Taken By the Wolf (Southern Basin Pack #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

If Cole died, everything was fucked.

"What the fuck’s happening to him?" Nico Tillsey barked out the question, but he feared his voice was too shaky with panic to keep anyone in the pack focused. His fucking hands were shaking, and he was tempted to shove them into the pockets of his stupid jeans before anyone noticed.

Fresh blood was spattered across the stomach of Cole's checkered red and white shirt, making the pattern solid red about halfway down. His already pale skin was beginning to look pure white and sweat beaded his brow like it was a hundred degrees in the room. His dark hair looked even darker against his clammy forehead, and Nico didn’t like how pale his alpha’s lips were looking, almost blue.

And now he was convulsing.

Fuck.

Javi and Reece were both wearing sweaters that were offensively homey, given the situation and the bright ceiling light belied the intensity of the moment. Heat wasn't the issue.

Cole’s room looked just as it had when he’d left, a book left on his bedside table along with an empty coffee mug he probably meant to return to the kitchen.

"When did this start?" Nico demanded as his fellow betas held the alpha down on his bed. Hugh had thought to put down two dark blue beach towels first, which would hopefully save any mess and hide any stains.

Nico didn't give a singular fuck about the mess right now, though.

"I don't know!" Javi's eyes were wide, and he balled up his fists.

Those eyes shone a little too yellow, a little too inhuman, and his wolf was peeking through.

“How did this happen?” Javi was normally the calmest of them all, always quick with a joke and full of energy that sometimes had him bouncing off the walls.

Today he looked like a caged animal ready to lash out at his jailers.

That was another thing they didn't need.

Nico wasn't a doctor, but he could manage a bit of first aid. His wolf couldn't do shit. Paws and bandages didn't mix.

"It was the fucking Iron Runners, man," Reece spat.

"They fucking shot him with something. Shot him!

Like some fucking humans! And he's not healing.

" Reece was a large man and a larger wolf, but right now his shoulders were hunched forward as if he could somehow lend his strength to Cole and will him to get better. A vein pulsed in his temple.

"Silver?" Hugh asked. He'd grabbed a first aid kit from somewhere, and paper tore as he opened the antiseptic wipe with his teeth. Hugh pushed up the sleeves of his sweater and revealed the faded tattoo he had on his forearm. Tonight, it was covered in speckles of Cole’s blood.

"It doesn't smell like it." That was Javi. "Maybe there's silver powder. But I've never seen any shit like this before." Nico took a deep breath and tried to work out the scent for himself. Javi was right. Whatever it was, it was wrong. Acrid and chemical and almost like fucking magic.

Hugh jerked up Cole's shirt and swiped the wipe over the wound. It looked so small considering just how damaged Cole was. Cole moaned weakly and tried to curl in on himself. For all the pain it was causing him, the wound wasn’t big.

Nico expected a swipe of a wolf’s claws, even if Reece had mentioned something like a gun.

The wound on Cole’s abdomen was only two inches wide and surrounded by an ugly purple bruise.

Was that a good sign? Bad? He had no fucking clue.

They'd all been hurt before. That was just part of being a werewolf. But Nico couldn't remember a time it had lasted. He stared at the seeping blood on Cole's abdomen like it might offer answers.

Was it healing? Was that dark shit around the edges blood or something worse? Was his skin turning pitch black? No, that had to be a trick of the light.

"We need a healer. Where's Mark?" The pack house was strangely quiet tonight. Javi and Reece had managed to get Cole inside without being spotted, which was unusual in a residence that had more in common with an apartment building than a house.

"He's working with the healer from the Alejandro’s pack on that training thing. Something about physiology or metabolism or—"

"He's not here," Hugh interrupted Reece. "And he's gone for a week. Melanie is visiting her mom but is supposed to be back soon."

Melanie was Mark's apprentice. His incredibly new apprentice. She was eighteen and eager, but she'd only been learning for a month or two and wasn't prepared to handle whatever was wrong with Cole. Nico didn't need to be a healer himself to know that.

The other betas kept looking at him like he had the answers, and he wanted to scream at someone else to make a decision.

His jaw clenched and he could feel the strain of a headache already threatening at his temples.

He ran his fingers through his short brown hair and resisted the urge to tug on it, as if that might calm him down.

Why are you hanging this on me, Cole?

Why do you think I can handle this?

Saying any of that out loud would make this ten times worse.

"What about a human doctor?" He didn't recognize his own voice as he asked it; his voice came out almost strangled.

"Are you crazy?" Javi asked. "Look at him!"

Cole's hands were partially shifted, with claws growing out of his fingers.

His whole body was covered with more hair than was normal, and his mouth and nose were a bit, well, pointy.

Cole must have partially shifted for whatever fight he was anticipating.

