This short story is the prequel to His Wounded Witch and features the main couple, Dan and Becca, from Her Wolf’s Baby. Spoilers for the latter below!
“I want her home without teeth marks, Grandda,” Dan’s wife Becca said into her cell phone as she paced around the break room. He sipped hours-old coffee and tried not to breathe through his sensitive nose.
He was thrilled when Becca took a job in the emergency room of Saint Barts when she graduated from nursing school. When he was out on calls as a paramedic, this was his usual hospital. It meant he got to see her at least a few times a shift, though they tried to stagger their shifts, and he only worked part time.
To find the two of them in the break room at nine at night was unusual, but a series of storms had blanketed the region, and they’d called in every first responder on the roster to help.
“And if you feed her raw meat before bedtime, you’re keeping her in the morning. I will not be responsible!” Becca finished, and he couldn’t repress his grin.
Her eyes flared when she caught sight of his face, and she smooshed a hand over his mouth in exasperation. He kissed her fingers, feeling a thrill when he touched the wedding band around the fourth one.
She was his. The little witch he’d met in the woods three years ago was now his wife. They’d had a rocky beginning. They felt the pull to one another almost immediately, but both believed it was impossible. Witches and shifters were forbidden from even interacting, let alone marrying, let alone having two children together.
“Okay, I love you, too. Have a good night. Tell Aunt Andria I love her too.” Becca clicked off and threw her phone on the table. “Remind me why having two octogenarians babysit is a good idea?”
“Because my dad is also there, as is Gertrude, and probably half the pack. They’re being smothered in love.”
“And missing their entire bedtime routine.”
He winced. They tried to fix it so at least one of them was there when the kids woke up and when they went to bed at night if only because trying to explain to someone else the delicate dance of baths and stories and pajamas and toothbrushes had felt like too much of a headache.
“You’re just such a softy,” his wife said, taking his hand. “Your boss only had to look desperate and sad, and you upended our entire night.”
“Yep,” he said peaceably and brought her hand to his lips. “Come here.”
“At work,” she said, but instead of sitting down in the chair across from him, she tipped into his lap. He snuggled closer to her and breathed in the scent of his mate.
His pups were with his pack and his mate was in his arms, which was rare in his life, and he would take the gift.
Becca’s phone buzzed, and she leaned over to grab it.
She showed him a new picture of their ten-month-old son clinging to the back of their two-year-old daughter in her wolf form as she tried to catch a butterfly on the lawn of his childhood home.
“Adorable!”
“They should be in bed,” Becca said.
“Wasn’t that half the fun of grandparents? Staying up late, sneaking out, and eating junk?”
A soft look came over her face. “Granny Sam would always let us stay up late to catch lightning bugs in the garden where we would eat every strawberry she had growing. Even the green ones that tasted like a warhead without the sugar.”
“Did you ever actually catch a lightning bug?”
“Once. I caught lightning in a jar and then woke up, and there was a bug in the jar instead. I was inconsolable. I never believed my mom for years that the bug was the one creating the light.”
He laughed and buried his head in the notch between her neck and her shoulder where her scent was the strongest.
“I think we did it,” he said.
She pulled away to look in his eyes. “Did what?”
“Happily ever after. It’s this, right now. A perfect moment.”
She raised one eyebrow. “In the break room of a hospital drinking terrible coffee while our family runs our children wild?”
“Absolute perfection.”
“You sure are something,” a voice said from the doorway.
Becca immediately stiffened, but Dan kept his arms around her as she turned to the door.
“Dr. Johnson,” Becca said stiffly. “We were just… That is…”
“Yes, Nurse Abbott, I got eyes.”
“Jack, sorry,” Becca said.
His wolf sat up, worried that she was on a first-name basis with this strange man.
You should meet his husband, Dan told his wolf with a roll of his eyes. And they aren’t strangers. They’re… He tried to think of how to explain colleagues to a wolf. Packmates. Hospital packmates.
