The Lockbox

"Stay behind me," Kaelen ordered.

He slid off the gurney. He stumbled, the fresh stitches pulling tight, but he didn't fall. In the dark, his eyes were two burning coins.

"You can't fight," Elena whispered. "Your pectoral muscle is held together by thread."

"I can fight," Kaelen growled. "I'm the Alpha of Shadow Ridge. I don't die in a doctor's office."

He moved toward the door of the trauma room. He sniffed the air. "Three of them. Wet fur. Rot."

The door to the trauma room shook. Someone was throwing their weight against it.

*CRACK.* The wood splintered around the lock.

Kaelen roared. He didn't wait for them to enter. He kicked the door open, catching the first rogue by surprise.

The hallway was a chaos of shadows and violence. Kaelen grappled with a massive gray wolf, slamming it into the drywall. The sound of snapping bone echoed in the corridor.

But there were two others.

One rogue, in human form but shifting, jumped on Kaelen’s back, digging claws into his fresh wounds. Kaelen shouted in pain, dropping to one knee.

The third rogue slipped past them.

He saw Elena.

Elena backed up against the medical cabinets. She was a scientist. She didn't fight. She diagnosed.

She looked at the rogue—a snarling, mangy creature drooling saliva on the floor.

*Diagnosis: Threat to life.*

*Treatment: Termination.*

Elena turned. She punched the code into the narcotics lockbox. *1-9-8-4.*

The latch clicked.

She ignored the morphine. She ignored the adrenaline. She grabbed the vial with the red cap. *Euthasol*. Concentrated sodium pentobarbital. Fatal in seconds.

She didn't have time to draw it up. She grabbed a pre-loaded syringe kept for aggressive wildlife control.

The rogue lunged.

Elena didn't scream. She stepped into the attack.

As the rogue reached for her throat, she drove the needle into the side of his neck, depressing the plunger with her thumb.

The rogue convulsed. His eyes rolled back. He collapsed at her feet, dead before he hit the linoleum.

Across the hall, Kaelen threw the gray wolf off his back. He stood up, blood pouring from his reopened wounds. He grabbed the remaining rogue by the throat and ripped it out.

Silence returned to the clinic.

Elena stood over the dead body, the empty syringe still in her hand. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps.

Kaelen turned. He was a nightmare of blood and shadow. He looked at the dead rogue at her feet. Then he looked at her.

He didn't look angry. He looked awestruck.

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