Taking the Beta Male

Lisa frowned, but filled a syringe. The wolf sighed and went limp as the drug flowed into her veins, losing the tension of pain.

"Boss?"

"Yeah?" he answered absently, pulling on a set of surgical gloves.

"What are you going to do with her, once you've patched her up?" The older woman's face was kind. "She's a wild animal, you know. You can't keep her."

"I don't want to keep her," he said, reaching for a set of scissors. He began clipping hair away from one ragged wound. "I want to heal her."

*****

Afternoon was drawing down towards night when he straightened, groaning with relief. The wolf was still lying unconscious on the table. He had spent hours cleaning and bandaging the cuts. Many were nasty, but none were life-threatening, though he'd been forced to stitch several. The left foreleg was the worst. The thick bones of the lower leg, necessarily stronger than a human's arm, were in about five different pieces. Working as gently as he could, he had performed surgery on the shattered bones, using tiny screws to piece them back together. When he was done and the wound closed and bandaged, he had put the leg in a simple splint. If he was forced to release the wolf into the wild, a cast would only be a hindrance, though he was grimly certain that if she had to fend for herself, she would probably starve in a matter of weeks.

Maybe Lisa is right, he thought with a sigh, fastening the collar around her neck, designed to keep animals from licking and biting at their injuries and re-infecting them. His hands trailed absently through the silky fur, now washed and cleaned. Maybe this is a fool's errand. Maybe I'm just prolonging the inevitable. But I couldn't just let her die.

"Where should we put her?" the nurse asked. Once he had made up his mind, she had assisted him throughout the long process, and had kept the wolf sedated.

"I don't know," he said, looking around the small room. He shook his head. "I can't put her in one of the crates we use for the dogs after surgery. If she wakes up in there, alone, hurting, and terrified, she'll go crazy. Maybe hurt herself worse."

"I know a couple of guys from Wyoming Fish and Game," Lisa said doubtfully. "Maybe I could give one of them a call?"

He shook his head again. "They'd just put her down," he said. "I know their type. They don't want to disrupt the 'natural order.' And wolves are never high on their list of priorities."

He dropped his head into his hands, massaging his temples, which were beginning to throb painfully. The long hours of surgery had taken their toll. "My responsibility," he said at last. "We'll take her to my house. Maybe, just maybe I can keep her calm long enough so she doesn't hurt herself any worse."

"Calvin. It's a wolf. Not a dog. She's not tame. She'll probably try to bite your hand off."

"Documented wolf attacks on humans are incredibly rare."

"Yeah? Well, if you invite a wolf into your goddamned house, I think you might be increasing the odds a bit." The dark-haired woman threw her hands in the air. "I give up. You're just like your mother. Any time you disagree with her it just makes her dig her heels in deeper. I told her. I said, 'Peggy, I don't care how much land Larry Smith has, he'll never make you happy.'"

He blinked in consternation. "Mom and Dad are happy."

"Exactly." Lisa dimpled, laugh lines appearing at the corners of her eyes. "She never followed my advice. It made it tricky when she finally started going out with a man I approved of."

Calvin laughed, then picked up a towel and chucked it at her. "Come on. Let's get this place cleaned up and go home.

"And if the wolf kills me, you have my permission to say you told me so."

*****

Laura came back to consciousness slowly, like a diver emerging from deep waters. For a long time her thoughts churned sluggishly, as if her brain was made of thick molasses, unable to connect cause and effect.

She was in her wolf-form, that she knew with bone-deep instinct. She was warm, and indoors, lying on something soft. But this was not the familiar room she had shared with Graham on Lupe Mountain. Her nose twitched, separating out the unfamiliar odors. One male, nearby. A human, not a shifter, and no one she knew. Faint secondary smells registered. Horse. Sheep. Disinfectant, an astringent tickle in her nostrils. The scent of cooking food, so close her mouth watered. Her ears caught the sound of music drifting in from another room.

She was in pain, as well. But not the expected agony her beating should have engendered. This was far and distant, muted by drugs. Her left foreleg was a throbbing, aching bar of heat, and she bent her muzzle to lick it. She was defeated by an object which was fastened around her neck. Clear plastic, it kept her from reaching her injuries. Her right forepaw scrabbled at it ineffectually before she finally stopped.

