, Iris.”

  “I know the location. I’m on my way.”

  The Graveyard was the roughest part of Five Bridges, full of ditches and cacti. Dozens of small makeshift bridges were the only means a four-wheel-anything could get through the no-man’s land. The large central part of their province kept all five territories separated. But it was a hellish place, given to death.

  She drove like a madwoman, but her powerful fae instincts told her every second counted.

  When she found Fergus, she screeched to a halt and sent dust, rocks and bits of concrete into the air. She backed up close to him, ignoring the fact that she couldn’t detect the rise and fall of his abdomen.

  He looked dead.

  She didn’t care. She knew what she knew.

  By the time she was using the controls to guide the sling over to Fergus, she felt a vibration in the air and knew Warren was close. “That you, Warren?” she called out. She didn’t turn to look.

  “Flying in behind you,” he shouted. “I’ve brought two of my men with me.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  Warren landed and slid across some of the debris to grab for the far end of the heavy rubber sling. He moved it next to Fergus.

  As soon as it was in position, she hurried to unlatch the closest side to her so that it lay flat.

  The men wasted no time as they picked Fergus up and slid him onto the sling. Mary worked around them as she grabbed the latches, then locked them in place.

  She stumbled heading back to the truck, picked herself up and with bleeding palms worked the machinery.

  The wolves kept the sling steady. Like the garage door, the damn thing couldn’t move fast enough. She let loose with a long string of beautiful words. She sensed all the wolves staring at her, but she only had eyes for the sight of Fergus’s black and way-too-dry snout as the sling drew close.

  “Warren, get up here on the back of the vehicle, your men with you. Take the Goddamn controls and keep Fergus steady. I’m taking off.”

  Warren levitated swiftly toward her. “I’ve got it, Mary.”

  She jumped over the side of the truck, landing in the gravel. She slid into the driver’s seat, started the Four-Runner and put the vehicle in motion.

  The large tires gave it the traction she needed through the shitty roads and wobbly bridges.

  She once more drove like she’d escaped from an institution.

  As she turned down her street, tires squealing, she contacted Warren telepathically. I need one of you to give him blood right away.

  I’ll do it, unless blood-type matters.

  Not with wolves. She knew at least that much about the species she disliked so much.

  As she pulled into the garage, she hopped out of the truck. “Warren, you and your men haul him to the surgery while I get the transfusion equipment set up. This way.” She gestured with a flip of her arm in the direction of the double swinging doors.

  She didn’t wait for Warren to say anything. She ran up the ramp and into the surgery and propped the doors open. She raced around and gathered tubing and needles. She locked in the feet of the surgical table to make sure it didn’t slide around. She could hear the men moving in her direction.

  Seeing them levitate up the ramp, she called out, “In here.”

  They carried him straight to the surgical table. Though she’d cared for great Danes on this table, it still wasn’t big enough for Fergus in his wolf form. One of the wolves held his hindquarters in both hands. She directed Warren to pull up a second smaller table and place it beneath Fergus’s hind end.

  Afterward, she threw a rubber tourniquet in Warren’s direction. “Tie yourself up. I need a strong vein.”

  “You got it.”

  From the corner of her eye, she watched him wrap the rubber strip around his arm.

  She ignored Fergus’s open, glassy-eyed look. He was hanging on by a thread, but he wasn’t dead yet. She quickly shaved his front right foreleg, then waved Warren in her direction.

  She wasn’t messing around with cleaning anything up. Time was her enemy.

  She inserted a needle into Fergus’s vein, though with difficulty. Not much blood was moving through his body.

  Without once making eye-contact with Warren, she began the transfusing process. She complimented him on the size of his vein, drove the needle home and watched as gravity did its thing and Warren’s beautiful red blood began to flow along the tubing.

  As soon as it reached Fergus’s vein, she felt a roll of energy move through the wolf’s body and the blood began to flow.

  Her eyes started to burn, and her throat felt tight.

  Warren’s wolf-voice sounded through the space. “This is a good sign, isn’t it? I mean, that the blood is going in.”

  “It is. It’s the best.”

  She took a moment to breathe and to give thanks for small miracles.

  With the most critical element in place, she began a careful examination of Fergus’s body. She quickly discovered the broken ribs. She couldn’t imagine what had done this kind of damage.

  With Fergus unconscious, she felt the individual ribs then carefully pulled each one back into place. There was no way she could perform any kind of surgery, not with how close he was to death. But she also knew that as soon as he was able, he could self-heal the bones. Her greater concern was making sure his lungs weren’t torn up.

  As more of Warren’s blood flowed into his system, she watched Fergus take a decent breath, then another and another. Her sense of relief increased.

  But she remembered what Fergus had told her about being skewered. She ordered Warren to stay put and got her ultrasound equipment.

  Once again, she shaved Fergus, though this time on his chest. Using the gel, she ran her wand over the area that allowed her to see his heart.

  “Why are you doing that?” Warren asked.