His wolf snapped at him, incensed there was a pack around it didn’t know about.
It’s your pack, too. We all work together.
His wolf considered this, intrigued by the idea that it had more packmates. It tended to ignore humans that weren’t injured or family.
“I thought y’all tried not to work together this late,” Jack said.
“It was all hands on deck with the weather,” Dan said, “so be prepared for all the amazing drivers I’ll have to haul in here in the next three hours.”
“Oh, I know. I already got one long explanation from a concussion victim about how to get out of hydroplaning. Heads and steering wheels don’t mix.”
Dan checked his watch reluctantly. “Speaking of.”
Becca stood up. “This is my lunch break. I got another ten minutes.”
Jack was busy sticking a plastic square into the microwave that smelled to Dan like a freeze-dried garden, so Dan swooped down to press his lips to hers.
The kiss immediately grew hot, and Becca twisted out of his arms, cheeks aflame.
“I’ll see you later,” she said, shoving him out the door.
He grinned. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She said even as she swatted his rear.
He jogged through the hospital hallways to the ambulance bay, where he found his partner eating a vending machine sandwich while perched on the back bumper.
He swallowed quickly, trying not to gag as the scent reached his nostrils, and the wolf sent up a warning that there was rotting meat around.
“Bologna?” he asked. Long experience had taught him that the reconstituted meat wasn’t actually roadkill, but somehow the processing made it smell the same.
“Yum,” the older woman said with a grin.
She’s pack too, in case you were wondering, he told his wolf.
The wolf suggested she would be a dead pack mate soon if she kept eating rotten meat, which would be disappointing.
Why would you be disappointed?
His wolf sent a series of images of alpha wolves and dominance fights. Dan bit down hard on his tongue to keep from smiling. He’d been nervous when he was first paired with Gloria Santos. She was only a little taller than five feet, but pound for pound, she was stronger than he was and had cut her teeth in a firehouse in DC. This was her version of retirement. She was the best paramedic in the city.
“How’s your wife?” Gloria asked.
“Perfect,” he said happily.
She mimed gagging.
“You could’ve come in and said hi.”
“I’m allergic to that much sappiness.”
She stuffed her face with the rest of the sandwich.
Once she’d swallowed, Dan held out a packet of gum he had at the ready in his back pocket.
“Any calls while we were on break?”
“Fender bender and a heart attack. They got it handled. We should get back out there. Never know who’s dying while you make out with your wife.”
“You eat reconstituted meat products, and I eat my wife. Yeah, that’s not a hard choice,” he said as he slipped into the passenger seat.
Gloria gagged again as she settled behind the wheel. “Spare me.”
He flipped on the radio. “Dispatch, unit 434H coming off break, over.”
“10-4, 434H.” The radio crackled, and Gloria pulled out of the bay.
“Whoa,” she said, as what seemed to be a solid sheet of water hit their windshield.
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he leaned forward to look up at the sky through the downpour. Lightning crackled across the sky like a strobe light.
His wolf went to red alert.
What is it?
Ozone, threat, magic, the wolf sent back in a series of images and scent.
He knew a lot more about magic than he did a couple of years ago, but he had never heard of a witch who could summon a storm like this. There was no coven in Frederick, Maryland. It was considered neutral territory. It was nice for them because he and Becca were still trying to keep their relationship on the down low from the rest of the magical community.
They had learned dramatically that witches and shifters together were stronger than they were apart. His daughter Amelia was both a witch and a shifter, with some of the most powerful magic her family had ever seen. But not everyone liked that, so they kept quiet and hung out with their family or on unclaimed land.
The only problem with hanging out in neutral territory was that it was neutral, and anyone could come in. He told himself that nothing had changed in the last 24 hours. No one knew about his children, and even if they did, they were in the safest place on earth surrounded by his pack. Not every bit of magic in the world was about them.
