The Alpha's Unwanted Healer

The Attack

And it happened that night.

I had just put the twins to bed. Luna was already asleep, her little mouth open, breathing hard because that fever still hadn't left her. Liam was fighting sleep. He kept sitting up every two minutes to look at the window.

"Mommy, is Daddy still downstairs?" he whispered. He started calling him Daddy after dinner like he had always called him that.

"He is downstairs with Aunt Sarah," I said, pulling the blanket up to his chest. My hand was shaking a little. After what happened at dinner - after they found the nightshade in Jessica's drawer - Damien had two warriors lock her in the storage room in the east wing. No window. One door. Guarded.

I thought that would make me feel safe. It didn't.

"Sleep now. I'm right here," I told Liam.

I kissed both their warm foreheads and turned off the little lamp. Just as I turned, the lights went out.

Not just their room. The whole house. The hallway, the stairs, the big chandelier downstairs. Everything died at once.

Liam shot up. "Mommy?"

"Stay here," I said instantly. My heart was hammering. "No matter what you hear, you do NOT leave this bed. You hold your sister tight. You don't open the door for anyone but me or Daddy or Aunt Sarah. Promise me, Liam."

"I promise," he whispered in the dark. I heard him grab Luna.

Then I heard it. Outside.

Not fireworks. Gunshots.

And then wolves howling. Not the full-moon howling. This was pain. And anger. And fighting.

"Stay here!" I shouted one more time and ran out barefoot, still in Damien's big black shirt.

The upstairs hallway was pitch black and full of shouting. Sarah was screaming Ethan's name from downstairs. Warriors were running, their claws out, knocking into walls in the dark.

I ran down the staircase. Through the big glass doors I could see flashes in the courtyard, figures fighting and teeth.

In the courtyard, under the full moon, it was a nightmare.

Rogues. At least ten of them, in black jackets, with silver guns. They were fighting Blackwood wolves hand to hand. One wolf had a gunshot in his leg and was still biting a rogue's arm.

And in the middle of it all stood Elder Marcus.

He wasn't hiding. He stood in his old suit in the pouring rain, his bald head shining, holding a long silver rifle with both hands. He wasn't aiming at the fighting wolves. He was aiming up.

Straight at the second floor. At Ethan's window.

"You brought a human into our pack!" he screamed, "You broke the Moon goddess's law for a human b***h! You deserve to fall! Blackwood will fall tonight and rise again clean!"

Ethan was in that room. Sarah had taken him there to hide when the lights went out.

"Marcus, no!" I screamed.

Damien came out of nowhere.

He must have been in his office when the attack started. His shirt was torn half off. He wasn't fully wolf, he wasn't fully man - he was in-between, the most dangerous form.

He saw the rifle. He saw where it pointed.

He tackled Marcus.

They rolled hard onto the wet stone. The rifle fired high - BANG - into the sky. Marcus was old but he fought like a cornered animal, hitting Damien in the face with the butt of the gun.

"You were supposed to be the strongest Alpha!" Marcus snarled, blood on his teeth. "But you kneel to a human with no wolf! You let her bastards sit at your table!"

Damien had him pinned. One clawed hand around his throat. He could have ended it right there.

And then I saw it. Because my stupid human eyes take one second longer to adjust.

A second gunman.

On the low roof of the kitchen that looks over the courtyard. Kneeling. Dressed all in black, face covered. And his rifle wasn't pointed at Ethan's window.

It was pointed straight at Damien's back.

Marcus had planned this. The rogues were just noise. The real plan was to make Damien come out, get him on the ground, and shoot him from behind while he was busy.

Time stopped. I could hear the rain hit the stones one drop at a time. I could hear Liam crying faintly from upstairs even though I told him not to.

"Damien!" I shouted, my voice breaking with pure fright.

He didn't hear me. The fighting was too loud. Marcus was shouting under him.

The shooter on the roof adjusted his aim. His finger tightened.

I didn't think. I swear I didn't think about being a Luna or being brave or being anything.

I just ran.

I jumped right between that rifle and Damien's back.

The bullet hit my shoulder instead of him.

Everything went white. Not black. White-hot, burning white that started in my left shoulder and ripped through my chest and down my arm. I couldn't breathe. I felt my legs give out and I fell backwards onto the cold, wet stones. The rain hit my face.

Then I heard Damien roar.

I have never, in four years of knowing him, heard him make that sound. It wasn't a human sound. It wasn't a wolf sound. It was a sound of something breaking.

"SELENE!"

Big hands grabbed me. Warm even in the cold rain. Cedar and smoke.

Damien.

He was holding me off the stones, one arm under my knees, one behind my back, pressing his forehead to mine. His whole body was shaking.

"Stay with me. Hey, hey, look at me, Selene, look at me!" he was shouting, but his voice was cracked. "Why did you do that? Why? - SARAH! DOCTOR! NOW!"

I tried to speak. I wanted to tell him I didn't know. I wanted to tell him I saw the gun and my body moved before my brain could say no.

Blood was coming out of my mouth. My left arm was numb.

Behind him, the warriors finally overwhelmed the rogues. I saw Marcus being dragged, his old face scraped, still shouting.

"This isn't over! She will never be Luna! The pack will never bow to a human who brings guns to our door! This is her fault! She brought this!"

And then I remembered Jessica.

Jessica wasn't there. She was locked in the east wing. Two warriors were guarding her door.

But as Sarah and the pack doctor came running out with towels and a medical kit, one of the warriors ran up to Damien, soaking wet.

"Alpha! The girl - Jessica - she's gone! The storage room door is open from inside! The guard is knocked out!"

Gone.

Of course she was gone.

That's how the second gunman knew exactly where Damien would be. That's how Marcus knew Ethan's room.

She didn't need to be in the courtyard to be at the attack. She escaped and opened the side gate.

I tried to lift my good hand to tell Damien. To say her name.

"Je....." I couldn't finish.

Everything went black.

Of course, I wouldn't know what happened thereafter until I open my eyes again.

I don't know how long I was out.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the silk bed. My shoulder was wrapped thick, throbbing with dull pain, and an IV was in my arm. The pack doctor was washing blood off his hands in a basin.

Sarah was in the corner holding Ethan, who was crying silently. And at the foot of the bed, Liam and Luna were curled up, both asleep on top of the blankets, holding my leg like they were afraid I would disappear.

And Damien.

He was kneeling beside the bed, still in his torn, bloody, wet shirt. His hair was wet. His gold eyes were red. He held my good hand with both of his like if he let go I would fall again.

"You took a bullet for me," he whispered.

I really don't know why I tried to protect him though. My head says it was stupid. I'm human. Silver can kill me. I have no wolf to heal me.

But my instinct says something more.

Four years ago I loved him. Then I hated him for leaving me alone at the altar.

Tonight, when I saw that gun on his back, I didn't feel hate. I felt terror. The same terror I feel when Luna burns with fever.

Maybe some bonds don't break even when you reject them.

I squeezed his hand, just a little.

"We're even now," I whispered. "You broke my heart. I saved your life."

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to our joined hands, and outside, we could still hear Marcus being dragged to the cells, shouting that the war had only just started.