  “Something Fergus told me about how he was injured. I understand there was a dominance battle.”

  “Yes. Sydon, a rogue alpha, challenged him. I was sure Fergus could take him. I wasn’t there during the battle, but I was on the phone with one of his betas and got a blow-by-blow. Sydon caught Fergus below the sternum with a heavy right punch, or at least that’s what we thought it was. Fergus seized while in the air, fell, then shifted, which indicated he’d been badly wounded. Sydon went in for the kill and punched at his head, then jumped on his ribs. I don’t know how Fergus survived.”

  She kept moving the wand over his heart, and there it was—a small perforation, partially healed but leaking blood. “Well, here’s the problem. He was stuck with a metal implement, like a large needle, straight into the bottom of his heart.”

  The atmosphere in the room changed, as surely as if electricity poured through the space. The air smelled harsh like heated metal and came from the wolves.

  Warren’s voice dropped an octave as he said, “Are you
saying Fergus was skewered?”

  “Yes, that’s what he told me had happened, but he was lucky. If the puncture had been any deeper, he would have died instantly.”

  Mary replaced the wand and turned off the machine. “What I don’t understand is how this happened. I mean, I’ve seen photographs of what you wolves wear during dominance fights, something like a pair of wrist guards and a leather loin cloth.”

  “Gladiator briefs.”

  “Right. I knew there was a word for it.” She felt her cheeks heat slightly. Fergus would look really good in a loin cloth. Or out of one for that matter. The man she’d met in the dreamglide was built.

  That she could even think of him in those terms was a good sign he was leaving the danger zone. She still didn’t say anything to Warren, however, in case something else went wrong.

  She cleared her throat. “With so few clothes, how could Sydon have had a skewer on him?”

  Warren grunted, a rough wolf sound. “His wrist guards, if long enough, could have disguised hidden metal pieces. Jesus. Sydon must have done exactly that.”

  Mary didn’t want to say anything, but because her sister had died as fall-out from a dominance fight, she wasn’t all that surprised at the treachery of secret skewers. It seemed in keeping with her opinion of wolves generally.

  She had a deep prejudice against Savage Territory. She didn’t want any part of a culture so easily moved to violence. Now that she had a partial awareness of what she’d been doing with Fergus in the dreamglide, she also knew why she’d set up the memory blocks in the first place. If she’d allowed herself any real-time awareness of Fergus, she would have refused to engage in the affair.

  She got out a bag of saline. Using another tube set-up, she hooked the needle beneath Fergus’s fur, the same way she would a dog or a cat. Hydration would help.

  She checked his vitals. His blood pressure was low and heartrate too rapid, but she sensed he’d begun the long journey back. Other than cracking open his chest and suturing the wound, she didn’t have another option. She was convinced, however, that surgery would have been far worse than letting him self-heal.

  “Will he live?”

  She realized she’d been so intent on Fergus and consumed by her own fear for his life that she hadn’t shared enough information with the men in the room. “Yes, he’ll live.”

  “Thank God.”

  She finally made eye-contact with Warren, but gasped softly. She knew very little about the alpha of the Caldion Pack and hadn’t known he was partially disfigured. The left side of his head was partially bald, a few inches back from the scalp line. Though the area was heavily tattooed, she could see he’d been burned, badly. His face was scarred as well, all the way to the area around his left eye, especially on and over the socket. However, he had full use of both eyes. The same side of his face also looked as though it had been burned. The rest of his head seemed normal. He had long blond hair, very thick and straight not unlike her own. His eyes were an unusual emerald green and very beautiful.

  The physician in her tried to understand what had been done to him. Some of the scars looked like a wolf had bitten him. But the rest was caused by either a fire of some kind or chemicals. “Any of that causing you pain?”

  He shook his head. “It happened a few years ago.”

  “Here, in Five Bridges?” He should have been able to self-heal.

  “Yes. A dark witch’s spell made it permanent. Fergus pulled me to safety, otherwise the spell would have eaten through my entire body and I would have died.” His gaze drifted to the line of red connecting him to Fergus, then back to her. “I owe him my life.”

  She saw in his features the extremely handsome man he’d once been. Despite the disfigurement, he exuded a similar quality as Fergus, the strength and power of the alpha wolf.

  His gaze narrowed and his jaw worked. When his nostrils flared and elongated slightly, she wasn’t surprised that he shifted his gaze away from her. He even side-stepped to create distance, though he was careful to preserve the tubing.

  Sniffing the air herself, she detected his mating musk, the same kind of scent all alphas released. She sensed that Warren needed to establish a boundary with her because of Fergus. By way of clarifying the situation for him, she drew close to Fergus and settled her hand gently on his wolf-shoulder. “I belong to Fergus right now.”

  She watched him release a sigh of relief. “I can smell his scent on you. He’s spoken of you often, but you have to understand, until you’re bonded every unmated alpha will be attracted to you.”

  She was surprised. “Because of your mating cycles?”

