Chapter 53

Sam

It was a strange combination of feelings as we moved up the walkway. The terror of the abduction, the relief that Megan was safe, the pain still shooting up my leg, and the weight of responsibility all pressed in on me. I squeezed Megan's shoulder and leaned on her probably more than I should have, but I was so tired. Adrenaline flooded my system while the stress and pain urged me to give in and shut my eyes.

"Sam, do you have any idea what they might have drugged you with?" Jennifer asked quietly as she came up beside us.

I shook my head. "No. I don't. But it's dulled all my wolf senses, and it took a while for me to be able to call the wolf out. I couldn't shift." I shivered, remembering the panic of not being able to access such a vital part of myself. Megan squeezed my hand.

She nodded. "Suppressant. Kyp, run back to the car and grab the black duffle out of the back seat, please."

"Do you know what it is?" Megan opened the door.

"Not one hundred percent, but I have a good idea. The pack in Kentucky used a suppressant as a form of discipline."

"No wonder you left," I muttered under my breath. What kind of Alpha would encourage, let alone allow, such a torture?

Steve Rivers, Corwin Banks, and Jonathan Stone followed us in along with Cade, Mom, and Rev. I dropped to the couch and pulled Meg down with me as the rest filed into the room and found spots.

"Leg?" Jennifer guessed.

"Right one."

She glanced around then moved the coffee table over a few feet. "Can you prop your leg up?"

Wincing, I put it on the table. She moved the robe back and there was a collective inhale as everyone saw the bloody, mangled mess of my leg. It was healing, but it looked nasty. Blood still oozed in places and there was a thick, dried crust of blood, dirt, and forest bits stuck all down my calf where my makeshift bandage had slipped.

"Okay. I need a cookie sheet, a couple big containers of water and some towels, and a trash bag, or we need to move into the bathroom and use the tub," Jennifer said.

"Guys, get water in here. We need to strategize now, and we won't all fit in the bathroom." I gave a rare order. I was acting Alpha, and I found my instinct to give orders to get things done was coming more naturally than I expected.

There was a scramble of bodies as everyone in the room moved at once to get tubs, water, and towels. Only Meg stayed still beside me.

Kyp knocked twice on the door and then opened it, bringing the large duffle in with him.

"How you doing?" he asked as he put the bag down beside the couch. His eyes widened as he took in my leg.

"Been better. Our pack is usually safer than this. Still want to join?" I smiled, but there was more truth in my words than my tone let on.

"Absolutely." There was no hesitation and his eyes held conviction. "What do you need right now?"

"Right now, we need to get my dad back and get whatever they put in my system, out." The last bit came out on a growl. Now that I was home, safe for the moment, I was intensely frustrated with my situation.

"You were drugged?"

"Your mom said she thought it was a suppressant, whatever that means?"

"There are a couple types floating around, but there's a pretty easy compound made from wolfsbane and aspirin that will keep the wolf silent."

"Wolfsbane? Are you serious?"

"I guess that's not a myth?" Megan asked.

Kyp cracked a wry grin. "Not a myth. Hurts like the devil. Right here, behind the eyes." He pointed with two of his fingers to his own face. I thought of the pounding headache I had when I'd come to with the bag over my face—the headache still lingering, like a giant hand squeezing my scalp and poking my eyeballs from the inside. I thought it had been from the wreck, but maybe it was the drugs?

Jennifer came through from the kitchen with Mom's best cookie tray. Quickly, she knelt and arranged a few instruments, gauze, and iodine as the rest came back in carrying water in Mom's pots and Tupperware and a large metal basin that Mom kept for large pack gatherings.

"First things first. Is there anything to get this drug out of my system sooner than to let it run its course?" I asked Jennifer as she wet a towel.

"I have something that will lessen the effects if they gave you wolfsbane. But if they gave you something else, then there's nothing I have that will help." I hissed as the water hit my broken skin.

"Will it do anything if it's not wolfsbane, and I take it anyway?"

Jennifer glanced at Kyp.

"It might make you tingle weirdly in your paws and make you clumsy, but I didn't have any other effects. But I'm only half wolf." He cleared his throat. "I don't know if it would be different for you."

There were some inhalations as Kyp's revelation went around the room. Not everyone was privy yet to Kyp's bloodlines.

"I'll take it anyway. Take a blood sample first, though. I want to know what this is," I told Jennifer. She nodded, then rummaged in the black duffel. "Also, Mom, would you grab some human pain killers? Are those okay to take?" I asked Jennifer. She nodded and continued to wash the gunk off my wounds.

"Where did they take you?" Jonathan, a man approaching forty with distinguished salt-and-pepper hair, asked.

"I'm not sure. It was about ten miles outside town at least. I have a general idea, and I think we can work with it. They ran us off the road, then I think they drugged us and took us to a little ramshackle dump in the middle of the deep woods. I didn't recognize anything, but the good and bad news is that there is a large blood trail we can follow back.

"I don't know how many they have, and I don't know if they will have moved Dad, which is why I think we should move as quickly as possible, in case they do move him. Any trails would be fresh tonight. If it rains, we're sunk. They will have to move him at least part of the way on foot. There is no road going in or out past their building. It was a path."

Jennifer handed me a white square of something that looked like baking soda covered cardboard about the size of a quarter. I raised an eyebrow.

"It tastes terrible, but it works on the wolfsbane," Kyp offered. I chucked it in my mouth, chewing and swallowing as quickly as I could before the fizzy, burning solution could stay on my tongue.

As Jennifer began assessing each puncture and cleaning them out, we began to plan.