You've got to be fucking kidding me. I'm in a Cone of Shame?

Screw this.

She took a deep breath and shifted. The process was more difficult than usual, the pain of her injuries slowing the transformation. When she finally regained her human form, she was light-headed and panting with the effort, and cold sweat beaded her naked skin. She sat up, her head spinning, and had to close her eyes against a sudden surge of nausea.

One step at a time, she thought grimly. Before attempting to gain her feet, she took stock of her injuries and grimaced. One thing was certain. She wasn't going to be winning any beauty contests anytime soon. Her skin was mottled with bruises, and there were a good half-dozen places on her body which were wrapped in bandages. She looked underneath one on her right thigh and swallowed. The cut was long and jagged, but thankfully stitched closed. Her left arm seemed to be broken as well. It throbbed in time to her pounding heartbeat, but the splint had fallen away when she shifted, the bandages unable to keep up with her changing form.

Her stomach gurgled hungrily, and she focused on the sounds and smells coming from the next room. She had no idea where she was, or how she came here, but someone was cooking food. She could smell the wonderful odor of simmering meat. She braced her right hand on the arm of the sofa, and levered herself to her feet.

"Hello?" she called. Her voice sounded weak and raspy in her ears. There was no response from the kitchen, unless she was willing to count a shaky tenor voice suddenly breaking into the chorus of "Waterloo."

I'm in hell. And they're playing disco.

"Hello?" she called again, and tottered forward. She turned a corner and squinted against the bright glare.

Standing over a stove, stirring a skillet of hamburger, was an attractive young man a few years older than herself. His hair was dark brown, his features even and pleasant. Dressed in simple jeans, loafers, and a polo shirt with "Larkspur Veterinary" stitched over the right breast, he didn't notice her entry, seemingly caught up with the task of cooking his supper.

"Hey," she said, slightly louder this time.

He jumped and spun around. Cloud-gray eyes in an open, honest face met her gaze, though they were partially hidden by wire-rimmed glasses. They widened in astonishment. "Shit! Who are you, and how did you get in here?"

She stammered for an answer. "Right. How did I get here?"

"What?"

"What?"

Completely flummoxed, they stared at each other. "Um. Do you know that you're naked, ma'am?" he said at last.

She tilted her head, suddenly furious. "Of course I fucking know I'm fucking naked! Tell me," she grated, striding across the floor and stabbing her finger into his chest, "how did I get here? I wake up in this house, with all this," she continued, gesturing at her bandages. "What happened to me?"

For the first time he seemed to notice the bandages, the collar around her neck, the splint dangling loosely from her left arm, held together by trailing gauze. His knees wobbled and he leaned back against the counter. "That's not possible."

"Yes," she growled. "It is."

He shook his head. "I thought," he said, his words coming in short spurts, "I thought you were just legends. Stories the old folks used to tell to bore kids to sleep. You...you're a werewolf."

"No," she snapped, driven past all endurance. "I'm not. I'm a shifter."

"A what?"

"A shifter," she repeated, enunciating each syllable sarcastically. "Wolf to human. Human to wolf. Not like those poor bastards you see in the movies, forced to change by the full moon.

"Now, answer me. How. Did. I. Get. Here?"

He blinked and raked a shaking hand through his hair. "I was in my truck, coming down from the Turner place, east of Lupe Mountain. Some bastard kicked you off the back of a truck and left you for dead on the highway."

He shrugged. "I'm a vet. I couldn't let that happen."

"A veteran." She felt her lips curve in a smile. "I should have known." She eyed his body. Not a marine, not with that build. "Navy? Air Force?"

"No, no." He colored. "Not a veteran. A veterinarian."

Her smile soured. "Oh."

"I took...well, your other form back to the clinic and patched you up." He blushed. "Um. Do you want me to find you some clothes?"

"Please," she said, suddenly exhausted. No shifter was ever ashamed of nudity. They couldn't be, what with the awkward way clothes had of becoming ruined when you shifted while you were still wearing them. Despite what comic-book writers would have humans think, there was no magic way you could shift and have your clothes somehow reappear on your body when you changed back to your human form. A smart shifter always stripped beforehand. And put their clothes in a safe place.

But this earnest young man was obviously uncomfortable with her showing so much skin. "And some water, please?"

