6

6

The trauma bay doors slammed open hard enough to rattle the glass.

“Coming in hot!” a paramedic barked, voice clipped with adrenaline. “Male, mid-thirties, found near the north sector trail line. Severe blood loss. Possible arterial bleed, suspected” he hesitated, eyes flicking to Adam for half a heartbeat, “Animal attack.”

Lotty didn’t flinch at the word. She’d heard it too many times today, said too carefully, like saying the truth out loud would summon it.

The gurney rolled in, wheels squealing. The patient’s shirt had been cut away, leaving his torso and shoulder wrapped in gauze that was already failing dark red soaking through in spreading blooms. His face was ashen, lips tinged blue, eyes unfocused like he was looking past everyone and seeing something worse.

A wet, coppery smell hit Lotty the second he crossed the threshold. Blood. Fresh. A lot of it.

Hensley was at the foot of the bed instantly. “Vitals?”

“BP’s eighty over fifty, dropping,” the paramedic rattled off. “Heart rate one-forty. Sat’s ninety-two on high-flow. We tried to pack the wound, but it kept…”

The gauze shifted as they transferred him, and for a split second Lotty saw the injury clearly. Not a clean bite. Not a simple tear.

This was a ragged, brutal ripping across the upper chest and shoulder, flesh pulled open in uneven scallops, as if something had clamped and dragged and then let go. Under the trauma lights, the wound looked too raw to be real muscle exposed, fat glistening, blood welling in pulses that matched the man’s fading heartbeat.

Lotty’s stomach tightened, not from squeamishness, but from recognition. She’d seen wounds like this before. Not in human hospitals.In nightmares.

“Two large-bore IVs, now,” Hensley snapped. “Type and cross. Pressure bag. Get blood hung, O neg if you have to.”

Lotty stepped in before anyone could tell her to observe. “Let me,” she said, already gloving up. Her voice didn’t waver.

Hensley’s gaze flicked to her tight, measuring. The Alpha’s sister. The outsider. The threat. The help. He didn’t have time to argue. “Fine,” he clipped. “You pack, I’ll manage the airway.”

Lotty moved to the wound, hands steady. She took gauze and pressed hard, packing deep, feeling the slick give of tissue and the heat of fresh blood. The man gasped, eyes fluttering.

“It hurts,” he rasped, voice thin and breaking.

“I know,” Lotty said softly, leaning close. “Stay with me. What’s your name?”

His mouth worked. “T-Tomas.”

“Tomas. Good. Tomas, look at me.” She angled her face into his line of sight. “I need you to keep breathing, okay? In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”

He tried. It came out ragged. The monitor beeped faster. “Pressure’s still dropping,” a nurse called.

“More gauze,” Lotty said. “And I need hemostatic, now.”

A nurse shoved a packet into her hand. Lotty tore it open with her teeth and shoved the clotting agent into the wound, pressing until her arms shook with the force. Blood kept trying to escape anyway. It always did.

Behind her, Adam stood still, watching. Not hovering, not interfering, just absorbing the scene with Alpha focus, eyes scanning faces, exits, the general tension in the room.

He wasn’t squeamish. He was calculating. Lotty felt him step closer, then heard his voice near her shoulder.

“I need to go,” Adam said quietly.

She didn’t look up. “Because you can’t handle blood?”

A faint, almost amused exhale. “Because I’m Alpha.”

She caught the meaning immediately, messages to answer, patrols to shift, decisions to make that couldn’t wait for a trauma to stabilize.

She nodded once. “Go.”

His hand hovered for half a second, like he wanted to touch her shoulder, reassure her, something human. Then he pulled it back.

“Stay here,” he said, tone turning firm. “Do not leave the hospital without Matthew or me.”

Lotty glanced up just long enough to meet his eyes. “I’m not fifteen anymore.”

“I know.” His voice softened just a fraction. “That’s why I’m asking, not ordering.”

That stopped her. Asking. Not commanding. “I’ll stay,” she said. “Go.”

Adam nodded once and slipped out, the doors swinging shut behind him. The room snapped back into pure medicine.

“BP’s seventy systolic,” the nurse warned.

“Hang blood,” Hensley snapped. “Get a second unit ready. Prepare for OR, call surgery now.”

Lotty kept pressure until her fingers ached. Tomas whimpered, his face tightening in pain even through the meds they pushed.

“What… what attacked me?” he whispered, breath thin.

Lotty didn’t answer the question he asked. She answered the one underneath it. “You’re safe now,” she said. “We’ve got you.”

His eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “I saw… eyes.”

Lotty’s heart stuttered.

Hensley leaned in, quick. “Sir, stay with us. Look at me.”

“Gold,” Tomas whispered. “Like, like coins. Like fire.”

The words hit the room like a quiet bomb. No one said anything. No one wanted to. Because it confirmed what they’d been dancing around all day. Lotty met Hensley’s gaze across the bed. His expression tightened, a flicker of fear buried under professionalism.

He looked away first. “Keep packing,” he told her, voice harder than necessary, like harshness could control the world.

Lotty didn’t argue. She pressed until the bleeding slowed, until the clotting agent started doing its job, until the gauze stayed more red than black. Tomas’s vitals steadied barely.

