Off the Beaten Path

by Cari Z

  “I’ll be here.” His boys looked stunned, unsure in a way they’d never been before at seeing their father on the defensive. I didn’t have the time or energy to reassure them. I looked at Sam.

  “Get me to the clinic.”

  “The door’s unlocked.” We got into the car and left most of my pack, wounded as it was, and our tattered guardian behind as she raced back into our territory.

  “Tennyson is good,” she said as she drove. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as me. “He’s an actual doctor, he knows what he’s doing.”

  “He’s not a surgeon.”

  “He was married to a black ops soldier. He knows how to deal with wounds. Ward will be fine.” She glanced at me. “You should change before you go see him.”

  “Sam—”

  “Tennyson is probably still operating, and alpha or not, he’s not going to let you in to see Ward if he is. You’re covered in blood, and you’re completely naked.”

  I’d shifted back to my human form at this point, and most of my right arm and leg were crusted over with freezing blood.

  “Shower, change, and then go to the clinic. You can spend some time with Ava if Tennyson isn’t finished yet.”

  Ava. Right. She was the last thing Ward had mentioned, the last thing he’d been able to talk about. I needed to take care of Ava. I was her alpha, after all. And if things went badly….

  They wouldn’t. I’d take care of her regardless.

  “You’ll have to call Hill, report what happened here. He’ll want an investigation.”

  God, just the thought of engaging with my commanding officer right then made me want to go furry again. “I know.”

  “Maybe you can use this incident to convince him to delay your departure.”

  “Oh, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Sam must have heard something in the tenor of my reply that gave her pause, because she glanced over at me in surprise. “You’re supposed to leave for the Springs tomorrow.”

  “I know.” I shook my head. “That isn’t happening. I’m not leaving Ward.”

  “Hill isn’t going to like it.”

  “Then he’s going to have to chew me out for insubordination to my face, because I’m not going away. My pack needs me. Ward and Ava need me. I’ve been gone for too long.”

  Sam nodded slowly. “Okay. Okay, we can—I can make something happen, we can work with this.” She pulled to a stop in front of our house, and as much of a hurry as I was in, I still didn’t want her to worry.

  I touched the back of her hand. “I can handle it.” Somehow.

  She smiled. “I think it’s time to share the load on this one, Henry. We have a day. Let me see what I can do.” She turned the car off. “Go clean up.”

  I stepped around the mess of churned snow and dirt left from my fight with Gerald, walked into the house and upstairs to the bathroom in almost a fugue. Everything seemed cloudy and numb. I stepped into the bath, turned the shower on, and winced as the hot spray hit me in the face. The heat hurt after so much cold, but I stood there and took it until my body adapted. I soaped up quickly, getting the worst of the filth off and making a cursory effort at washing my hair before deciding it was good enough.

  I grabbed sweats out of Ward’s room—our room, it smelled like both of us, and the scent made me want to curl up on the bed and howl—and stole a pair of his socks, then went back downstairs for my boots. Sam was nowhere to be seen. She had to be working. Trying to save me from my own decisions.

  I knew I wasn’t going to make Hill happy, but I genuinely didn’t care. He had invoked national security—well, I would invoke the health of the pack and the potential for a total meltdown if I were pulled away now, and then we’d see where things stood.

  Sure enough, the door to the clinic’s back room was closed and locked when I got there. Not even my code would open it. I could smell Ward’s blood within, but also iodine and saline, and Tennyson’s own scent. I leaned my head against the door for a moment, then went to see Ava.

  She brightened when I walked into the room, trotting over to the window, her tongue lolling happily. Of course it was, because she knew what was supposed to happen next—her daddy was going to appear in a few minutes. Only he wouldn’t, this time. I entered the enclosure and sat down, and Ava came over to me and started sniffing. The longer it went on, the less playful she became, her ease giving over to uncertainty.

  “Sorry, baby girl.” My voice was rough. “He’s not ready to come see you yet.”

  She looked up at me and whined. I felt like doing the same thing.

