Midnight Mate (Crimson Hollow #6)

Chapter One

Fourteen hours into his shift, Clint’s scrubs bore the evidence of his day.

Yellow rubber duck fragments extracted from a panicked Lab’s stomach, performing back-to-back C-sections on two yowling cats, and three vials of Mrs. Henderson’s geriatric poodle’s blood that had taken seven attempts to collect.

His body ached for the sweet oblivion of his mattress, where he could hibernate until sometime next week.

Turning into his driveway felt like crossing a finish line he hadn’t been sure he’d reach.

Cool air hit him when he climbed out of his truck, and he paused long enough to appreciate the smell of grass and distant pine. Overhead, clouds drifted across a sky scattered with stars, the moon casting everything in silver-edged shadows.

Beautiful, really, if he’d had the energy to appreciate it.

His house sat dark and waiting. No lights in the windows, no sound except the wind rustling through the trees at the edge of his property. Keys jangled as he unlocked the front door and stepped into the familiar quiet of his house.

He dropped his keys on the counter and tossed the mail onto the growing pile he kept meaning to sort through. Bills could wait until tomorrow when his brain functioned again.

Mabel, his orange tabby, wound between his ankles with an indignant meow that clearly communicated his displeasure at the late dinner service.

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

After filling her bowl and refreshing her water, Clint opened the fridge and stared at its contents with the blank expression of someone too tired to make decisions.

Leftover Chinese food from three days ago, half a sandwich he didn’t remember making, and a concerning number of condiment bottles. Nothing appealed.

Maybe he’d just go straight to bed and deal with food in the morning.

Mabel crunched kibble in the background, tail flicking with satisfaction.

Through the kitchen window, the backyard sat dark and empty, trees swaying in a breeze he could hear but not feel through the glass. Peaceful. Quiet. Exactly what he needed after a day that had felt more like a week.

Clint grabbed a bottle of water and was halfway to shutting the fridge when he froze, listening.

Outside, something whined. Between Mabel's enthusiastic eating and the hum of the refrigerator, he might have dismissed it as nothing.

But the whine came again, longer this time.

Definitely real.

Definitely outside.

For a moment, he considered going to bed like a normal person who valued sleep and personal boundaries. But the sound set off every instinct he’d developed over years of working with injured animals. Pain. Distress. Something out there needed help.

Clint headed for the back door, already running through possibilities. Injured dog? Coyote caught in something?

“Probably a raccoon,” he muttered, though he grabbed the flashlight from the junk drawer anyway. “Or a possum. Something that’s going to bite me for my trouble.”

Wouldn’t be the first time an injured animal had wandered onto his property, though it hadn’t happened in months.

Word had somehow gotten around among creatures that supposedly couldn’t reason.

The vet lives here. Go bother him.

Outside, the temperature had dropped enough to make him wish he’d grabbed a jacket. He thumbed on his flashlight, the yellow beam cutting through darkness as he scanned the yard, each exhale creating ghost-like clouds that drifted through the light.

Grass stretched away toward the tree line, shadows pooling under the branches.

“Hello?” His voice sounded too loud in the stillness. “Anyone out here?”

He’d just become every horror movie trope.

Movement caught his eye. Clint swung the light over and stopped walking. There, about twenty feet away, something dark lay in the grass.

“Are you really going to go over there? That’s how stupid people die in those movies,” he whispered. He could only guess since he’d never watched a scary movie in his life. Not since Barney the purple dinosaur had frightened the living shit out of him as a child.

Great. Now the theme song was playing in his head.

As he grew closer, the shape resolved into an animal. A wolf.

Massive didn’t quite cover it. The animal had to be pushing two hundred pounds, maybe more. This thing would come up past his waist if it stood.

Black fur caught the light, and labored breathing rattled in its throat. Each exhale seemed to cost it.

Professional assessment warred with common sense.

Approaching an injured predator ranked high on the list of spectacularly bad ideas, right up there with petting rattlesnakes and trusting expiration dates on gas station sushi.

But something about the way the animal lay there, not trying to flee or defend itself, pulled at him.

Clint kept the light low to avoid blinding it. Animals in pain were unpredictable, and something this size could do serious damage if panicked. Its muscle and fur and teeth would make any sane person turn around and call animal control. Or the police. Or possibly the National Guard.