But he still took a deep breath and pointed to the worst of it. “Let’s head that way.”
“You want to be in the storm?”
“If something’s gonna go wrong, it’s gonna be at the heart of the weather.”
Gloria shrugged and started off far faster than he would’ve ever driven, even with his shifter reflexes.
As they got closer to downtown, impossibly, the rain intensified. He didn’t know this much water could fit in a cloud. It looked like someone had taken the ocean and turned it upside down on the town.
A loud boom of thunder rang out, and he jumped.
“That was close,” Gloria said idly.
“The bus is grounded, right?” he asked.
“Someone is afraid of a little lightning?”
“Yeah. Aren’t you?”
“Most people who get struck by lightning survive.”
He shuddered. “Yeah, I’ve scraped two of them off the ground. No, thank you.”
“RA 434H, please proceed to 2904 Lilac, trauma victim onsite, over.”
He flipped on lights and sirens as Gloria sped up. “434H responding,” Dan said into the radio.
“You called it, Duke,” Gloria said as she took the next corner. “We’re two blocks away.”
“Dispatch, do we have any other info about the victim, over?” he asked.
“Negative, RA 434H.”
“If it’s not lightning strikes, you have to tell me one thing you’re actually scared of,” he said as Gloria screamed to a stop.
“Dogs,” she said as she slipped into the back to grab their gear.
He coughed as he followed. “I’m sorry?”
“Dogs. Terrifying. My uncle had two rottweilers when I was a kid.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated as his wolf protested that the alpha could not be afraid of stupid half-breeds. He ignored his beast.
“Let’s just say that was the day I decided to be a paramedic.”
“I’d say you made the right career choice.” She didn’t have to tell more of the story. When paramedics, dogs, and children got together, it was never a happy story.
She opened the back doors, and he flipped his hood over his head, knowing it was a futile gesture, and followed her out of the bus.
A young woman in a black apron waved wildly down the street. “Over here!”
“Ma’am, did you call 911?” he asked.
“They got here so fast!” she said into her phone, answering his question. “Yes, okay. Thank you.”
They jogged toward her. He scanned the area, but the girl was alone on the street in the downpour. Even though he couldn’t see very well through the rain, she didn’t look injured to him.
“Ma’am, are you okay? Where are you hurt?” Gloria asked.
“Not me! Come on!”
She led them into an alley beside the restaurant. His brain rapidly reevaluated the call. Were they looking at an overdose? Dispatch had said trauma victim.
He gasped when she led them around a dumpster.
A woman was lying in a puddle, her head at an awkward angle, a dark bruise blossoming over half her face. Her right arm was facing an angle it should not bend.
He did an about face. “I’ll get the spinal protocol and a gurney.”
Gloria nodded once as she crouched down by the woman.
“She’s still breathing!”
In seconds, he wrenched open the back doors of the bus and pulled out supplies and the rolling bed, sparing a half second to confirm no one was watching as he used impossible strength.
As he pushed the gurney toward the alley, he reached for the radio on his shoulder. “Dispatch, 434H on scene. We’re going to need police to our location as well. This was some sort of attack, over.”
“10-4, 434H.”
“We’re not waiting.”
“Got it. Will also send a unit to the hospital, over.”
He picked up the gurney and ran back to the alley. He tried not to use his abnormal strength on the job. Nine calls out of ten required nothing extra from him, and he could help them perfectly well by pretending to be human, but who knew how long that woman was lying unconscious? The bruising was already massive. Her chances were fading by the second.
He snapped a collar around her neck as Gloria stabilized the broken arm.
The woman moaned as they strapped her to a hard, red board to keep her spine immobile.
“That’s a good sign,” he said.
“On three,” Gloria said. “One, two, three.” They lifted her carefully onto the gurney.
“Is she going to be okay?” the woman asked, clutching her cell phone in both hands, drenched to the skin.