  “I know. But there’s nothing we can do.”

  Ava growled, a little tiny growl that usually signaled the prelude to an attempt to shift. It was good for her to practice, whatever her motivation was, so I sat back and watched as her feet and hands began to change. She’d gotten that far several times now.

  My eyes went wide as her forelegs became arms, and her hind legs twisted and thickened into the limbs of a small child instead of a puppy. Her torso went more gradually, dark fur slowly giving way to pale skin, and by the time the shift spread up to her head, I was holding my breath.

  It wasn’t easy, that was clear. Her muzzle gave her particular trouble, the teeth resisting the change and her jaw following suit. Ava grunted, stamped her foot hard on the floor, and squeezed her eyes shut with concentration. Five seconds later, I was looking at a little human child with tangled brown hair, big blue eyes, and a fierce expression.

  “Where’s my daddy?” she demanded, and I burst out laughing. She kicked my shin.

  “I’m not—I’m not laughing at you, Ava,” I promised her. “You’ve just made me very happy, that’s all. You’re going to make your daddy very happy too.”

  She looked slightly mollified but persisted. “Where’s my daddy, Alpha?”

  “He’s with the doctor. Tennyson, you remember Tennyson?”

  She frowned. “Yes. Why?”

  “Your daddy was in an accident.” Ava’s eyes went wide and started to change color. I had to head that off. “He’s going to be fine, though. Just fine.” Please God, don’t make a liar out of me. “Tennyson will come and get us soon, and we can go see him together.”

  “Oh.” Her big, bold voice was suddenly soft and small.

  “You should try to stay human for now. It’ll cheer your daddy up when he sees you and he can hold you again.”

  “Okay,” Ava said, easily accepting that much. “But I’m cold. Fur is warm.”

  She had a point. I opened my arms. “Let’s go find you some clothes, then.”

  By the time we got back from Josie’s house with a pile of her old clothes—her parents had been surprised but thrilled by the first good news for the pack in too long—Tennyson had opened the door to the operating room. He stood just inside, tense but smiling, smelling like he’d just washed his hands.

  “Ward’s still unconscious, but I think he’ll be all right. The bullet didn’t hit anything major, and it was a small caliber, thank God.”

  Considering some of the hand cannons John had in his personal armory, it really was something to be thankful for. I could almost grant that he hadn’t actually wanted to damage Roman—a small caliber bullet wound in most spots would heal in a matter of hours—but that still didn’t buy him a lot in my book.

  “You fixed him?”

  “As well as I could. He should still go to a hospital, though, and get a second opinion.”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen quite yet.” It would if I could manage it, but right then it was going to be hard enough to keep myself here, much less take Ward somewhere else.

  Tennyson looked down at Ava, who was holding my hand, and grinned. “Look at you, clever girl. You finished your shift!”

  Ava blushed and turned her face into my leg as she nodded. Shy? Her? That was a first.

  Tennyson continued. “Do you want to see your daddy?”

  That got rid of her little case of nerves.
She nodded so hard I thought she’d fall over. “Yes!”

  “All right. You have to be careful, though, and don’t touch the bandages or the tubes. He might look a little rough right now, but he’s getting better.” He stepped aside, and we walked over to the room’s operating table-turned-bed.

  Ward almost looked like a child himself, small in the confines of the bed, his face obscured by an oxygen mask, his arm pricked with several IV lines. His left shoulder was heavily bandaged, and he was paler than usual.

  I picked Ava up to see, and she immediately whimpered and clutched at my shoulders. “Daddy….”

  “He’ll be okay.” I patted her on the back and did my best to believe it. Ward would be all right. Seeing him then, I knew he had to be. He was the main reason I was holding it together right then. Even as injured as he was, just looking at him soothed an ache inside of me that I barely knew I’d been feeling. It was like a hole in my heart was suddenly plugged, and I sighed with relief.

