Werewolf U (5 page)

If Sebastian doesn't get to her first.
That was unlikely, at best, so he focused on Samara fully.

Jason raced ahead and pulled the clinic door open for them. James vaulted through it with Samara held tight to his chest, and Jason rounded them.

"Alpha with an emergency," his brother shouted. "Move ass. Now!"

Two doctors came from the far reaches of the clinic.

Probably playing cards or inventorying their stock. It's not like wolves need them often.

The first one to reach them tugged at the knot on the make-shift bandage.

"No." Jason cautioned him. "It was a Hunter's Fang."

Both pulled back. One swallowed hard. In the next moment, they were checking everything from her pulse and breathing to her pupil reactions. One raced for the back again.

James tried to reconcile it.
A Hunter's Fang?
"Are you sure?"

"That's why I sent it off to Alpha Pietro with Eva. However Christiana got it, this has to be addressed. Now."

"In here," the remaining doctor ordered.

James followed him, his senses reeling.
Christiana swung for her throat. A throat shot with a Hunter's Fang would have killed Samara.

"Here, James."

The snap of the doctor's commands brought him to his senses and James lowered Samara to the king-sized bed in the Alpha room.
When an Alpha needs care, he or she has an Alpha's comforts.

She was alarmingly pale and seemed to be having problems taking in a lungful of air.

The other doctor rushed in with a dusty, ornate glass jar. "I never thought we would need this," he grumbled. "Steven!"

"Working on it." He unwrapped Jason's shirt from her arm.

James cursed fluently.

Her entire lower arm and hand were crimson and swollen. The knife wound had blackened edges and was weeping a mixture of blood and yellowed pus.

A Hunter's Fang.
There was no question about it. Nothing else would cause that reaction in a wolf.
Damn the wolf hunters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The doctors didn't waste time. They used the ointment to scrub out the wound, leaving it red and raw. Then they put more ointment in the laceration and wrapped it loosely.

"Will she recover?" Jason asked.

Steven looked up and smiled at them. "I take it you are her mates?"

James glared at him. "I believe my brother asked you a question."

The other doctor straightened and offered his hand. "My name is Benjamin. My partner is Steven."

"Did we ask your names?" James inquired coolly.
Benjamin. Yes. That's how he knew my name. He treated me when that prank went wrong first year.

Benjamin sighed. "All signs point to a full recovery, but it will not be an easy one. The poison moves quickly."

"Perhaps a scar." Steven added his observations to the discussion. "With a Hunter's Fang, that is possible."

"Yes. Perhaps. Samara will have to stay here for the next day or two. After that, she will need a week of recovery time in her rooms."

"Then we stay here, too," Jason decreed before James could.

"Of course," the doctors replied in unison.

* * * *

Sebastian smiled at Pietro over his glass of wine. "She
is
beautiful." The photos his men brought him over the years didn't do justice to the woman Samara had become.

"I hear she also has the temperament of an Alpha female."

"I knew she would. Human though her mother was, the woman had spirit." He still loved that about her, though he loathed the woman in general.
She was fine stock to create my daughter, though lacking in other ways, not the least of which is the fact that she's not a wolf.

Pietro leaned forward. "If it wouldn't be impertinent to ask—"

"It would." The memories put a damper on his happiness, just as they always had.

Wisely, Pietro didn't respond. They sat in a pleasant silence, sipping their wine.

The shout of a warning to halt brought Sebastian's head up in shock, and they both vaulted to their feet, their glasses abandoned on the conference table.

What in the red hell is this?
Human hunters hadn't breached the campus for well over a hundred years, and how would one make it to the administration building without a general alarm being sounded?

He couldn't. It's impossible.

"N-need the Alpha M-Maestro," a young woman stammered out.

Pietro made it to the door two steps before Sebastian did. He wrenched the door open, and the young lady rushed toward them. Pietro dodged left, and Sebastian took his cue, dodging right. If this was some kind of attack, they would have her flanked.