“You work at the restaurant?” he asked as Gloria pulled straps over the woman.
“Yes. I was taking out the trash.” She pointed to a spilled bag by the dumpster.
“Wait for the police. They’ll need a statement, okay?”
“Maybe wait in the restaurant,” Gloria added as they heaved the gurney up and away.
He surreptitiously held the gurney off the ground to try to make it a smoother ride for her.
“You drive,” Gloria said as she stepped into the back with their patient.
His eyes flew up. Gloria preferred to be in control, which meant in the driver’s seat. Literally.
She only stayed with a patient when they were in imminent danger.
He nodded once, slammed the back doors, and ran for the driver’s seat.
As he started off, he heard Gloria rattling off vital signs into the radio, warning the ER to have a neuro team ready.
When the bus skidded through an intersection, fortunately one where everyone had obeyed the sirens, he told himself to slow down. Even his superior senses were no match for the physics of a heavy vehicle and a slick road. If they crashed, it would be even longer until she got help.
“She doing okay?” he couldn’t help asking when he made it through another intersection unscathed.
“If you’re asking whether she’s dead yet, the answer is no. If you were really asking if she’s okay, the answer is hell no. It is exactly as bad as it looks.”
It looked pretty bad.
As he hit the main road to the hospital, meaning they were only ten minutes out, his wolf sat up within him.
Ozone and power, the wolf sent him.
Yep, it’s a thunderstorm, he told the canine with annoyance.
Ozone and power inside, the wolf insisted.
“What the hell” Gloria said from the back.
“What is it?”
“I ran an IV, but the damn thing froze.”
“What do you mean, it froze?”
“I mean, I have a bag of ice instead of saline. How is that even possible? There should be too much salt in the water to freeze.”
“Maybe the warmer became a refrigerator?”
“No, it was warm, and now it’s ice.”
Dan’s heart seemed to slam to a stop, and he veered on the road.
“Watch it!”
He had forgotten in the horror of seeing her that his wolf had been talking about magic before they even reached the scene.
He had never heard of magic that could freeze water, but he didn’t know all the magic in the world. The only thing he could do was drive faster. At least at this point, if they crashed, they’d crash right into the hospital.
He came to a screaming stop in the ambulance bay and was relieved to see a team of doctors and nurses waiting for them in disposable yellow gowns strapped over their scrubs. They didn’t get a lot of level one emergencies in a small town like this, but they were ready.
As somebody wrenched open the doors and grabbed the gurney, Gloria started rattling off stats.
He jumped out. “Becca!”
She was right in the thick of the action where she always wanted to be and didn’t hear him. Or she was ignoring him.
You get her, he told his wolf. Tell her it’s an emergency.
Becca went stiff as his wolf reached out to her. It had been the shock of his life when he realized his wolf could speak to his mate, but it came in handy when she didn’t want to talk to him.
She stepped back and immediately another nurse stepped in as they rushed the gurney into the hospital.
“Dan, what the hell?” she said. “What could possibly be more important than her right now?”
“She’s a witch.”
“What?”
“I mean, I don’t know for sure. You would know better than I.”
“Why do you think she’s a witch?”
“Even before we got to the call, I smelled ozone. It’s spooky out there. It just felt like magic.”
“The storm?”
“I know it sounds crazy.”
“It sounds like weather magic.”
“What?”
“That still doesn’t prove she’s a witch!”
“When she got into the bus, she was unconscious and not speaking, but an entire bag of warm saline turned into an icicle.”
“What?”
“Gloria is a little freaked out.”
“I got it.” Becca started toward the door.
“If there’s somebody attacking witches…” he said, as his wolf nearly strangled him to keep near his witch.
“I’m fine,” Becca shouted back to him and disappeared.
Dan shook his head, and it took him a solid fifteen seconds to get his wolf under control.
When he wasn’t in imminent danger of shifting, he couldn’t stop an avalanche of worries. He calculated every exit to the hospital and the number of staff and patients wandering around he didn’t know and didn’t trust.
