Deja Vu: The Healer

Chapter 35: Scumbag

WILLIAM

She said yes.

I was grinning the entire drive back to her apartment. Her chatting with Catherine was entertaining to listen to as they squealed on like preteens at some boy band concert. She was delighted and it made me content to know it was because of me. I was glad she would have such a good friend waiting for her back at home. Hopefully she would not miss Seattle too much.

I was still thinking about moving preparations that we'd have to do for her when I parked the car and got out.

As I stood tall, the vet's scent pummeled into my nose.

Twisting to him, we locked eyes just as a bullet slammed into my shoulder.

A swear word snapped between my lips as I staggered backward into the car door.

"William!" Kara shrieked. She unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the door handle.

"Stop!" I commanded her through gritted teeth. "Stay in the car!"

Her body promptly obeyed, and she sat back, hands tightening the seatbelt with no thought of her own.

I was done trying to be tolerant. That piece of ass was going to die.

I stood back tall, moving through the searing pain and meant to go kill him when another bullet clipped my bicep and then another dug in my side.

A string of swearwords passed through my lips as I fell against the car door sliding to the ground. My hold on Kara was lost as I battled the pain. 

Kara had raced out of the car, and when she stooped to me, I noticed her eyes were fully gold and her mind serene. The healer was in control. Her hands came across my chest and almost immediately the pain dulled. I wasn't sure if it was the healer or the matebond, maybe both, but I focused in on her touch and not the three sites of indescribable pounding agony.

Her hands heated even against the raised temperature of my skin and I felt the bullets at my shoulder and bicep dislodging, like tweezers were being dug in and pulling the metal away. It stung and my jaw clenched, a dotting of cool sweat opening up on my forehead. But a wave of euphoria then rolled over me like a morphine drip.

A moan of appreciation left my lips and my head swayed back at the car door, eyes closing in release. My hands moved to hold around her waist, bringing my relief closer.

One of the bullets popped out of me and tinkered to the ground. I opened my eyes to see it when I instead saw the vet sneaking up, almost on Kara's back.

"Watch out!" I cried out, a lifted hand immediately shifting wolf.

She spun around to see him holding another syringe, probably filled with the same horse tranquilizer. He'd better hope it's just tranquilizer.

Her speed was unbelievable, and I watched her movements as she leapt to her feet and already had the syringe tossed from his grip. She reeled back and sent a heavy blow to his abdomen with her palm. She put so much power behind the hit that he went flying backwards thirty feet and slammed at the cement wall crashing down between cars.

When her hands were off me, the pain restored, and my wolf begged to be freed. The shift was pressing up my arm, lengthening the bone and fine hairs starting to stand on end. The agony like someone was pounding me with a lava coated sledgehammer.

She watched his flight and when he laid motionless, spun back around to me. Quickly her hands replaced on my chest and I could breathe again.

Moments ticked by as the heat spread around my body like beckoning tendrils from mist. I closed my eyes in relief and the hairs started to recede down my arm, but my fingers stayed shifted. White hot heat burned at my shoulder as the second bullet pressed out and tissues regrew.