She came to a halt an arm's length away from both, which left Sebastian staring at a frightened she-wolf. Worse, the youngster was holding a bloodied blade, and her hands and dress were stained with the same.

"What happened, Eva?" Pietro asked.

Eva? Samara's den sister.
He could see the likeness to her father in her.

"Christiana attacked Samara with this. I think…" She sobbed. "I think it's a…" It seemed she couldn't force the words out.

Sebastian focused on the blade, his blood running cold. "A Hunter's Fang." But they were outlawed within the wolf community. He had passed that law personally, his first decree as Alpha.

Eva threw the blade onto the table with a whimper of distress. She backed away from it, trembling and sobbing.

Sebastian made it to her first; he wrapped an arm around her, supporting Eva to the far end of the table. "Where is Samara? Is she well?"
With a Hunter's Fang stained with blood? The more appropriate question would be "Is she alive?"
Sebastian couldn't face asking it.

"James and Jason took her to the clinic. Her arm. Christiana sliced into her arm."

Even that could kill, but not if they got her there quickly enough.
He released her and turned toward the doorway, but Eva's whisper stopped him short.

"She aimed for Samara's throat. Night Mother, what was she thinking?"

Sebastian didn't turn back, trying to hide his shifting features as best he could. "I want Marcus here. Now! And I want that bitch gone within a day."

"It will be done."

He loped away toward the clinic, his vision red in bloodlust. Wolves gave him a wide berth as he passed.

Damned right, it will be done and no one will dare try again. I made those abominations illegal. Now I'm going to make that law hurt.

Chapter Four

Sebastian sat brooding in one of the wing chairs set before the fire in his residence den. He'd been to see Samara twice and nothing had changed so far. His daughter lay unconscious and lightly fevering, her breathing shallow but stable.

She could be dead. If Samara was slower or less skilled, she would be dead.

He raked a hand through his hair.
A Hunter's Fang. How lost have I been in my misery that a wolf dared balk me and keep one of those abominations? Are there more of them?
A show of force was warranted.

The polite knock at the door put his nerves on edge. "Yes?"

"Marcus is here, Sebastian."

"Thank you, Roberto. Show him in."

Sebastian knew Roberto would have left Marcus waiting in the sitting room. That meant he had plenty of time to get to his desk before Roberto opened the door and waved Marcus through it.

He strode through as if he had not a care in the world. Then he bowed sharply.

Not cordially.

"You called for me, Alpha?"

At least he didn't presume to use my given name.
In his current state of mind, Sebastian might leave scars if Marcus displayed such presumption. "Yes. I did. I need to speak to you about several issues."

Marcus moved toward one of the guest chairs.

"Did I say you should sit?"

He jerked to a halt. "No, Alpha. Of course not."

"This is not a business meeting. Neither is it a friendly chat. Make no mistake. This day may mark the end of your den, Marcus. Tread lightly but honestly with me."

If I learn your daughter knew what the weapon was, she dies today.
Though it pained Sebastian to take a wolf's only child away, some crimes required that punishment.
Moreover, if I learn you knew of the existence of the weapon, you will die.

Marcus went pale. "Alpha? What have we done?"

"Your daughter tried to take the life of her Class Alpha today."

He ground his teeth. "The Alpha. I should have known. I have heard nothing
but
complaints about the Alpha from my daughter in the last week."

Sebastian tensed at the implied criticism of Samara.

Marcus waved him off. "Not that I am excusing my daughter's behavior. If you and Pietro say this…Samara Tyler is Alpha female, I trust your judgment." He hesitated. "But… Why have we never heard of this Alpha before? Where was she schooled? Whose line does she come from?"

His frustration set Sebastian off. Before he could talk himself down, his ears, eyes, paws, and muzzle had shifted.

Marcus shuffled back a step, then dropped to his hands and knees in a sign of submission.

My reaction told Marcus what Samara is to me. He knows now. He knows only my own blood would make me lose control this way.