The door opened, and he looked up hopefully, then tried not to sag when Gloria came out, mopping at her brow.
Wordlessly, she handed him a towel, and he draped it over his hair.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s getting an CT scan. They’re checking for bleeding in the brain.”
“And if they find it?”
“Well then, they’re gonna stop it, and then she’s gonna be okay.”
Dan took a breath. How had perfection turned into hell in less than fifteen minutes? He was a paramedic. He didn’t know why he was surprised every time this happened. Of course, heaven and hell lived right next to each other.
“Ready to get back out there?” Gloria asked, for once sounding tired and reluctant herself.
His wolf rebelled, and his vision fuzzed.
“I’m done. I’m off.”
“What? I know that was bad, but we’ve definitely seen worse.”
He couldn’t even explain. “No, I’m fine. I’m just gonna stay here.”
“Whoever did this is long gone,” Gloria said, correctly guessing his true concern.
“Look, I’m not even supposed to be on the roll, anyway. I’m just gonna hang at the hospital. She gets off at midnight.”
Gloria rested a hand on his shoulder. “Okay.”
She was already speaking to dispatch as she headed for the driver’s side door of the ambulance. He tried to bring himself to regret the inconvenience. She would have to go back to their station and pick up someone else to ride with, wasting a half hour if not more of her shift, but he wasn’t sorry.
Once she’d pulled out, he circled the hospital twice but smelled no more ozone as the storm quickly dissipated.
At midnight, Becca emerged from the staff entrance in sweats, looking proud but bleary-eyed.
He wrapped her in his arms, and she hung on tight.
“She okay?” he asked.
“She’s alive. She’s in a coma. There’s a hematoma in her brain. They’re gonna have to operate soon. You guys didn’t find a wallet or any kind of ID on her?”
They hadn’t looked, but he thought not. He shook his head.
“Is she… Is it magic?” he asked.
“Oh, hell yeah. Definitely powerful.”
“You don’t recognize her?”
Becca laughed bleakly. “Witches don’t all know each other. And no, I don’t.”
“Will you have to watch her? You know, with the freezing things problem?”
“Once the sedation kicked in, she stopped trying to freeze or boil anything we put into her body. So I’m okay for now.”
“What happens when she wakes up?”
“She’s in a coma,” Becca repeated.
He shook his head. “Right. She’s not waking up.”
Becca gave a tiny shrug within his arms. “She might. She might be okay. I don’t know what we’re going to do then.”
“She could come home to Harpers Ferry?” Dan asked tentatively.
Becca squeezed his middle. “Your heart is bleeding again. We don’t know who did this to her or why. If it was related to magic, I don’t want her anywhere near the coven. We’re holding far too many secrets as it is.”
Dan took a deep breath. “How about we collect two of those secrets and go home?”
She glanced up at him, her chin on his chest. “It’s midnight. They’re asleep.”
“I don’t care.”
He looked around the parking lot. It was still gleaming wet in the street lamps, but the sky was quiet above them. It had been a wild night on several levels, and his wolf needed their pups to be under their roof.
“Okay,” Becca said at last, “but you get to deal with them tomorrow.”
He grinned. He was already going to be dealing with them tomorrow. Becca had another shift. Even if there were quadruple tornadoes, he was turning down any pleas for help.
By the time they reached his father’s house, it was one in the morning, so it was pretty shocking to see lights in the window.
“Why is anyone up?” Becca asked. “Did you get a call?”
He checked his phone and then hers, both in the console between them, and shook his head. The happy picture of his kids and a butterfly from earlier mocked his optimism.
Becca parked the car halfway down the long gravel driveway, and both of them tumbled out. Dan had to fight off a shift as he ran for the front door.
He burst in, eyes wild and heart pounding, to see his grandda and Becca’s great aunt on the floor with two wolf pups.