When they finally wheeled him toward surgery, Lotty peeled off her gloves and stared at her hands for a second, blood in the creases of her knuckles, under her nails. She scrubbed at the sink until her skin burned.

A nurse approached, voice low. “You did good.”

Lotty looked up. The nurse was older, eyes kind. She recognized her now, someone who’d been here when Lotty was still a pack kid running messages down hallways.

“Thanks,” Lotty said, throat tight.

The nurse hesitated, then added, “Some people are going to be… weird about you being here.”

Lotty huffed softly. “I noticed.”

“Don’t let it get under your skin.” The nurse leaned in slightly. “We’re glad to have another set of hands.”

Before Lotty could answer, the ER doors opened again. Matthew stepped in like a storm cloud. His jaw was clenched, eyes scanning fast, and when he spotted Lotty he made a straight line for her. The usual steady Beta calm was there but strained, like something had punched a crack in it.

Lotty’s stomach dropped. “Matthew?”

He stopped in front of her, voice low. “We’ve got a problem.”

Her pulse kicked up. “What kind of problem?”

He glanced around the room first, making sure no one was close enough to hear. Then his eyes locked onto hers, serious and sharp.

“I just got word from my people inside Dark Mountain,” he said.

Lotty held still, every instinct focused. “Spies?”

Matthew nodded once. “One of them got a message out. Something happened to Alpha Gregory.”

Her breath caught. “Dead?”

“I don’t know,” Matthew admitted, and that alone was terrifying. Matthew hated unknowns. “No details yet. But the pack is reacting like it’s… big.”

Lotty felt the air change around her. “Meaning?” she asked.

Matthew’s voice dropped further. “They’re preparing for Decker to take over.”

A chill rolled through her chest, cold and sharp as ice water. “Already?” she whispered.

Matthew’s eyes didn’t blink. “That’s what worries me. You don’t move that fast unless you’re certain the Alpha isn’t coming back… or you’ve already decided you don’t care if he does.”

Lotty’s mind flashed to the drag marks on the road, the wolves watching her drive away like she was nothing but a message. Bolder. Organized. Enjoys it. Decker.

She swallowed hard. “Have you told Adam?”

“I’m looking for him now,” Matthew said, then hesitated. “But I needed to see you first.”

Lotty frowned. “Why?”

Matthew’s expression was tightened, protective, frustrated, honest. “Because if Decker takes over, the war changes,” he said. “Gregory was cruel, but he had rules. Politics. Territory games.”

“And Decker doesn’t,” Lotty finished.

Matthew nodded once. “Decker escalates. He’ll want a statement. A show of dominance.”

Lotty looked toward the hall Adam had disappeared down. “So Adam will respond.”

“He’ll have to,” Matthew said, voice rough. “And Dark Mountain will be watching for weakness.”

Lotty exhaled slowly. “And now I’m here.”

Matthew’s eyes sharpened. “Exactly.”

She felt it then, the tight coil in her gut, the uncomfortable truth she didn’t want to name. Leverage. Bait. A symbol. Adam’s sister returns after ten years and suddenly the war shifts.

Lotty forced her voice steady. “What do you want me to do?”

Matthew’s posture eased a hair, relieved she wasn’t panicking. “Stay in the hospital,” he said. “You can help here. You’re useful here. But you do not leave alone. Not for air. Not to walk the grounds. Not to ‘just check something.’”

Lotty’s mouth tightened. “I’m not helpless.”

“I know,” Matthew said, and the sincerity in it stopped her from snapping back. “That’s not what this is. This is about not giving them an opening.”

Lotty glanced around the ER, the stretchers, the nurses moving, the scent of antiseptic barely masking blood. “This is where I’m supposed to be anyway,” she said.

Matthew’s gaze softened briefly. “Good.”

She hesitated, then asked the question that mattered. “Do you think Gregory’s dead?”

Matthew’s expression went hard again. “I think something happened that forces a transition. That’s all I know.”

“And if Decker takes over…”

Matthew’s jaw clenched. “We prepare for hell.”

Lotty nodded slowly, feeling her heart beat heavy in her chest. “I’ll stay,” she said. “I’ll help wherever I can until you or Adam come back for me.”

Matthew let out a controlled breath, like he’d been holding it. “Good.” He started to turn, then paused, looking back at her. “And Lotty?” he said, voice lower.

“Yeah?”

His eyes held hers, steady and familiar. “Don’t take the cold looks personally. They’re scared. They’re tired. And you being here reminds them that Adam thinks this is serious enough to bring family back into the fold.”

Lotty swallowed. “So I’m a morale poster.”

Matthew’s mouth twitched grimly. “More like a warning label.”

She gave a humorless huff. “Great.”

Matthew’s expression softened again, just for a second. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Lotty’s throat tightened unexpectedly. “Me too,” she admitted, surprising herself with the truth of it.

Matthew nodded once, then moved fast, disappearing down the hallway to find Adam.

Lotty stood there for a beat, letting the ER noise wash over her. Then another set of doors burst open. “Trauma incoming!” She inhaled, squared her shoulders, and stepped forward.

If the war was shifting, if Decker was about to inherit Dark Mountain’s crown then the pack hospital was about to become the front line. And whether they treated her like an outsider or not she wasn’t going to stand back and watch her people bleed.