"You need not know the details of my daughter's life," Sebastian informed him. What his pack would assume was shameful enough. They didn't need to know the whole sordid truth.
Only Samara needs the awful truth. When she is ready to ask for it.

He forced himself to shift back, but it cost him in effort. "This is not to be shared, Marcus. Not even with your daughter."
If you live that long.

"Yes, Alpha. My daughter will be dealt with. I assure you, she will."

"She will indeed. At the least, Christiana is no longer welcome at this university or at any of the ones I sit on the board of."

Marcus was silent, probably working his way to the fact that Sebastian sat on the board of three of the five wolf universities worldwide. Since it was a safe bet Christiana didn't speak Japanese, he'd just proclaimed she would have to attend university in northern Norway, above the Arctic Circle.

Hope you like snow, Christiana.

He nodded. "I understand. It is most fair of you."

"She will be leaving campus with you tonight, Marcus. Pietro has already ordered her packed out to leave. That is assuming, of course, that she survives my judgment."

Marcus snapped his head up, his eyes wild at the bluntly-stated threat to his daughter. "Alpha, surely nothing Christiana could have done would really en—"

"Stand. I want you to look me in the eyes when you answer my questions, and may the Night Mother have mercy on you if you lie to me."

Marcus made his way shakily to his feet. He nodded, his expression strained.

Sebastian pulled the blood-stained blade from the towel on his desk. He held it between them.

"That's—"

"A Hunter's Fang. I am well aware of
what
it is."

"Christiana used—"

"Yes, she did. So, I am sure you can understand the severity of this crime."

"Is she well? Your daughter? Samara?" He tripped over his words, nearly in a panic.

Sebastian shot him a quelling look.

"I-I mean…" He swallowed hard, going red in the face.

"Samara is alive. Thank the Night Mother for that favor. Had your daughter's blow bit skin at her intended target, my daughter would be dead now." Marcus would know what that meant.

"Artery, lung, or heart?" Sebastian barely heard him.

"Throat."

Marcus winced.

Sebastian dropped the dagger, letting it clatter to the desktop. He savored Marcus's cringe.
I have him where I want him. He won't dare lie to me now.

"I am sure you are aware of the laws governing a Hunter's Fang."

Marcus nodded. "I swear I knew nothing about it."

"Then where did your daughter get it? Since she is an inept fighter, I assume she didn't take one off a hunter personally."

"I can ask, but I suspect—"

"You suspect what? Who? Where did she get a Hunter's Fang?"

Marcus sighed, then rubbed a hand over his mouth. "My father didn't want to give up his collection. When the new law was announced…he resisted turning them over. I turned in five of his blades for destruction."

Sebastian's stomach churned. "Five?" He hadn't realized anyone had an arsenal of that size.

"It was all I could find. My father swore I'd found them all. He cursed me out of his house. We never spoke again." He shifted from foot to foot, as if he felt the need to pace.

Sebastian wasn't in a giving mood. "You believe your father gave Christiana the blade before he died?"

"Perhaps not intentionally. You see, my father left me nothing. Everything was left to Christiana and to my sister, Aubree. I checked everything that came into my home, but my father was fond of false-bottomed drawers and trunks, hidden compartments… Anywhere he could hide his prized possessions. I believe the blades came to my daughter hidden in some larger piece of furniture. He was addled near the end. He may not have remembered where the blades were stored or that he'd hidden some from me at all."

"In other words, you're guessing."

"Yes, damn it! I'm also guessing Christiana didn't know what the weapon was. To her, it would have been nothing more than an impressive piece of workmanship."

That was likely true. Since Marcus didn't own one, and the law was passed before their daughters were born, Christiana may never have learned about them.

Sebastian took a calming breath. "Get the answers from your daughter, Marcus."

"I will, Alpha."

"Have her off this campus and away from Samara before sunrise, but do not leave without giving me the answers I'm seeking."

"You have my vow on that." He was gone without a backward glance.

Roberto appeared in the doorway. "Samara has awakened, Sebastian. Steven reports that she is still fevering and is quite befuddled, but the wound is healing well."