  Was it love? Or was it just my desire not to be alone surging through my veins? It might be either, but whatever it was, it was real. I looked at Ward and knew I’d found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I didn’t trust easily, but I trusted him. I wanted him.

  He was my partner. My mate.

  He might object to that term when he came to, but we’d talk about it then. In the meantime, I needed to go be insubordinate. Or… well. If there was ever a time to use the pack sovereignty clause, it was now. Hill might not respect it, but it gave me the grounds for a legal battle.

  “I have to report in that I’m not going to report in,” I said to Tennyson.

  His lips quirked.

  “Can Ava stay here?”

  “Yes!” Ava said before Tennyson could. “Right there.” She pointed at the uninjured side of her father’s body. I hesitated. She turned her big blue gaze on me and batted her eyelashes. “I’ll be good.”

  “You’re gonna be dangerous someday, is what you’ll be.” I looked at Tennyson, and he nodded.

  “She can stay. I’ll be here as well.”

  “Thanks.” I set Ava down, and she crawled up next to Ward and curled against his arm. Now that she was human, I could see hints of her father in her: in the jut of her chin and the delicate curve of her mouth. She favored whoever her mother was, but her father’s genetic influence was still visible. It almost hurt to leave the two of them, but the sooner I was gone, the sooner I’d return. “I’ll be back.”

  GETTING THROUGH to Hill wasn’t a problem. He answered on the second ring, his craggy face taking up the entirely of the screen. “Talk, Major.”

  He’d asked for it. “I’m calling to inform you that I won’t be arriving as planned in Colorado Springs tomorrow, sir.”

  He blinked, then scowled. “We’ve had this conversation. You’ll do as you’re ordered, or you’ll suffer some serious consequences.”

  “My pack’s health and well-being is at risk if I leave. There’s been an incident with the guardian and a leadership challenge in the past twenty-four hours.” Make that four hours, but he didn’t need to know that. “I managed each of them, but I need to remain here for the time being. I’m invoking pack sovereignty.”

  “It sounds to me like you’re failing as an alpha. Invoking sovereignty isn’t going to heal a wound caused by your existence, Major.” Colonel Hill shook his head. “No, it seems like the best thing for your pack right now is distance from the problem, which is you. You’ll report tomorrow.”

  “I won’t.”

  The colonel pointed a finger at the screen. “You will, or I’ll order a retrieval unit into your territory—which is only yours at the sufferance of the US government—and have you bodily removed pending your formal court martial. Any pack members who try to interfere will be considered violent offenders and dealt with accordingly. Are you sure you want to bring this down on your people?”

  “The problem is that I haven’t been here enough lately,” I insisted. “The sovereignty clause is for use in emergencies, and this counts as one. I’ll have a report and proper documentation sent to your office within the next two hours”—and I’d be cc-ing a lot of other people on those reports including the guardian, just to be safe—“but I’m not leaving.”

  “Then you’ll be removed by me personally.”

  “You can try.” I cut the connection before he could say anything else, took a deep breath to steady my nerves, then pulled up the appropriate form. Amazing that there was paperwork for a potential pack-wide apocalypse.

  Whatever happened, we’d manage it, though. Because I meant it when I said I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ward

  I WOKE up to the sound of my daughter singing while simultaneously trying to stay quiet, which was nearly an impossibility for her. She’d start each verse off softly, but by the end of it, the doctor was scolding those little monkeys jumping on the bed like they were right there with me. It was one of her favorite bedtime songs, because I had actually let her jump on the bed in an effort to get the last of her energy out before we settled down for a story. Right then, there was no jumping, though. She was as still as a girl barely past her toddler phase could be, and—

  Wait. Fucking wait. I forced myself up out of my lazy, drowsing state of mind and opened my eyes. Turning my head took a little more effort, but once I did I found Ava sitting up and staring at me with barely restrained glee.

  “Daddy!” And completely unrestrained volume. “You’re up! Doctor T, Daddy is up!”