"Here," he said, opening the fridge and handing her a plastic bottle. She drained half of it at a gulp. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Wait." He halted in his tracks. "Could you at least help me take off the fucking collar?"

*****

This cannot possibly be real. Calvin sat on the edge of his bed, trying to make sense of what he had just seen.

Well, besides an incredibly beautiful, completely naked woman, he amended, his lips twitching in self-mockery.

Even cut, bruised, and battered, this...this shifter woman was gorgeous. Give her time for her injuries to heal, and Calvin would put her up against any girl in town. Or Wyoming, for that matter. He wasn't sure, but he thought she might be only a few years younger than he was. Tall for a woman, she moved gracefully, and the golden fall of her hair was the exact color of the wolf-pelt in her other form.

But her other form didn't have the sweetly curved hips, the wonderfully firm breasts, shaped like twin teardrops, or the elegantly sculpted face.

Jesus, get it together, he berated himself, standing up and rifling through his bureau. Who the hell ever heard of a veterinarian getting horny for one of his patients? They have laws against that sort of thing, you know.

He hurried back into the kitchen, a bundle of clothes in his hands. The mysterious woman was still there, glancing around nervously.

"Here," he said. "I hope it fits. I don't have a wife or girlfriend, so you're going to have to wear my stuff. But I think we're not too far away from being the same size."

She fell on the clothes gratefully, and he turned away to give her some privacy. When he turned back around, she was dressed in a University of Wyoming sweatshirt, a pair of flannel sleep pants that were too big at the waist and too tight at the hip, socks, and slippers.

"I'm Calvin," he said, by way of introduction. "Calvin Smith. We're in my house in Larkspur. My friends call me Cal."

She nodded. "Laura Hudson. I was with..." Her voice faltered, then firmed. "I was part of the Lupe Mountain pack."

He was about to pepper her with questions to satiate his raging curiosity, but good manners got the better of him. Also, he realized, his dinner was ready. "I was about to eat. Are you hungry?"

"Starving."

"Then have a seat," he said, waving to the small table in one corner of the kitchen. "And we'll be ready in a few minutes."

He busied himself transferring items from the counter to the table, not missing the wary way Laura kept her eyes on him. It only took moments before he set a pair of loaded plates down. One in his customary spot, where he could look out the front windows, and one in front of her across the table. It didn't escape his notice the way she kept her back to the wall. Or the fact that her uninjured hand was never far away from her knife.

"What's this?" she said, picking up a fork and poking at the meat-and-rice dish awkwardly.

"Beef stroganoff," he said, setting down a full glass of milk and a plate of garlic bread. "I'm not the best cook in the world, but I manage."

Laura took a tentative bite, then another, then ate hungrily. Calvin managed to keep expressions like 'wolfing the food down' from his mind only with great difficulty. When she finished her plate, he refilled it.

"So," he said, when she started to slow. "A shifter. On Lupe Mountain. How much can you tell me?"

Her eyes narrowed in distrust. "What makes you think you have a right to know?"

He kept his voice mild, though his eyes glinted. "Because I'm the reason you're not dead right now. If no one ran you over, which I'm sure is what those assholes wanted, some good old boy would have shot you and taken you for your pelt. And if neither of those two things happened, you probably would have died of shock and exposure.

"So yes, I think I have a right to know."

Her head tilted to one side. "Maybe. Maybe not." She toyed with a piece of garlic bread. Her eyes, when she looked at him, were haunted. "Most humans don't want to know. Or if they ever find out, they pretend it never happened, or that they were imagining things, or that they were drunk, or stoned, or or or..." She scowled in disgust.

"We're pretty good at ignoring inconvenient truths," he admitted. "But I want to know."

"Do you? Here's the truth then, beta.

"Shifters have been around as long as humans have been. Who knows? Maybe even longer. God only knows how it started, and He's never told me." A quick, sardonic grimace.

"There are wolf-shifters, like me. And cat shifters. Not many, here in America. But quite a few in South America and Africa. Panthers, lions, that sort of thing. A few bear-shifters here, but mostly in Canada.

"Most of the rest are extinct."

"Extinct?"

