Pack Mentality: Wild at Heart

Chapter 4

Waiting for someone he knew was hard enough. Seth would get so hyperfocussed on recognizing their scent that he could lose track of everything else. When he had to wait for someone he wasn't familiar with, it was worse because he didn't know what to watch out for. Vida had sent pictures of the witch and two werewolves she had dispatched to his house, but he didn't know their scents, so he kept racing between the living room window to watch the road and back to the kitchen to attend to Becky; the only deviation was a quick trip upstairs to check in on Darrell and put him in his travel crate so he didn't get violent when the foreign werewolves arrived.

Whenever he left Becky alone in the kitchen, Seth's heart ached. What if she took a turn for the worse when he was at the window and he didn't get back in time? But sitting with her was equally hard. He was strong enough to carry her, but Vida had said to leave her where she was. He had learned a bit of first aid so he could help out with minor injuries at Black & Brave, but he had no clue what to do with such devastation. All he could do was keep Becky's wounds clean and stay with her so she wasn't alone. Unlike when she was attacked, he thought as he wrung out another bloodied towel and draped it over the sink. There was hardly a spot in the kitchen that didn't have blood on it.

"At least... not my... turn... for laundry," Becky quipped weakly, head lolling to the side. Seth quickly dropped to his knees and adjusted the small pillow he'd tucked under her head. Her neck didn't seem broken and he thought it was a small bit of comfort he could offer while waiting for Vida's people.

"This might be a case where 'burn it down' should be taken literally." Seth leaned down and kissed her forehead again. It was one of the few visible parts of her that wasn't wounded and he did his best to keep it clean. "Let me check your stomach."

Becky shook her head gingerly, wincing as the movement pulled at the bite wound on her neck. "Blood's finally... slowing down."

Seth wished that was good news, but he worried that it simply meant Becky was running out of blood. From the puddles in the living room to the pools in the kitchen, there was no way Becky could have much blood left. "That's good," he murmured, stroking her hair. When he heard a car door, he leapt to his feet. "I'll be right back." At the rate he was going, he was going to have a trench worn in his floor from his constant back and forth.

Becky snorted softly. "Not... going anywhere... fast."

A generic black SUV was parked in front of his house, and three people emerged. The woman reminded him of Finn somehow, with piercing eyes that stood out even at a distance; now that the two men were standing outside, he could clearly smell that they were werewolves. "They're here," he told Becky. "I'll be right back."

The trio was walking briskly up to the front door, but to a soundtrack of blood bubbling up between Becky's lips, to Seth it felt like it took them an hour. "Isabelle," the woman said with a nod. She was carrying what looked a toolbox. Its surface was deeply marked, but he was sure those were sigils, not random scratches. "Where is she?"

Seth pointed towards the kitchen. "Move whatever you need to. Use whatever you need." With a curt nod, Isabelle moved past him and followed the trail of blood without batting an eye.

The two men couldn't appear more dissimilar. One looked like he should be an extra from The Godfather, with dark hair, darker eyes, and knuckles layered in scars. The other could have been an elf in a fantasy movie, with a jawline almost as angular as Becky's and ears to match. Each man had a backpack slung over his shoulder. "I'm Lorenzo," the sharp-faced man said, "and he's Nelson. Vida sent you our credentials. May we enter?"

"Of course." Seth stepped aside to let them in. "Thank you for coming so quickly."

"Good thing we were already in Chicago. We got a late start tracking her," Nelson grumbled, "but we managed to make up some time."