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~ Chapter Six ~

Erica Keller

My current patient wasn't being very helpful, which would have been bad enough if Alpha Roger wasn't literally in the room with us. I'd put up a strong front the whole time I'd been a doctor, convincing everyone in the pack that I could do it even if I was a woman. They'd believed me after the first couple of misbehaving patients, but this one wasn't from our pack.

She was a rogue as far as we were concerned and she refused to allow me to fix up the huge gash across her thigh - I worried it'd gone through her vein and that she could be bleeding out.

No matter how much I uttered, "You need to stay still or you could die," she kept it up, and eventually I gave in and sedated her. Roger wasn't happy about that, but I did what I had to do so I could get her to calm down. We weren't going to be able to keep her alive if we hadn't.

"How long will I have to wait, Keller?" Roger asked, arms crossed and a salty expression on his face.

"Not long," I muttered.

"I need to know who this girl is," he reminded me. "Don't try too hard to save her. If she's a rogue, she's better off dead." He started for the door. "Mind-link me when she's awake.

I didn't answer him.

I spent the next fifteen minutes sorting out her wound, cleaning her up then stitching as much of it as I could. I couldn't tell how deep it was or whether she'd lost too much blood anyway, I just knew she was actually going to be out for a while and Roger wouldn't get a chance to see her until at least this evening. Too bad for him, I thought smugly. Maybe he shouldn't be such a dick.

As I finished fastening the restraints on the woman's wrists and ankles, I heard something of a commotion outside, and my heart dropped. With someone to care about, any commotion was awful - worse if it wasn't planned, like Roger going downstairs angry. I didn't know what he could do or would do. I did, however, know what he was capable of.

After securing the patient, I rushed out of my office and through the hallway to listen to whatever was happening. There were two voices, one male and one female, and they sounded like they were yelling at each other. It didn't seem to be a whole pack thing, especially when I crept around a corner and found Connor and Valerie half-dressed peering at what was happening, too. We all exchanged a slightly nervous look.

"-care. It's all a load of bullshit," Roger was yelling just before he threw a table into a wall. It crashed into unmendable pieces, yet he was still reaching for the next closest item.

"You should care. I am only asking one thing of you, it is not much," a woman replied, calm but with an undertone of nerves in her voice.

This woman wasn't from the pack. I'd never even seen her before. She looked like a model: tall, slim, with a pretty face and long legs. I could imagine her on one of the magazines I knew Tyler, the only teenager in the pack, had hidden in his mattress. There was no way the Moon Goddess would ever pair such beauty with such a beast, although if she had any knowledge of popular culture, perhaps she'd think it was funny to do so.

I already felt bad for this woman as Roger threw something at her, though she dodged it with ease and just glared harder at him. She was trying to remain calm, to even out this argument by being the reasonable one, but Roger could be unreasonable for six, let alone just the two of them. No one would win this battle, he'd just be better off at the end of it.

"It is too much!" Roger roared when a photo frame smashed against the wall. Connor immediately moved, but Valerie held him back, and I realised the photo had been of the family of five.

"I can't believe I was paired up with you. What is wrong with you?" the woman groaned. "Rogues are humans... so to speak. They are wolves! Not some other creature and certainly not any danger to you."

"Do not bring your bullshit into my house." Roger started stomping toward her.

"It is not bullshit." The woman rolled her eyes. "It is also not your house, it's the pack's house."

Roger stopped when he was directly in front of the woman and got in her face. They were exactly the same height, so they could stare angrily into each others eyes as he slowly snarled out. He was trying to assert his dominance over her, forcing her to submit to him, but I could tell she was stronger than that. She wouldn't fall to Roger's usual tricks.

Maybe that was why she was paired up with him.

"You don't get to come in here and say these things to me, woman. You are nothing to me, do you understand? Nothing. You're about as useless as that table over there." He pointed at the table he had broken in his rage. "If you don't get out of this house, you will fucking regret it, understand?"

The woman stared at him a moment then rolled her eyes. "What are you going to do, Roger? I'm your mate, you can't-" Before she could finsih her sentence, Roger pulled a dagger I didn't know he even had on him out of his pants and plunged it into the woman's stomach. Valerie screamed while I gasped, and Connor had to hold his wife back so she wouldn't run downstairs to give Roger a piece of her mind.

My hand was glued over my mouth. In fact, my whole body was glued to the spot, frozen like I was in ice. I couldn't even comprehend moving right now.

Roger just stabbed his mate. And he didn't look sorry one bit.

"You!" he yelled up the stairs at me. My blood ran cold now. "Get down here now."

Without thinking, I ran down the stairs toward the hall, where Roger's mate was softly groaning on the ground, a puddle forming beneath her.

"Is that rogue still out?" he demanded and I slowly nodded. "For fuck sake. Whatever, make sure she wakes up within the hour or you'll pay with your mate's life."

"My-" I cut myself off, too afraid to even say what he was suggesting. If I didn't get that rogue to wake up, my mate was going to be killed, and I didn't know if I could handle more trauma today. Not after this. "And her?" I asked softly, motioning at the woman on the floor.

"Let her bleed out," he replied coldly. "Waste of space anyway."

My mouth opened and closed, but he was already walking away. I could feel how fast my heart was beating in my chest as I realised the severity of this situation, that if I didn't do exactly what he said from now on, he'd kill my mate. Would he really? He'd literally just tried to kill his own without rejecting her first.

He was colder than I ever imagined.

The sound of footsteps caused me to turn around and see Connor rushing down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he took in the sight of the woman on the floor, my frightened expression, and just about caught Roger slamming a door on his way out of the room.

We stared at each other for a moment, then he said, "What the fuck just happened?"

"I don't know," I whispered, peering at the woman again. "I-I'm a doctor, I can't just let her die." My eyes met Connor's. "We have to save her."

"Didn't you hear him? You need to wake that rogue up."

"She can't die," I insisted. "Come on, you're an optimist. I could save her. I have to. I-"

"Hey," Connor interrupted, walking up and taking my biceps in his hands. "Okay, you take her out to the garden and I'll cover for you. I'll say I took her out to bury her." I flicked my gaze depserately between his eyes. "If you're gonna save her, you better move quickly," he reminded me. "What do you need?"

I blinked and my frozen state passed, replaced with a state of slight panic. "Shit," I breathed. "There's a stab kit in my office, everything I need for someone who's been stabbed. Grab it. I can get her out there on my own."

"I'll be as fast as I can," Connor promised, already running back to the stairs.

I turned to the woman and dropped to my knees beside her, assuming a pick-up position with my arms under her knees and around her shoulders. I began to rise to my feet as I murmured, "I should be able to save you. Hang tight."

And then I ran for the back door hoping nobody had seen what just happened.

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