  “Awake, at least,” I said, my throat so dry it was hard to get the words out. I felt a lingering burn in my left arm that very clearly stated Do Not Move, but I managed to get my right up and waved her in with my hand. Ava crawled forward and settled happily under my arm. I kissed the top of her head and sighed with relief. “Baby, when did you complete your shift?”

  “When the alpha came and got me.” She frowned. “He smelled like you, but bad.”

  “Bad?”

  She nodded.

  I wasn’t quite awake enough to tease out her meaning, so I let it lie. “That’s a shame. But he smells better now?”

  “Yes.” She nodded decisively.

  Tennyson came into view over her shoulder and smiled when he saw me. “That was faster than I thought.”

  “How fast?”

  “Your surgery ended less than twelve hours ago. It’s late,” he told me. “Almost two in the morning. You should go back to sleep.”

  “How long has Ava been here?”

  “Ever since she shifted. Henry brought her.”

  Oh, right. Shit. “How’s Henry? And Roman? What about Genna? What happened—”

  Tennyson held up a hand. “Everyone else is uninjured. Henry was here for most of the day until Sam dragged him out by his ear, but he’ll be back as soon as he’s caught a few hours of sleep, I’m sure. He was very concerned about you.”

  I shouldn’t have enough blood left in my body to produce a blush. It was there, though, and both of them smiled when they saw it. Ava was the only one who giggled. “Daddy, he likes you!”

  “Yeah.” I got that, after the whole raging-werebeast thing. “Guess I’m pretty lucky. Do you like him?”

  “He shared his liver with me for dinner.” She patted her tummy. “It was sooo good.”

  I looked at Tennyson.

  “Cow’s liver,” he assured me. “With onions. Henry hasn’t been excising pieces of himself to eat. That would be crazy even for him.”

  “Not sure what’s too crazy for him at this point,” I muttered, even as my eyes started to close. I didn’t know if it was the painkillers or just the fact that I’d been shot not so long ago, but I was exhausted. I kept my arm around Ava and smiled when she just settled in. She’d get tired of it soon, but I wanted to keep my hands on her for as long as I could. It had been too long since cuddling had been an option.

  “We’ll see about crazy tomorrow,” I heard Tennyson say just befor
e I drifted off.

  THE NEXT time I woke up, my roving hand didn’t find my daughter snuggled against my side. It was already being held by someone bigger than me, and warm, so warm. A straw found my lips before I even tried to speak, and I sipped some deliciously cold water before forcing my eyes open. Henry sat beside me, looking at me so intently that I knew he had to be listening to me as well. Probably smelling me too, the weirdo.

  “Hey.” What a brilliant opening salvo. “Where’s Ava?”

  “Having lunch with Sam and Liam. She’s fine. How are you feeling?”

  “What, you can’t tell from the way my heartbeat sounds?” I asked.

  He smiled slightly. “I can get an idea, but I’d rather hear it from you.”

  “Kind of shitty,” I admitted. “But not as shitty as I could feel, all things considered. How bad was it?”

  His expression darkened. “Bad enough. The bullet went clean through, but you lost a lot of blood. Tennyson took good care of you, though.”

  I nodded and was pleased when it didn’t make my head hurt. “He’s a good doctor. You should hold on to him.”

  “Oh, I plan to.”

  Hmm, that sounded mildly ominous. “What’s wrong?”

  Henry shook his head. “You’ve got to be more specific, I’m afraid.”

  “What’s… okay, what’s happening with the pack? With Roman and Gerald and the whole… leadership kerfuffle?”

  Henry raised one bushy brow. “Kerfuffle? You mean the brutal fight for dominance that took place practically on my front porch?”

  If I’d had the energy to scoff, I would have. “Please. Even if he were twenty years younger, Gerald would still be no match for you. If he’d won, it would be because you let him win. Which—you didn’t, right?”

  “Ah, no. No, that part at least went well. The stuff with Roman?” Henry shrugged. “It’s up in the air. A lot of what happens next depends on the steps John takes, which will depend on whether or not you want to press charges against him.”