"Yes. There were never many of us. We were predators. But the sheep managed to arm themselves. What happens to the wolves when the sheep have guns? Hunted, harried, and hounded, we were driven into the wilderness." She sounded tired. "At least there we were left alone. But we have always been good at hurting ourselves, too.

"When I came here, the alpha of the Lupe Mountain pack took me in. I was just a teenager, and nearly insane." Her fingers nervously shredded the piece of bread in her hands. "My parents-" She cut herself off abruptly. "I had no idea what was happening to me.

"Graham was a good man. Not a kind one. Not soft. No alpha can be soft. But...decent. Very decent, in his own way.

"But time passes. And an alpha who can't defend his position will fall.

"A few months ago, a new male showed up and asked to join the pack. Young. Strong. Aggressive. Cruel, though he disguised that at first. Graham made the mistake of taking him in.

"He killed Graham yesterday. Then he beat me half to death. I was a symbol, you see? A chance for the rest of the pack to see what would happen to anyone who was too close to Graham.

"He's up there now. Tate." Her lips peeled back in a bloodthirsty snarl. She stared out the window at the tree-clad bulk of Lupe Mountain in the distance. Its peak glowed orange in the last light of sunset. "Up there with the rest of the pack, re-making them in his own image."

"What will you do now?" Calvin asked. "Do you...do you have any family nearby?"

"No," she replied shortly. One hand curled into a fist, her knuckles white and bloodless.

"Well, you're welcome to stay as long as you need to," he said, standing and beginning to gather up the plates and cups.

She nodded absently, but Calvin wasn't sure if she even heard him. She stared out the window, her uninjured hand clenching and unclenching. He looked at her flawless profile, and felt something tear in his chest. Seeing her at his table was like seeing a falcon caged in a zoo, or a bear in a circus. Even he, without a drop of magic in his body, could feel her otherworldly aura. It just wasn't right. She should be healthy and free, running untamed across a snowy plain or through an autumn forest. Not hunched over a table in a single-floor ranch in a small Wyoming town.

*****

Rescued by a beta male, Laura thought. God help me.

The indignity of it all was enough to make her scream. Bad enough that she had been foolish enough to let Tate catch her unawares. Even worse that she had barely survived the encounter. But to owe her life to this...this weakling, was almost more than she could bear.

She could barely keep herself from sneering her disdain as he bustled around the guest bedroom, pulling out pillows and blankets, setting things in order for her. God, what kind of man was he? Any wolf in the pack would be able to take him apart in seconds.

Yes. And did any wolf in the pack come forward to help you when Tate and his thugs were ready to gang-rape you? Did any of them raise a voice in protest? When they beat you bloody and senseless and dumped you on the side of the road like a bag of garbage, did any of them come for you? Face facts, Laura. This 'weakling' has done more for you in the past few hours than any other member of the pack. You know they only tolerated you for Graham's sake. You would never have been accepted by them.

She growled under her breath as her traitorous mind taunted her. But she was forced to admit the truth. This beta was a better friend to her than anyone aside from Graham had been since she was fifteen.

And, to be honest, Calvin was a more than presentable member of his species. Not overly tall or bulkily muscled, perhaps. But he moved with a clean, lithe energy, and with an athlete's grace. His features shone with natural good humor, and he had a calmness about him that relaxed her, even through her emotional hurts and the nagging pain in her arm.

"Careful with that," he said. With a start she realized she had been unconsciously rubbing her wrist. "I had to put two screws in there to hold the bones together. God knows what shifting back to your human form did to my work.

"If it's all right with you, I'll take you down to the clinic early tomorrow for an x-ray, before my assistant shows up. I don't want to work on that wrist any more if I don't have to, and I'm not exactly certified to perform surgery on humans in any case." He smiled lopsidedly, and to her surprise, she found herself smiling back. "But if you got those bones out of whack, you should see a real surgeon, not a horse doctor like me."

"What do I do with this?" she asked, fingering the remnants of the splint distastefully.

He sighed. "Take it off for now. After we go to the clinic tomorrow, if things don't look any worse, I'll put together a sling for you. That way, if you have to shift, you can just take it off."

He paused, then looked at his feet. "There's towels and soap in the bathroom. Feel free to take a shower. I won't...you don't have to worry about me trying to take advantage of you," he finished in a rush. To her amusement, a flush crawled up his neck and face.