Almost Friends

MAX

As I drove closer to the school, I could feel her fear and anxiety growing, along with a pull on our mind-link that was getting stronger. It was like there was a barrier there that I didn’t even know existed.

Normally, I always kept our link open.

When I got to the school, I slammed on the brakes so hard the tires screeched. I jumped out of the car, almost forgetting the medical bag I’d brought along, just in case.

The thought of something happening to her was too much to bear, and her distress that was seeping into me wasn’t helping.

Luckily, because we’d been so close these past few months, I could pick up her scent easier than before, so I followed it.

The school was deserted, but along with Estella’s scent, there was another. Another wolf. An injured one, judging by the smell of blood.

I rushed towards the bushes where the scents were coming from, jumping over them. I should have shifted, but I couldn’t risk it in the human world.

So, I relied on my werewolf speed to get there. I swore to the Goddess that if anyone had tried to hurt my girl, death would be the least of their worries.

When I got to a clearing, I found Estella crouched over someone else.

She seemed okay, but to my surprise, the other person was a girl her age and she was the wolf who was bleeding. Or rather, the pup.

“Max!” she called out, turning her head towards me.

I’d long stopped being amazed that she always seemed to sense me, but it never stopped making me feel good inside.

I quickly went over to her and knelt down next to her, dropping my bag beside me.

“Help her, Max,” she begged, and I turned my attention to the young she-wolf who was bleeding out.

I pushed aside all questions about why a werewolf pup would be in the human world or who would want to kill her and focused on the wound.

Of course, it was silver. That’s why the bleeding wouldn’t stop. I had some medicine with me to control the bleeding, but she’d already lost a lot of blood.

I could still save her, but the healing would take time, and she’d be weak for a while.

“Is it really bad, Max?” I heard Estella ask, and as much as I didn’t want to upset her, I wanted to be honest with her.

“Yes,” I said. “But I’ll do my best to fix it.”

I saw her move to sit by the girl’s head and gently stroke her hair with her small, blood-covered hands.

The she-wolf weakly shook her head to avoid the touch, and I frowned at her reaction.

“Don’t touch me, human.”

Her voice was weak, but the hostility was clear and it made me and my wolf angry instantly.

That made me press on her wounds harder than I should have, causing her to wince in pain.

Blame me all you want, but don’t expect me to say I regret it. The little brat insulted Estella when she was just trying to help.

I was about to say something to her when Estella beat me to it.

“There’s not much you can do in your position, alpha girl,” she said softly, not moving her hand from the girl’s hair. “But we can race when you get better, and I’ll even let you win.”

The alpha girl, as Estella called her, let out a low growl of annoyance, and I had to hold back a chuckle. It wasn’t the right time, but I couldn’t help it.

After a few minutes, I’d cleaned the wounds as best I could and asked Estella to get me something to dress the girl with.

She said she knew where she’d left her clothes and ran off to get them.

As the girl’s eyes were closed, I thought she’d passed out from blood loss, but I was wrong.

“She smells like you,” she whispered, barely conscious.

“Yes, she does,” I agreed quietly. “And if you ever even think about hurting her, I won’t be as sloppy as the ones who stabbed you.”

UNKNOWN

She knew Max would make everything okay.

The alpha girl looked pale and was unconscious when Max carried her to the car, but he promised she would be okay, and she believed him.

He was the only person she trusted, and the fact that he was a doctor helped a lot.

Estella sat in the backseat with Sarah’s head in her lap. She couldn’t help but think she was more likable when she was unconscious, probably because she couldn’t insult her then.

Plus, she looked more vulnerable and human. Not that she wanted her to stay sick, because she didn’t.

Max had said that since they didn’t know which pack she was from (that was her fault for not remembering Sarah’s last name), it would be safer to take her to her house instead of the pack.

Once the girl woke up, she could link her people to come and get her. Or call them if the link didn’t work.

The drive home seemed to take forever, and Estella kept checking to see if the girl was bleeding, but there was no sign of it.

When Max was treating her back at the school, Estella had seen one of the knives that had caused her wounds and picked it up, thinking it might be useful.

When she told Max what she’d done, he smiled at her.

“That was smart thinking, little one,” he complimented.

“Do you think you can tell who attacked her?” she asked hopefully.