“Dammit, you weren’t supposed to know,” his grandda said with gruff annoyance.
Becca crashed into his back and then wrapped her arms around him as she took in the tableau.
Dan’s brain took two seconds to catch up. With a pounding heart, he walked closer, wrapping his arm around his wife to bring her with him as he stared down at the pups.
The larger brown one was passed out and drooling down the side of her mouth. The younger one with fur the same color as the night sky was chewing on the rug. He was impossibly small.
“Jacob?”
Grandda, Jacob’s namesake, grinned like a loon. “We had hamburgers for dinner, and he took one look at it in his highchair and shifted.”
“Isn’t it early?” Becca asked from beside him.
Jacob was only ten months old. Most wolves shifted after they turned one.
Slowly, he crouched down, feeling the wolf’s wonder within him. He reached out a hand and the pup tumbled away and then got a scent of him. His son chomped down hard on his thumb.
Dan yelped. A wolf’s baby teeth were still damn sharp.
The wolf roly-polied away with a yip of fear.
“No, it’s okay,” he whispered.
His antics woke his sister, and Amelia jumped to her feet, shifted to human, and launched herself into Becca’s arms.
“Mama, he’s got one, too! And he stinks! He won’t stop biting everything!”
His wife juggled his daughter as she continued to narrate a blow-by-blow of the evening with the newly furry boy.
In the meantime, his son was hesitantly approaching his hand again. He wasn’t much bigger than his hand, and Dan felt like a giant.
Dan reached out, this time tucking his thumb and fingers into his palm and letting the wolf sniff. When he licked his wrist, Dan felt safe to pick him up and curl him into his chest.
“Hello there,” he breathed.
He got back a wordless sense of deep fatigue and joy.
“It is way past your bedtime,” he murmured.
The wolf replied with stubbornness and worry.
“Your wolf will still be here in the morning.”
He realized this was the longest conversation he’d ever had with his son. His daughter was the consummate extrovert, while his son, probably in self-defense, had always been much quieter and far slower to talk. Multiple pediatricians had reassured them he was hitting all his milestones and would talk when he had something to say.
It seemed like the boy’s wolf was a little chattier than his human.
Dan fell in love all over again. Meeting his son’s wolf and seeing how they complimented each other healed something within him. He was worried that his son would spend his life overshadowed by the much bigger antics of his sister, especially because she had magic, which was a common dynamic among children of witches. He’d vowed to defend him, but maybe he didn’t need to.
His son sent back a wave of love.
He felt his wife’s hand wrap around his waist, and his daughter launched herself into his arms.
“Dada, you didn’t hear my story.”
“I really did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I was listening! I promise.”
“I’ll start again,” Amelia said, waving her hands in his face.
Jacob snapped his jaws at his sister.
She bopped him on the nose as they had done to her so many times. “Rude!”
Dan captured her chubby fingers. “Not rude. He was warning you. You almost hit him.”
She patted her brother clumsily on the head. “Sorry.”
Then she wiggled to wrap her hands around Dan’s neck, and he laid back on the ground as his two kids fought over who could get closer. His son licked his chin, and his daughter tried to push him away.
“Hey, play nice,” Becca said as she joined them on the ground, laughing. He met her eyes sparkling above the chaos, and suddenly everything was perfect again.
His heart hurt at the contrast between the joy and tragedy all wrapped up together on this night. He almost couldn’t take it.
Almost.
“I love you,” he said.
“Do you love me?” Amelia demanded.
“I love you! And I love you and I love you and I love you,” he said to his daughter, son, grandfather, and great aunt by marriage, and back to his wife.
“We all love each other,” Amelia declared confidently. “Even if sometimes we bite.”
Find out what happens to the woman in the ambulance in His Wounded Witch.
Read the beginning of Dan and Becca’s story for free in Her Wounded Wolf.
(Have I been planning this for over a year? Yes, yes, I have.)
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