Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson #5)(45)

"Hey, you can't bring a dog in here!" The triage nurse took three quick strides to us and met my eyes . . . and she stumbled to a halt. "Ms. Thompson? Is that a werewolf?"

"Where is Adam Hauptman?"

But a roar from the emergency room told me all I needed to know.

"Whose bright idea was it to bring him here?" I muttered, running for the double doors between the waiting room and the emergency room, Ben and Sam flanking me.

"Not me," Ben said, sounding a little more cheerful. I think he'd been worried about what we'd find, too. "I am absolved of guilt. I was in the trailer getting toasty-warm when they sent him here."

A gray werewolf whose fur darkened around his muzzle stood in the aisle between the patient rooms and the central counter, his change so recent that I could still see the muscles of his back realigning themselves.

He was missing large patches of fur where his skin was blackened and had bubbled up like wax. All four of his feet were hideously burnt, the singed skin a horrible imitation of the black fur that usually covered them. The curtain from the room was caught over his tail.

I stopped just inside the doors, assessing the situation.

Jody, the nurse I'd talked to the night of Samuel's accident, was standing very still - and someone had coached her on how to behave around werewolves, because her eyes were fixed on the floor. But even from where I stood, I could smell her fear, an appetite-rousing scent for any werewolf. Mary Jo crouched in front of Adam, one hand resting on the floor, her head bowed in submission - and her tough athletic body, so fragile-appearing next to the wolf, was directly between the bystanders and her Alpha.

I glanced down at Sam, but apparently he'd fed enough on the dead fae that his attention was all on Adam, though he stayed next to me. Ben waited on my other side, holding himself very still, as if he was trying really hard not to attract Adam's attention.

In other circumstances I wouldn't have been as worried. Werewolves tend to lose their human halves when badly injured, but they can be recalled to themselves by a mate or by a more dominant wolf. Samuel was more dominant than Adam, and I was Adam's mate. Either of us should have been able to bring him back.

Unfortunately, Samuel wasn't himself this evening and Adam had fried our mate bond in his panic when he thought I was trapped in the trailer. I didn't know what that meant in terms of how he would respond to me. He lowered his head and took a step forward, and my time to dither ran out.

"Adam," I said.

His whole body froze.

"Adam?" I stepped away from Ben and Sam. "Adam, it's all right. These are the good guys. They're trying to help - you've been hurt."

I'm fast, and I have good reflexes, and I didn't even see him move. He pinned me back against the doorframe, rising on his poor burnt hind legs until his face and mine were at the same height. The scent of smoke and burning things wrapped around us as his hot breath touched my cheeks. He inhaled, and his whole body began shaking.

He'd really thought I was dead.

"I'm okay," I murmured while I closed my eyes and tilted my chin to expose my throat. "I wasn't in the trailer when it blew."

His nose brushed from my jaw to my collarbone and he let out a low, wheezing cough that seemed to go on forever. When it was finally over, he laid his head on my shoulder and began to change.

It would be safer for everyone if he were human, which was probably why he'd done it. But he'd just been badly hurt - and only just completed a change from human to wolf. To attempt to reverse the shift within minutes was miserably difficult. That he chose to do it anyway made it obvious to me that he was in very bad shape.

He'd never have started changing while he was touching me if he'd been fully aware. The change is agonizing enough in itself; skin-on-skin contact makes it even worse. Add to that his awkward position and the pain Adam was already in because of his burns, and I didn't know what would happen. I slid slowly down the wall, bringing him with me as his skin stretched and the bones moved. Watching a wolf change is not a beautiful thing.

I put my palms flat on the floor, so as not to give in to the temptation to touch him. As much as my head knew more skin contact was the last thing he needed, my body was curiously convinced that I could alleviate the agony of the change.

I looked up at Ben and jerked my chin toward the nurse . . . and the doctor who'd pulled the curtain back to join the fuss out front. Ben gave me a "why me?" look. In return, I glanced at Adam - obviously incapacitated - and then Sam, who was a wolf.

Ben looked up at the sky, invoking God's pity, I supposed. He trudged over, hands cradled in front of his body, to solve the problems he could. I caught Mary Jo's eye and interrupted a look directed at me . . . such a look. As soon as she realized I was looking at her, her face cleared. I couldn't interpret the emotion I'd seen, just that it was very strong.

"Anybody hurt?" asked Ben. When he extends himself beyond his usual nasty personality, people tend to find Ben reassuring. I think it's the nifty British accent and composed appearance - and even with the burns and the charred clothing, he looked somehow more civilized than anyone else.

"No," said the doctor, whose name tag read REX FOURNIER, MD. He looked to be in his late forties. "I surprised him when I opened the curtains." And then in a spirit of fairness seldom seen in terrified people, he said, "He was pretty careful not to hurt anyone, just knocked me aside. If I hadn't stumbled over the stool, I'd have kept my feet."