  He shook his head slowly and met her gaze, the emerald of his eyes glowing slightly. “No, Mary, I’m afraid not. This is about you. You have alpha-mate capacity, a rare thing even in Savage Territory and something I would have never believed possible in a woman from Revel Territory. Yet here you are.”

  She noted the slightly pale appearance of the skin around his eyes. “You’ve given enough blood, Warren. But Fergus should have more.” Wolf blood was one of the greatest healing agents in Savage Territory.

  Because the hole in Fergus’s heart was small, he hadn’t lost a lot of blood. The surplus provided tonight was more about restoration and would go a long way to bringing Fergus back to full health within the next few hours.

  A terrible chill went through her. For a brief moment, she could feel the entire landscape of Savage Territory and that the wolves would soon erupt in chaos and violence. Again.

  Her gaze shot back to Fergus. She had a terrible premonition what was about to happen in his world would hinge on the decisions Fergus made over the next forty-eight hours.

  Warren gestured for one of the other wolves to come forward. “Alessandro, you’re up.” The shorter male didn’t hesitate.

  Though Mary didn’t understand why, she knew instinctively this wolf was a beta. He could also be an alpha-in-training, but he definitely served in a more supportive capacity within Warren’s pack.

  She shook off her visit with the future and carefully created a new transfusing line with Alessandro.

  Mary saw that Fergus’s breathing was much easier now. She used the ultrasound again and saw that the hole was completely healed. She told Warren the good news.

  “Thank God.”

  Mary? Fergus’s voice entered her mind.

  She gasped, then glanced at the black wolf. But he didn’t seem any more alert than before, though his eyes definitely weren’t as glassy. She touched his forehead and rubbed his ears very gently. Fergus? Are you able to communicate with me now?

  Not exactly. I’m in the dreamglide again since I’m still too weak to do this through simple telepathy.

  Do you want me to come to you?

  No, it’s not necessary. But right now I need you to ask Warren a few things.

  Sure. Give me a sec.

  She kept her hand on Fergus’s head but turned to Warren. “I’m able to communicate with Fergus. He’s alive but still deeply unconscious.”

  “I don’t understand. Then how are you talking to him?”

  Mary drew a deep breath. “It’s a fae thing. Actually, it’s through the dreamglide.”

  Warren scowled. “That makes no sense.”

  At that, Mary smiled. “I know it doesn’t. It’s a fae thing. But humor me, Warren. Fergus has questions. Is that okay with you?”

  He nodded but looked skeptical. “Of course.” She sensed he didn’t quite believe her.

  Mary, tell Warren to take the stick out of his butt. When she hesitated, Fergus added, Go ahead. It’ll help.

  Mary knew her brows were sitting high on her forehead. “I mean no disrespect when I say this, Warren, because it comes from Fergus. But he said to tell you to take the stick out of your butt.”

  Warren laughed, then lifted a hand. “Okay, now I believe you.”

  “Is Fergus always saying things like that to you?”

  “I’m a little, how shall I say this, inflexible.�
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  Mary reverted her attention to Fergus. So, what do you want to ask Warren?

  I need to know where my pack stands, what Sydon has done.

  She relayed the information to Warren, adding, “Fergus can hear everything you say. I don’t need to pass it along.”

  “Good to know.” Warren took a step closer. “Your beta told me on the phone that as soon as you were taken away, the representative of the Savage Pack Council pronounced Sydon the new Alpha of the Gordion Pack. You’ve never heard such silence before. Shortly after, however, some of the women began howling their grief.

  “Sydon, by rights, had you hauled out to the Graveyard and left you there for the sun to do its work. I want you to know that your best men were in constant communication with me. I needed to know what Sydon’s first decrees as alpha were and it’s not good. He expects the youngest female wolves to form a harem and service his needs exclusively.”

  What? Fergus’s distraught voice punched through Mary’s mind.

  She pressed her hand against his forehead to calm him. Fergus, a little less forcefully, please, though I understand your distress.

  Warren continued. “He announced to your wolves that he has plans to make the Gordion Pack more powerful than any other in Savage. He told the older unmated females to prepare to work Savage Strip, that he would expect them to earn money for the whole pack. The male wolves have been given a choice. They can either serve as drug runners or work in a local amber flame drug factory. Everyone in the Gordion Pack will work for the good of all.”

  Were those his words? Fergus asked.

  Mary addressed Warren. “Fergus wants to know if those were his words or yours, the last part I think, ‘the good of all’.”

  “His words.”

  Fucking bastard.

  Again, Mary rubbed his head. Ease down wolf, you’re too powerful for my poor brain.

  Sorry, Mary. But I need to get out of here.

  When she felt the wolf move beneath her fingers, she immediately pressed a hand down on his neck. Hard. Fergus stop this. You’re not going anywhere yet. You’ve only just healed the damn hole in your heart. To her words, she added the force of her fae ability and felt Fergus grow calm once more.