Accidentally Yours (Coyote Bluff Series Book 1) (3 page)

The pain had intensified until Ian was afraid he was going to throw up. He’d struggled while in the car to hear what was happening, catching a whiff of panic from Cammie just before she’d sprinted for the house. He’d listened to her slam the door shut and perhaps go up a set of stairs. The sound of an approaching car had obviously
made her afraid. He felt so helpless, unable to protect her from whatever was causing her fear.

Once her friend arrived he could do nothing but keep his
lips over his teeth and not snarl at them. The women were trying to be gentle, but the towel running under his ribs pressed and yanked on his injuries with each movement. He swallowed every growl that threatened to roll through his chest. He refused to scare them. He couldn’t stop the whimpering. Each sway, each step, sent jolts of pain through his body. He tried to help them, knowing he was huge and heavy.

His paws stopped working at the top of the stairs. His strength completely gone, sapped from his muscles by the horrible throbbing pain. He listened to the females talking, their voices getting quieter and quieter. He heard one last yelp
, as if he was in a tunnel, before he blacked out, welcoming the darkness and oblivion.

Ian came to through a fog of pain and growled deep in his chest. His animal was fighting for dominance in their collective mind. He knew he’d been attacked, he could still smell the fucking coyotes on his fur. It was the other scents that brought him around. Females, human females, were near. He quieted the growl enough to concentrate on his nose. Memories bubbled up. He’d been hurt
. The one woman had brought him to her house. The other was a vet. Christ, his head hurt.

“Shh, sweet
ie. Don’t fight us. I don’t want Margie muzzling you, so calm down. She’s almost done checking you over, then we’re going to clean you up.”

The female
—no, he knew her name—
Cammie
. He wondered briefly if that was short for something. The thought slid from his mind when she continued cooing, as if he was an injured baby bird. She spoke softly to him, coaxing him to relax. Her hand stroked down his head in slow slides, over and over. He fought the pain enough to open his eyes, and found a beautiful pixie face close to his. Her hazel eyes were so large in her pale face she looked child-like. One eye was partially swollen shut, marred with a nasty bruise and fresh scrapes. His anger boiled again. Who in their right mind would harm a female enough to leave that kind of damage?

He growled but swallowed the sound when terror skated across her face. He refused to add to her fear. She’d been through enough tonight and
, from the slight taint of her blood on the air, she had other wounds as well.

He continued his perusal of her, looking for those injuries and trying to soak her in as much as he could. Brown hair curled around her face, framing her pale skin in soft waves. Tiny freckles dotted
the creamy skin over her nose and cheeks. He had the strangest urge to taste them. Her lips were cute, pink, and kissable. The thought of nibbling on them for hours moved through his mind. They tensed or relaxed with each thought she had, telegraphing emotions. He noticed the slight split in the corner of her bottom lip and had to stifle the urge to growl again. He watched those delectable lips, deaf to her words as she spoke to him.

When she smiled down at him, he nearly melted. Wolf or not, at that moment he knew she was his. Every cell in his animal body yearned to feel her, press his body against her, drag her scent deep into his lungs so he could absorb her into his blood. If he’d been able to
, he would have transformed right then and there and claimed her. He whimpered pitifully when he tried to move closer to her, forgetting completely for a moment that he was injured.
Fucking coyotes
.

The memory of racing through the woods with the fucking yippers on his heals brought a fresh wave of anger. He hadn’t done anything at all to the shifters of this area. Moving to Coyote Bluff
, he’d hoped to escape the constant judgmental shit he’d dealt with for the past four years. One fucking mistake.

That’s all it’d taken to sign his own eviction notice from every pack territory in the U.S. One stupid, idiotic dick-led idea. He’d pay for his infidelity for the rest of his life, and that just sucked. He never should have taken the bait that night. No, better yet
, he shouldn’t have gotten drunk at that fucking bar. If he’d stayed home everything would have been fine. But he’d given in to his loneliness and gone drinking.

Then, when the Alpha’s wife approached him, rubbing all over him and smelling hot and ready he’d given in. His cock had taken control of his brain and one mediocre orgasm later he’d become the pariah of his pack. Days later
, after trying to pretend it hadn’t happened, the enforcers had shown up at his job and chased him from town. He’d left everything behind. His home, his belongings, anything that had any meaning was probably burned or given to someone else. He’d understood. Ian had committed one of the worst sins in shifter society. Fucking another’s mate and leaving your seed behind was tantamount to claiming that female as your own. Being chased from every town since that fucking night was what caused a flash of rage. One night of stupidity seems to have been enough to have every shifter ignoring him or trying to harm him. The night before wasn’t the first time a pack of predators had chased him from their lands. He was sure it wouldn’t be the last either.