“No, but Patrick might be able to. I can only help her heal.”

“But wouldn’t you know about weapons from your training?” she persisted.

“I know how to use weapons in a fight, yes. We all do, but we mostly fight in our wolf form. You should know that by now.”

“I do, but I was just wondering.”

“Well, there are books that describe the weapons each pack prefers, but I was more interested in studying medicine.

“However, Patrick had to learn about them as part of his special training to become the alpha of our pack.

“The only thing I can tell you is that if someone wanted to harm this girl, she must be from an important pack.”

“Could be she’s an alpha,” Estella ventured.

“Yeah, she is. How’d you guess?”

“You know Caleb’s my best friend, right? And I’ve been around you guys for years. I can tell your ranks. Like, you’re a beta, right?”

Max grinned at her in the rearview mirror.

“Maybe werewolf school wouldn’t be such a bad idea for you, kiddo,” he said, pulling up outside her house in a rush.

She hadn’t noticed when they’d passed through the gates, but she wasn’t really bothered.

Max opened the back door and gently lifted Sarah into his arms. Estella got out of the car, shut the door, and followed him carefully inside.

Luckily, her aunt and uncle weren’t home. They’d told her yesterday they had meetings all day and a business dinner afterward.

They’d totally lose it if they saw her covered in blood.

As Max was about to go into her room, she tugged his sleeve and led him to a guest room instead.

Thank goodness Aunt Lydia always kept them ready for visitors. That way, Sarah wouldn’t wrinkle her nose at being put in a room that smelled like Estella.

She left Max to take care of Sarah and went to clean up and find some fresh clothes for the alpha girl.

The tricky part was she couldn’t give her anything she’d worn before because she’d be able to smell it.

As she rummaged through her drawers, she found some brand-new clothes that she hadn’t worn yet.

Sarah was taller but as skinny as Estella, so they’d fit…kind of.

She went back to the guest room and started to run a bath, but Max had beaten her to it and was already in the bathroom.

The tub was slowly filling with hot water. Estella added some shower gel and got out some fresh towels.

“Estella,” Max called her, and she hurried over. “I need to go back to the pack to talk to Patrick. Can you handle her?”

“Is she out of danger?”

“Yeah. I’ll leave a tonic for her to take when she wakes up. It’ll help her get her strength back faster.”

“Okay.” She nodded, even though she had no idea how she was going to get the alpha girl to drink the tonic without her thinking Estella was trying to poison her.

“I’ll need help getting her in and out of the tub, though.”

“I’ll stay to help you, but we have to be quick. Whoever attacked her pack might come for ours too.”

That thought made Estella worry, but she wisely decided to focus on the task at hand.

She washed Sarah as carefully as she could, trying to avoid the healing wound.

The knife cuts were covered with a thin crust. If they hadn’t been made with silver, they would have healed so well you wouldn’t even know they’d been there.

Now, Estella thought sadly, the alpha girl would have two scars to remember the attack by, because silver always left marks.

When Max lifted Sarah out of the tub, Estella dried her with a soft towel and dressed her in the new clothes.

He put her on the bed, kissed her forehead, and left in a hurry.

MAX

I drove to the pack territory as fast as I could, only to find everyone running around like their hair was on fire.

After asking one of the pack members, I found out that Alpha Devin Austin had sent a message to all the neighboring packs, demanding that whoever had kidnapped his only daughter return her immediately.

Or else, he would declare war on all of us.

It was typical of an alpha to threaten war instead of offering a ransom like humans would, because that would show weakness.

I immediately realized who his daughter was, mostly because of how she talked about Estella, not because of the attack on her.

You see, “The Purity Pack,” where the pup apparently came from, was one of the least human-friendly packs around here.

They looked down on humans, whom they saw as inferior, and avoided doing business with them.

But their pack was almost as big as ours and just as powerful. They were proud of their warriors’ training, so they could easily threaten us all with war because they were sure they could win.

That’s why our pack never tried to form an alliance with them. In fact, they had very few allies, and they didn’t seem to care.

Patrick walked into the pack house and paced the living room, looking really worried.

Like me, he was a pacifist and tried to keep a good or at least civil relationship with the neighboring packs, even if he didn’t like them.

That didn’t mean he, or my uncle before him, didn’t take training seriously. But war with other packs or just attacking them was the last thing either of them would do.

