The Hunter

War of the Words

The dying embers of their campfire flickered back to life as Collin threw a handful of dry grass onto them. When Collin had insisted they keep the fire going for Joshua’s sake, Mira had consented. She’d been jumpy all through dinner, though.

Twigs and branches soon followed the dry grass into the fire pit. Once the fire was burning steadily, Collin glanced at Mira over his shoulder. She lay fast asleep in the sleeping bag he had recently vacated. With her shoulder hurting more than she was letting on and without being able to shift, she seemed vulnerable. Not wanting to push his luck, Collin had prepared to sleep by himself; however, she had convinced him to sleeping in the bag with her, not that he minded.

Despite the warmth of Mira’s body snuggled against his calling to him, Collin pulled on a light jacket and grabbed the satellite phone he’d pinched from Bruce’s backpack. Cuddling with Mira would definitely be preferable to what he was about to do, but he needed information on Mira’s shoulder. Would the bone fragments get absorbed into the body and how long would she be in pain?

After wandering over to the outskirts of the camp and taking a deep breath, Collin dialed a number he thought he’d never call again. A couple of rings later, a gruff voice came over the speaker. “Bruce?”

“No.” Collin groaned—this part of the conversation was going to suck. “Bruce won’t be talking to anyone anytime soon.” Talk about understatement of the year.

“Collin?” Collin cringed at the hope in Ezekiel’s voice. “Holy crap, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Collin took a deep breath to get to the hard part, but Ezekiel cut him off.

“Where are you? We’ll come get you. What happened to the she-bitch? Why do you have Bruce’s phone?”

“Don’t call her that.” It took all Collin’s willpower to keep his voice quiet—he didn’t want to wake Mira or Joshua.

“Okay…” Ezekiel sounded confused. “So where are you? And where’s Bruce?”

“Bruce is dead.” Collin was taking deep breaths. “I’m not calling for you to come get me. I need you to get Dr. Kirkwell and Brady for me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just do it.” Collin groaned. “Please.”

“Fine.” Ezekiel scoffed. “Give me a couple minutes.”

A clunk and the sounds of scuffling came over the speaker. Hopefully, between Brady and Dr. Kirkwell, he could figure out more about Mira’s shoulder. His eyes flickered over to Mira’s still sleeping form. A part of him feared she would need surgery, and the hard part would be convincing her she needed it.

“Hello?” Dr. Kirkwell said with the inevitable echoes of speaker phone.

“Hello, Doctor.” Sure, he specialized in Hunters, but he would know something. “Is Brady there?”

“Hey, Collin.” Brady’s deep voice said. “Where are you at?”

“Look, I need advice from both of you.” Not wanting to beat around the bush, Collin went with the direct approach. “What happens to the bone fragments when someone is shot in the shoulder? The bullet got lodged in the bone.”

“How do I have anything to do with this?” Brady cut in. “I’m not a doctor.”

“No, but the person hurt is a wolf shifter.” Collin sighed. “In human form, which is why I think the two of you could come up with something?”

“Why are we trying to help a shifter?” Ezekiel said. “Wait a second, we’re talking about the she-wolf, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know much about shifter anatomy.” Dr. Kirkwell had a habit of ignoring everything else when something medical came up. “But they do heal faster than Hunters. The bone will probably take about a month to heal, if I had to guess and the muscle about two weeks. The bone fragments will be absorbed, but could cause pain for a while. For a bullet wound, I typically would remove the bone fragments and put the patient on bed rest for a little while at least. Plus I’d watch the bone and muscle growth to make sure nothing is getting pinched or twisted.”

Collin snorted. “If I even suggest bed rest, I’m pretty sure she’ll laugh at me.”

“I think those time frames seem reasonable,” Brady said. “I’ve study the shifter anatomy pretty intensively, and while they do heal a lot faster than us, something like this it isn’t going to happen overnight. Now, he’s right, she will need bed rest.”

“It is the she-wolf!” Ezekiel paused, before saying, “Collin, where’s Bruce?”

“Dead.” Collin sighed—he had wanted to avoid this. “Which reminds me, we have Joshua with us. A young Hunter from our base. He needs medical attention. I’m willing to bring him to the edge of our territory and call you. The deal is you have to let me and the shifter go.”

“Like hell!” Ezekiel was fuming, and Collin couldn’t help rolling his eyes even if his brother couldn’t see him. “You aren’t going anywhere with that she-wolf again. I let you go with her once, which was the biggest mistake of my life. And did this little she-wolf of yours kill your friend? What the hell, bro? She has to have you under some kind of spell. Come home. We’ll take care of her and it’ll break whatever hold she has on you.”

White-hot rage boiled through Collin’s blood. In the past, he’d been angry with his brother. All siblings had issues with each other, but this wasn’t one of those cases where he’d forgive his brother anytime soon.

“I killed him.” Collin had clenched his teeth and his grip on the phone tightened. He was too angry to shout at Ezekiel, which was good since he didn’t know if he could keep his voice down otherwise. “I killed twelve of the sixteen Hunters after us. And if you so much as make one more threat on her life, I’ll hunt you down as well. As for bringing Joshua to you, not happening anymore. I’m not bringing her anywhere near you ever again. I know you had Brady trace this call. Don’t bother coming. We’ll be long gone in a couple of minutes.”

“Wait!” The echoes had stopped and it was only Ezekiel now. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but we can talk about this. We’ve always worked through things before.”

“I won’t let you touch her.” A smallish hand gently touched Collin’s bicep, and he turned to smile at Mira. “I’m telling you now. Just because we are brothers, doesn’t mean I won’t kill you if you try to take her from me.”

No matter how much Collin and Ezekiel had fought in the past, Collin had never wanted to kill him. Now anyone threatening Mira got Collin on the defensive. Too many people wanted to hurt her already, and he didn’t need to add his brother to that list.

“Okay, okay, I won’t take her away.” Ezekiel sounded confused again. “What happened to you? You always wanted me to be harder on rogues? Remember what they did to mom and dad?”

“It wasn’t rogues.” Mira wrapped her arms around Collin’s back and pressed her cheek against his back.

“What do you mean?” Ezekiel’s voice had dropped to a breathy whisper. “Of course it was.”

“I came across some Redwood wolves.” Collin leaned back into Mira’s warmth and closed his eyes. “It’s more their M.O. and they took credit.”

“But…” It must have been hitting Ezekiel like it had Collin, like a punch to the chest. “I don’t understand.”

“Look, bro.” Collin sighed, as the sky lightened in the distance. They needed to move, and he had to convince Mira she needed medical help. Plus he didn’t want to risk his brother finding them. “I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to go. I’m the only healthy one and I really don’t feel like encountering anything else that wants to kill us right now.”

“Wait…”

This time Collin didn’t let him finish and said, “Bye, bro.” before he hung up the phone.

Now for the hard part, Collin turned in Mira’s arms.  He brushed some hair out of her eyes and leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. “So, love. Where’s the closest doctor you trust?”