The ache in his chest was enough to have him whimpering. Shifters, pack animals especially, didn’t survive long without others
, because the animal within needed comradery.

Ian could feel the stress his wolf was under with the lack of interaction. Affection, sexual
ity, friendship. All were very tactile emotions in the shifter world. Removing those things from someone was a sentence of slow death. The animal within the human body would eventually disappear, dejected and forlorn. Once that happened the shell of a person usually committed suicide, because without their other half they were nothing. The few times he’d approached an Alpha in hopes of his deeds being forgiven or unknown he’d found his ass being pursued again, tail tucked.

He was yanked from his thoughts by a sharp pain in his chest. He growled before he thought about it. The soothing hand that’d been stroking over his head while he mulled over his past stilled. He choked off the snarl and relaxed once again under Cammie’s hand. If this was the only way for him to get affectionate touches then he’d take it, pain or not.

“You can give him something for the pain, right? I mean, I just hate the fact that he
’s in so much agony.” Cammie looked down at the animal and felt a tug at her heart. She hated to see animals in pain. There was something majestic about this animal that just made her want to cry. His amber eyes held such intelligence.

“Yes, I’ve already given him one shot for pain. Once he’s settled I’ll leave you instructions and three more injectables. If he seems to need them during the night you can give them to him, but I would think he will be sleeping off the pain. He seems to be mending already. The cut on his leg already looks better, although it might just be because we finally got some of the gore off of his fur.”

Cammie did agree that his injuries looked better, either because the cuts weren’t as bad as they’d originally thought or because they truly were starting to mend already. She knew animals healed slightly faster than humans, but still, it was amazing to watch. Margie had said he had broken or cracked ribs and bruising over most of his body.
Poor baby
.

They’d spent a good amount of time washing his fur. She was thankful that there was a drain in the floor of her mud room, or they would have had a huge mess to clean up. With a bucket of baby shampoo and the hose they were able to lightly scrub all of the gore from his body while he whimpered through the whole thing. She continued stroking his fur with a towel, trying to stem the shivers racing along his body.

“Can animals go into shock?” The thought brought fear racing to the surface. She looked around at Margie, waiting for an answer.

“Sort of. But Cammie, don’t worry, okay
? He is going to be fine. I’ve seen much worse cases and they all survived. With a night’s rest, some light food in the morning and a few pain meds he’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

“You’re sure? I know you only have the one kennel at the office, but if you need to take him for observation or something I can pay for it. I don’t want him to suffer.”

Margie didn’t get the chance to answer the question. A high pitched whine from the wolf startled them both, and his attempt to crawl into Cammie’s lap tugged at her heart. A warm, rough tongue swiped over her hand and his eyes were steady on her face.

“It looks like he wants to stay with you, Cam.”

Margie’s eyes held some secret that Cammie just didn’t know. She shook off that idea and looked back down at the large creature partially draped across her lap. “Okay, he can stay here. Give me the instructions on the pain stuff and anything else you think I need to know. It’s getting late and you need to go home. I’m sure you’re beat.”

Cammie started to feel the adrenaline drop in her own system and fatigue
creeping through her body. She’d been running on fear for too long tonight. Her hands were shaking and she knew it would just get worse if she didn’t get to bed. A hot shower, cup of tea and bed were the only things that would keep her from falling apart.

The women made a bed of blankets in the corner of the laundry room and coaxed the wolf onto the pile. He seemed to respond best to her, so she sat on the floor by the blankets and promised him everything from a rubdown to a
T-bone steak to get him moving toward the blankets. Neither woman could carry him any farther. Their arms were tired and shaky. With slow movements he crawled to the pile, and lowered his beaten body to them. The sound of agony as he lay down was enough to pull tears from her again.

“You are such a good boy,” she whispered into his ear. She stroked his head a few more times and then stood, breathing a sigh of relief that she could get to bed soon. Her own injuries were starting to throb again. She needed a few pain meds herself. “Come on into the kitchen and you can tell me what I can do for him.”

She wandered through the door and propped herself against the counter. Her legs felt like jelly and she knew she was almost at the end of her strength.

“Do you have paper and a pen? You are too tired to pay attention.” Margie waited while Cammie gathered a notepad and pencil. “Okay, for the pain meds he can have them every six hours, as needed. Now, if he is growling or even looking at you funny, don’t use them. I don’t like leaving you with sharp pointy objects to be jabbed into a potentially deadly animal, but I don’t think he’s going to give you any problems.”

