Pack Mentality: Wild at Heart

Chapter 3

Warning: blood.

Werewolf blood. The very notion of it made Seth panic for so many reasons. He knew so few werewolves and he didn't want any of them to be in pain, but he also didn't particularly want them coming to his house—especially when Becky was there. He didn't want to endanger his neighbours or his family, but if a werewolf was in trouble, he could understand them following a familiar scent and assuming it meant safety.

There was more blood splattered in the grass and he did his best to follow the trail without being obvious, just in case his neighbours happened to be watching. As he got closer to the front door, he almost thought he recognized the particular scent, but then stopped dead in his tracks. There was another scent, and it was one he knew better almost than any other: Becky's. Pretending he dropped his phone, Seth crouched down to inhale more of the scent. The werewolf's scent was stronger, so he hoped that accounted for the majority of the blood, but there was still far too much of Becky's to ignore.

As he straightened up, Seth noticed small smears of blood around the door handle. It was nothing that his human neighbours would spot from the curb; they would have to be right on the front step to see it. He did his best not to touch it as he grabbed the door handle and pushed, meeting no resistance at all.

He was already angry at the audacity of this werewolf, a virtual stranger, coming to his house uninvited, potentially exposing his secret and posing a threat to any humans who might have been in his home, so he wasn't surprised when he saw red. When he realized it was blood, however, scattered pools of it, his gut sank. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear Darrell mewling in distress, but since he couldn't smell any feline blood, he knew his cat was fine.

The same could not be said for Becky. Seth dropped to his knees immediately, knocking aside an empty box as he hunkered down to smell the blood. Becky. It was almost all hers—and there was so much of it that it made his head spin. He stood and dropped the black device on his entry table as he followed the erratic trail of blood. "Becky?" he called out. "Where are you?"

"Ki—" It was little more than a letter followed by wet, sputtering coughs, but the blood trail filled in the blanks. While it veered a bit through the living room, it looked more like deliberate diversion—or a scuffle. He nearly slipped on the blood when he turned the corner into the kitchen, his foot stopping just short of Becky's knee.

Her limbs were splayed as erratically as her blood in the main room. One leg was crooked while the other was straight out; one hand was pressed to her midsection, covered in blood both dried and fresh, and the other was reaching fruitlessly for a knife from the toppled knife block beside her. "Becky." Seth fell to his knees again, now almost as covered in blood as she was. "What happened?" Her eyes fluttered, but the only sound that came out of her mouth was a moan.

When he slid a hand under her neck to check for injuries, Seth had part of his answer: ragged tooth marks lined her throat like brutal pearls, oozing over his fingertips. Her arms were covered in bite wounds too, as if she had fended off an attacking dog. Werewolf, he corrected himself. Had the werewolf already been injured and then spooked by Becky, lashing out purely out of self-defence? He didn't think so.

Seth's hands twitched as he kept checking her wounds. It was so much worse than when he had lost control and clawed her; there was barely a bit of exposed skin that wasn't bitten or bloodied, and he was pretty sure there was a large chunk of her thigh missing. Wiping his hands on his shorts, Seth grabbed his phone from his pocket and started to dial 911, but stopped after the first number. 911 was for humans, true, but no human doctor would know how to treat Becky's injuries. He frantically opened his contacts and scrolled to the very bottom, to a number he hadn't called in weeks. He jabbed at Vida's name but, just as when he had been outside, his phone refused to complete the action. "FUCK!" Seth leaned over and kissed Becky's smudged forehead. "My phone's not working. I'm going to try the landline. I'm so sorry. I'll be right back...."