“Honey, the girl is safe,” Eva said soothingly, stroking her round belly.

“We don’t know that!” my cousin yelled in frustration.

“Actually, we do.” She smiled. “Don’t we, Max?”

At the sound of my name, he turned to face me sharply.

“She’s at Estella’s house,” I confirmed right away.

“How?” he demanded. “And why the hell didn’t you mind-link me about it?”

“I was too busy saving the pup’s life,” I shot back. “As for how, they go to school together.

“My guess is that Devin sent her there to protect her, thinking no one would suspect she was hiding in a human school.

“But today, she was found by two rogues and stabbed with silver knives. I have one of them.”

I handed him the weapon, still covered in the girl’s blood, and he took it, frowning.

“How the fuck did they find her there?” he muttered.

“Maybe someone in his pack betrayed him.”

“Or maybe he’ll blame us for it.”

“No, he won’t,” Eva chimed in. “He knows we have no reason to attack his family.”

“I hope so. Is she okay?”

“Estella found her. She managed to slow the bleeding by pressing a shirt or something against the wounds until I arrived.

“We took her to Estella’s place because she was out cold and couldn’t remember her last name.”

“I’m going to call Devin,” Patrick said, turning to leave.

“Hold on,” I said, stopping him. “What about the knife? It’s too well-made to be a rogue’s weapon!”

“You’re right, cousin.” He nodded. “That’s why I need to talk to Devin. I’m worried the rogues are just being used.

“We could all be in danger here, and I can’t risk us being wrongly accused of anything.”

UNKNOWN

She thought Max would be back by now, but two hours had passed and there was still no sign of him.

Deep down, she knew something must be wrong for him to break his promise.

She tried to stay calm and sat next to Sarah. She was sleeping soundly, giving her wolf time to heal her body.

Estella only left her side to find something for them to eat when Sarah woke up.

The cook was off for the day, but there was food in the fridge. What would Sarah feel like eating? Could she even eat after being injured?

Logic told her Sarah would be starving after losing so much blood.

When Sarah began to stir, Estella sat up, alert.

Sarah tried to speak, but her throat was dry. Estella quickly gave her a straw to sip some water.

She had also slipped some tonic in to avoid having to persuade Sarah to drink it later.

“Than...,” Sarah started to say, her voice groggy. But then she caught a whiff of Estella’s human scent and pulled back sharply, glaring at her.

“Stay away from me, human,” she hissed.

“Don’t get snippy with me, alpha girl. I’m the one who saved your ass out there,” Estella shot back coolly.

She wasn’t going to let herself be pushed around.

“What do you mean?” Sarah asked, more confused than hostile.

“I mean, you were dumb enough to pick a fight with two older rogue wolves. They stabbed you with silver and left you to die.

“If I hadn’t been there to slow your bleeding and Max hadn’t given you first aid, you’d be dead.

“Now, you can thank me for spending most of my time with a pack and having the pack doctor as my friend.”

“I’m not thanking a weak human!” Sarah scoffed.

“Suit yourself. But from what I saw, you’re not so tough with a little silver in your blood.”

“You’re not as timid as you seem,” she muttered angrily.

“No, I’m not. Can we be friends now?”

“What? You want to be friends with me?” Sarah looked at Estella in surprise.

“I’ve wanted to be friends since I met you. But you were mean and stubborn and pushed me away. Now you owe me, so you’re going to be my friend to make it right.”

“Only a human would use blackmail to make friends,” she spat indignantly.

“And only a wolf would be stubborn enough not to admit she owes her life to a human,” Estella pointed out.

“Fine, I owe you. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be friends with a human.”

“Really? That’s your only requirement for a friend? They can’t be human? Isn’t that a bit shallow? Do you like every wolf you meet?”

“Of course not! Some of them are complete idiots. Especially the ones who look down on me in training because I’m a girl.” She muttered the last part angrily.

“They don’t respect your title?” Estella joked.

“How do you know about that?”

“I just do. I live with wolves, remember?”

“How did you end up living with our kind?” Sarah asked, showing curiosity for the first time.

“Well, it’s a long story. But I’ll tell you if you tell me how you ended up in a human school.”

After a brief silence, Sarah nodded.

“Deal,” she simply said.