SEAL Wolf In Too Deep(47)

“It’s done.”

Allan’s mouth gaped. “What?” He felt light-headed. He couldn’t remember a time he’d felt like his mind was in such a fog except when he’d been shot on a mission and lost too much blood.

Lori bit on her lower lip, then said, “She’s…one of us.”

“What?”

Catherine patted his arm. “Now you can date her.”

Allan stared at his mother’s concerned expression. He wasn’t grasping what had happened. “Someone bit her?” He was ready to tear into whoever would have done so when she was in such grave shape.

“She received some of my blood intravenously,” Lori said. “No one bit her. But she was going to die if she didn’t have our healing genetics.”

He gaped at Lori. He still hadn’t grasped the situation. “Wait, you didn’t do it because she’d seen Tara shift?”

“Partly, yes, but, Allan, she was in critical condition. She still is. But our faster wolf healing abilities will help her to pull through. We could have let her die. She would have without our help. She wouldn’t have made it in a human-run hospital.”

He couldn’t believe Lori and… “Does Paul know what you’ve done?”

Lori smiled. “Of course. We were in total agreement as soon as we learned she would have died without our intervention. And that she’d seen Tara shift. Not only that, but you were headed down a path of no return with her.”

“I wasn’t dating her.” He couldn’t even think in those terms right now. This was going to be a complete nightmare for her.

“Our original pack members—your mother, sister, me, Paul, and my grandma—will take turns watching her.”

Allan noticed she had left him out of the loop on that one. “And me?”

“Only if the two of you are agreeable. She’s going to have to be taught our ways. She’ll have to be watched because to begin with she’ll have trouble having control over her shifting. And of course she needs to realize how important it is to keep our secret. We could send her to another pack, like Hunter’s, where they know better how to deal with newly turned wolves, like his mate and her brother are.”

Hunter Greymere was their SEAL wolf team leader, and Allan was certain he’d love to have another newly turned wolf under his command. Not.

“But Paul and I believe that if we all work together, the rest of the pack included, we’ll get through this just fine.”

Allan bet Paul hadn’t expected anything like this to happen when he and Lori took over the pack. He was always saying how glad he was that he didn’t have a newly turned wolf in the pack. Allan guessed it was inevitable that it would happen someday.

“When can I see her?” Allan asked, feeling overwhelmed with negative emotions. No way in hell had he wanted her to have to experience all that she would without being given a choice. And now she would be just as much a werewolf hunter’s target as the rest of his pack.

“Maybe not right away,” Lori said pragmatically. “She knew that you saved Tara’s life before she turned into her human form. Debbie may be afraid of you. It might help if she sees someone she won’t automatically connect with Tara.”

“Everyone’s connected. Her brother, her mother, my sister who’s married to her brother. Me. Paul, because we were raised together. My mom. You, because you’re mated to Paul. I just don’t see how any of us are going to be able to see her and not make her think we’re all in cahoots.”

“For now, the doctor and the nurses will see her. She will get used to them and not know we’re part of this whole situation.”

“She’s my partner. I have to see her.”

Lori shook her head.

His mother said, “I think Lori’s right.”

“She’s going to have to learn about us sooner or later,” Allan said. “Hell, the full moon appears in a few days.”

“Which is why we need to make sure she stays with one of us at all times,” Lori said.

“I’m seeing her,” Allan said, and no one was dissuading him. Both his mother and Lori looked worried, but he asked, “Is that all?”

“We need to know what the shooter looked like,” Lori said.

Allan’s jaw dropped a bit. “This isn’t all about that, is it? She was turned so she could live and tell us what she saw?”

“Allan,” his mother said.

Lori held up her hand. “No. As important as the information is and as much as we need to know it as soon as we can, that’s not why we did it. We knew how much she meant to you.”

Allan swallowed hard, and tears sprang into his eyes. Hell. He quickly rose from the chair and headed for the door. “I’ll be in the waiting area for when she comes out of the ICU and then I’m seeing her.”

Pack meant everything to them, and he realized then that not only had they given Debbie a chance at life, as different as it would be for her now, but they’d done this for him. And yet it could be a real problem for all of them. For them, if she was totally out of control. For him, if she hated what she was now. For herself, if she was so horrified about what she had become that she didn’t want to live.

*

Debbie felt like hell. She didn’t think she’d ever felt this out of it.