Dark fur covered his forearms and thickened as it got closer to his hands while his fingers ended in nails that were almost thick enough to be called claws.

But the fact that he hadn't reverted into one of his regular forms was concerning. It took some work to maintain a partial shift. Any man in the room could do it, even if they were hurt, but if they were unconscious, their bodies would tip over into whatever form was easiest.

Cole should have looked fully human by now. Or fully wolf. Not … this.

The alpha moaned again, and his eyes blinked open. "No human doctors." The words were muffled and groaned out in pain, but impossible to misinterpret.

"Cole, you—"

"No. Human. Doctors." His eyes shone with the authority he carried every day. He was weak, bleeding, and mostly out of it, but still had all that alpha dominance that settled over Nico and made him want to bow his head and bare his throat.

"Yes, alpha," he said instead, and the promise burned.

Cole coughed from deep in his lungs and gasped in pain as it upset whatever was wrong with him. He flopped his head to the side until he was looking at Javi, Reece, and Hugh. "Listen to Nico. Don't be stupid." Then his eyes fluttered shut again and his breathing grew even more ragged.

The three betas looked at him.

Nico was frozen. He couldn't breathe. He could barely think. What the hell was Cole saying?

Nico didn't want to be in charge. He wasn't the alpha.

If he'd wanted to be an alpha, he would have taken the mantle of leadership in the pack he'd been born into instead of fleeing for the Southern Basin Pack and never looking back.

Cole knew that.

The motherfucker.

Javi, Reece, and Hugh were looking at him. Waiting for him to say something, he realized, to be the alpha, at least until Cole woke up.

Fuck.

"Okay, no human doctors." That was Cole's last order before the insanity took him and he appointed Nico as interim alpha.

Nico could honor that, at least. "Reece, try and get ahold of Mark.

Hopefully he and his healer friend are still in contact range.

Hugh, you stay in here and keep cleaning his wounds and shit. Javi—"

"Go find Melanie?" he guessed.

That would make the most sense. But Nico's instincts cautioned him that a barely trained healer could do more harm than good. Some people knew just enough to be dangerous, and he feared she was one of them.

He shook his head. "You need to run interference for Cole.

He's going to get better." Nico did his best interpretation of Cole's alpha stare and met each of his fellow betas' eyes.

"We don't need the rest of the pack worrying over nothing." He tried for his own version of Cole’s alpha confidence, but he wasn’t sure it made him sound authoritative rather than just gruff.

Cole groaned and coughed but didn't wake up.

Nico had to ignore that. Cole was going to get better. He had to.

"What about that transport job coming up?” Javi asked. "Do we cancel?" The Southern Basin pack was only a minor power player in the city. With fewer than fifty adult members and only a small chunk of territory, they were sitting in a precarious position.

They were too big to be ignored like the smaller, family based packs that lived throughout the city, most of them technically members of the larger packs, but that was in name only.

But they weren't big enough to defend themselves in an all-out war against a pack like the Iron Runners and their allies.

Cole had spent the last two years doing his damnedest to cultivate alliances with the other small to mid-sized packs who wanted to remain free of the Iron Runners influence.

It was slow work, and they had little to show for it so far.

Mark's field trip to allied pack territory was all part of Cole's friendship campaign.

And so was the security work.

Dawson, the alpha of the Iron Runners, wanted a piece of every pie in the city, even if that pie was only in the city on a temporary basis.

So if, for example, someone wanted to move a person or thing from Point A to Point B, the Iron Runners expected a pitstop at Point C so they could take a look and "tax" it.

The Southern Basin Pack tried to help those who were trying to avoid unfair taxation. And they especially tried to help those fleeing the Iron Runners.

"That's in three weeks," Nico said.

"Closer to two," Javi corrected him. "It's going down on the twenty-seventh."

"Doesn't matter. It's a simple enough escort job. And Cole might—will be better by then. He'd skin all of us if we canceled over a little blip." He couldn't look at Cole while he said that. Instead, he met the eyes of each of his fellow betas and willed himself to seem as confident as he could.

"So what do you mean by 'run interference'?" Javi asked. "Are you telling me to lie to the pack?"

Was that what he was saying? Nico balled his fists to keep from nervously tapping his finger against his leg. Underneath his skin, his wolf bristled and stretched, aching to be let out.

He had to be decisive. "For now, yes. If anyone asks, tell them he has the flu."

"You ever heard of a werewolf with the flu?" Hugh asked. He was fidgeting with the wipe from the antiseptic packet, rolling it into a tiny ball between his fingers.

Nico glared at Hugh, who was not helping. "There's a first time for everything."

"And if he doesn't—"

"He's going to get better," Nico said. And this time, he did sound like an alpha. He took a deep breath and let the heavy mantle of leadership settle over his shoulders. "We just need to give him time."