Again Cammie saw that secret smirk on Margie’s face. What the hell was going on? Did Margie know who the owner was and just didn’t want to tell? There was something going on and she didn’t think it was just because she was hyper sensitized by fatigue. She hadn’t even thought of the possibilities of being attacked while dosing him with pain meds. Her wolf had been so good and calm through everything they’d done to him that she’d forgotten the very real fact that he was a real live wolf. Even if he was someone’s pet, a wolf was a wolf in any light.

She made a “tell me more” move with her hands
and Margie continued, “He can have light food tomorrow morning. Scrambled eggs, rice, noodles, cut up chicken, things like that. Only give him about a cup of food the first time you feed him. If he keeps it down for half an hour, give him more. Oh, and we need to get a bowl of water out there for him.”

She rubbed her eyes. Okay, she had most of those things in the house. She could make him some food in the morning. The big mixing bowl would have to work for a water dish. She grabbed the bowl from the cupboard and filled it at the sink. When she carried it to the laundry room she stopped and watched the animal, curled in on itself, sleeping. He was huge. She had become used to being around him, but leaving the room for a few minutes seemed to have wiped out that feeling of familiarity.

She’d always loved big dogs, but he easily was larger than any dog she’d ever been around. His fur, when not matted with blood and other nasty things, was a wonderful mix of browns and grays.
I really have a wolf in my house
.

When she came back into the kitchen Margie was standing next to a glass of water, three pain pills and an ice pack. “You will take these while I stand here, go take a shower and fall asleep with this ice pack on your face. You look like shit, Cam. I want the whole story tomorrow. And you better call me if the asshole shows up here. I see you have your .22 ready, but I still want the call so I can listen to you shoot the motherfucker.”

A giggle edged in hysteria worked its way up her throat. The image of her standing in Rambo fashion, firing from the hip while holding the phone out for Margie’s listening pleasure was too much. She knew she was tired, and once her giggling started she just couldn’t rein it in. Her ribs ached with each inhale, but she couldn’t stop herself. She laughed at the look Margie was giving her, the one that said that she looked like a loon. Then she remembered the image of Ron sprawled on his kitchen floor, moaning, and the laughter turned to sobs.

“Okay, come on. I’m putting you to bed. I can’t leave you like this.” Margie grabbed her hand, turned it over and placed the pain pills in her palm. “Take these.”

She stopped crying enough to swallow the pills and let her friend drag her to the stairs. Stumbling up the stairs with tear-blurred eyes made her very thankful for her friendship with Margie. She couldn’t remember a time anyone stopped and took care of her.

When her father was sick she was the one holding down the fort, paying bills, taking care of medications and anything else that needed to be done. She’d done what needed to be done, but it had left her hollow, used up.

A fresh wave of tears rolled down her face at Margie’s kindness. “Thank you so much. I really appreciate this. I mean, thanks for coming out here and treating him, and now you’re taking care of me. I owe you so much.” Her last words came out almost unintelligible. A sob worked its way up her throat and she fought the urge to throw her arms around her friend.

“Geez, Cam. I bet you are a sappy drunk, too, aren’t you
? This is what friends do for each other. Now, get in bed, put this ice on your face and tell me you have a spare key.”

She didn’t fight the insistent push from her friend and did the only thing she really wanted to do,
which was crawl into bed. She kicked off her clothes quickly and pulled her blankets back. The feel of the soft mattress under her pulled another sob from her throat. Naked and exhausted, she lay on her pillow.

“Here, put this on your eye.” The ice pack came into view. She set it gently on her cheek, sighing at the cool pressure. “Now, you have a spare key, right?”

“Yes, in the top drawer in the kitchen. Should be on a red keyring.”

“All right, sugar. You get some sleep. I’ll call you in the morning and check on you and your pup. And you are telling me about Ron. I should just give Connor a call and have him swing by the asshole’s place.”

“No, Marg, please don’t call the police. I’ll deal with Ron. I promise I’m done with him.”

“I
’ll talk to you in the morning. Sleep, Cam. It’ll help.”

Cammie listened to her friend’s steps through the house and heard her muttering as the front door closed. Sleep closed in fast, forcing her eyes shut. Her face throbbed
, as did her ribs. She sighed when she heard Margie’s truck start and pull away. Her mind tried to work through everything that had happened in the night, but fatigue pulled her under into a deep slumber.