Against his better judgment, Clint took another step closer, medical curiosity overriding common sense. Blood matted the fur along the animal’s side, dark and sticky-looking in the flashlight beam. One of its back legs lay at an angle that suggested injury.

Ragged breathing possibly meant broken ribs, maybe worse.

Whatever had happened, this wolf was in bad shape.

And now that he was closer, it was definitely a wolf.

Blood matted the fur along its side, dark and wet. The smell of it mixed with earth and something else he couldn’t quite place.

“Easy,” Clint murmured, more out of habit than any real hope it would help. “Let me take a look at you.”

The wolf’s head lifted, and its eyes found Clint’s in the darkness. Intelligence looked back at him. Not the reactive awareness of an animal but something deeper.

Something…human.

Animals looked at you. They tracked movement, assessed threat levels, operated on instinct and learned behavior.

This wasn’t that. This was recognition. Calculation. Understanding.

This wasn’t looking. This was “seeing.”

“Oh, hell.” Clint’s grip tightened on the flashlight. “You’re a shifter, aren’t you?”

Well. That explained the size, at least. He’d treated a few over the years, the ones who couldn’t heal on their own. Once, Clint had been taken to the demon realm. He was still freaking out about that three years later.

The wolf’s head dipped. Barely perceptible, could have been a trick of the light, except Clint knew what he’d seen.

A nod. Deliberate and unmistakable.

“Stay here.” Stupid thing to say to an injured wolf that clearly wasn’t going anywhere, but Clint’s mouth was working faster than his brain. “I’m getting my bag.”

Turning, he jogged back to the house, his exhaustion forgotten in favor of the problem-solving part of his brain that had gotten him through veterinary school. He needed his medical bag, the one he kept stocked for emergencies.

Mabel looked up from her bowl when he rushed through the kitchen, but he ignored her in favor of grabbing the bag from the hall closet. Shifters usually healed when they changed forms, he knew that much. Broken bones mended, cuts closed, infections cleared.

That had always blown Clint’s mind.

But something was preventing the wolf from healing. Silver poisoning, maybe? That was the classic problem, wasn’t it? Or a hellhound bite. Those were supposedly nasty and possibly fatal. Perhaps a curse or toxin?

Could’ve been a dozen other things he didn’t know enough about because his degree covered dogs and cats and the occasional exotic pet, not magical creatures who turned into animals.

When Clint reached the yard again, the wolf was standing. Swaying badly, legs trembling, but upright.

For a second, he thought maybe it was recovering. Maybe the healing had finally kicked in and everything would be fine.

Then its legs buckled.

The wolf went down hard, collapsing onto the grass with a thud Clint felt through the ground.

He covered the distance at a run, dropping to his knees beside the wolf. Up close, the injury looked worse. Deep gashes raked across its side, and the leg was definitely broken. Blood matted the dark fur, still wet and fresh.

Whatever had done this had been recent.

A low sound escaped it, something between a groan and a whine, making Clint’s training override his common sense.

“Okay. Okay, we’re not doing this out here.” He set down the bag and moved to the wolf’s side, hands hovering over its body while he assessed the situation. Too heavy to carry. He’d have to support it, and hope it could manage some of its own weight.

Carefully, he worked one arm under its shoulders and the other along its flank, avoiding the obvious injury. The fur was surprisingly soft under his hands, warm despite the blood loss.

“Come on. Work with me here, big guy. We need to get you inside where I can actually see what I’m doing.”

Whether it understood or just operated on the same desperate survival instinct that drove any wounded creature toward shelter, the wolf tried. It pushed with its hind legs while Clint hauled.

The animal’s weight made Clint grunt with effort. Muscle and bone pressed against him, warm despite the cool night air, and the wolf’s breathing roughened further with the movement.

Each step toward the house felt precarious. Clint’s back protested the strain, his shoulders burning, but he kept moving.

Every rational part of his brain screamed about inviting a predator into his home.

A shifter, no less.

Someone who could change into a person, who might have enemies, who might bring whatever trouble had caused this injury right to Clint’s door.

But the wolf’s breathing really was getting worse, and blood was soaking into Clint’s shirt, and he’d taken an oath a long time ago about helping creatures in pain.

Even the ones that could talk back.