EP8

"Oh my God, Randolph, she's… she's naked," said the young male voice as it hung from the railing, where zoo-goers normally observe animals in barns.

"Yes, Mack. Call support. We don't know yet how many wounds he has." He took off his jacket and put it on her. "Ma'am, we will reach you as soon as possible. Are you injured?"

His mind was fuzzy and disorganized. hurt? Tired. Sleepy.

"It's probably hypothermic." He ran towards the entrance of the wolf pen.

His friend diverted messages to a phone with a succession of footsteps. "There's a naked woman in the ditch in Big Red's pen. Yes yes!" He shouted. "I'm serious. He's naked. We don't know if he's hurt. Randolph says he must be as cold as hypothermic. Okay." His phone hit the ground. The boss is making all the calls. We won't move him if he's injured, just try to keep him warm. But how could…" His voice faltered, then the metal door of the building where the wolves display was located creaked open. They disappeared inside the building, then the door creaked open to the outside of the barn.

Numb and stiff, Bella couldn't even move to put on the jacket the man threw at her. Still, the wool helped keep him warm.

The men ran along the shorter concrete wall from the barn to the ditch. "Watch my back in case Randolph, Big Red, or Rosa come up with an idea. They might still feel threatened if Randolph hurts her."

"Rosa must be sleeping in her study. Big Red is sitting in the corner watching us."

"Keep an eye on her. I'll lift her towards you."

He sat on the edge of the ditch, turned, and fell to the ground. When her feet touched the ground, she quickly turned and ran towards him. "Did you get hurt?"

He was shaking so much that his teeth chattered, he couldn't even utter a word.

She pointed the flashlight at him and helped him put on his jacket. "He doesn't look hurt, but he's half frozen." He took the other jacket in his lap. "Hypothermia is very bad." He lifted her off the hard pavement and carried her to the crouching old man with his arms outstretched.

Lying on the rough concrete above the ditch, her body warmed up a bit as the thick jackets of the two men covered her, but she still got out of control, fell asleep and could hardly focus on anything.

She worried about being caught in the shadows, of getting out of her predicament, of hiding before Viki found her.

Suddenly, more shouts went up, and running footsteps made their way across the ditch towards the boss's safety rail.

"Is he injured?" Thompson shouted from the railing.

"He just looks hypothermic," Mack exclaimed. "The pulse is very slow. There are some scratches, but it doesn't look like he's been bitten or broken any bones."

Mack rubbed his hand as Randolph wrapped his coat around his legs. The door creaked open, and the blond-bearded Thompson turned his head slightly as his blue eyes looked anxiously at the pen.

He took off his coat and put it on. He touched her cheek with clinical concern. "Who are you and how did you get in here?"

He looked at her, heard the question, and vaguely remembered shooting her with a tranquilizer and imprisoning her here. This is how it got here. The men's faces trembled before him, and he blinked slowly, trying to focus.

"What is your name?" He turned to Mack. "Did he ever speak?"

"We heard her screams and shouts. When we found her, she was crouching against the ditch wall and did not say a word. She is almost unconscious."

"The ambulance is on its way," Thompson said. "What about the wolves?"

"Big Red is sitting there watching. Rosa must be sleeping in her study," Randolph said.

Thompson crouched in front of him and touched his wrist. "Ma'am, what's your name? What happened?"

More flashlights flickered in the night. More men were shouting, guiding the wolves' pen. Bella blinked as the two policemen in blue uniforms ran towards the pen; Then she closed her eyes, wondering how to get out of this mess.

"What happened here, Mr Thompson?" ' one of the cops asked.

Thompson told her everything he knew and then reached out and took Bella's hand. "He's like ice."

The men piled two more floors on top of it.

"Fifteen years of being a night watchman is the strangest thing I've ever seen," Randolph said.

"Damn," Mack said, gripping Bella's other hand tighter. "Here comes the media."

Before Diana could step on the gas and escape the police, Argos grabbed her arm. "Wait."

He spoke into the police radio. "What did you buy?" Then he leaned out of the open SUV window and said to Diana, "I have another meeting." Will you slow down, mate?"

"Yes, sir," said Diana, as friendly as she could. His hands were still holding the steering wheel with a deadly grip.

The policeman nodded, then hurriedly got back to his car and said to the other police officer, "There's something wrong with the zoo. You'll never believe it."

Diana looked at Argos, whose tanned face was starting to turn grey.

When Diana finally reached the main entrance of the zoo, she turned off her headlights and went inside.

the lower parking lot of the zoo. But the flashing lights of police cars and ambulance near the entrance of the zoo.

Washing it in a well-colored prism sent a piece of ice to her heart, she. would live.A cold or injury to the animal—if it was small enough—would not have killed it, but how was he going to hide it?

"Follow them to the hospital when the ambulance leaves," said Argos, as if he had read Diana's mind. "We can get him out of here easier."

While the pack hunted, they sat in the dark and silently waited for their prey to appear. The thought of hunting Bella swept through his body, a craving for which he had no business sense, a lascivious desire for her that he could never satisfy.

Paramedics put him in an ambulance; her red hair spilled onto the stretcher, and the blankets had buried her under the covers. Diana could only imagine how close she was to death. His anger boiled deep. How can he be so stupid to leave the package as is? That's the kind of problem he'll run into for him. He needed a group of leaders to keep him in line. No, not the pack leader... he is.

Even though she knew she didn't want him or anyone of her kind, she was attached to him—not just the fire that killed her family, but something deeper, more primal. He tried to rise above the longing darkness - with a heartbreaking longing for the little red wolf. But some did not surrender.

Argos cleared his gravelly throat. "We will all go to the hospital and try to distract him so we can get him out of there. Until then, I will let you know where he is and how serious his injuries are.

Still contemplating the conditions of her captivity, Diana was determined to carry him tonight. Because they had practiced medicine for years, their own healers could care for him far better than human doctors. Diana and her pack friends had to get her out before anyone could discover much about her. But it was more than that. She wanted to hug him again to make sure he was safe under She's watch. She wasn't going to wait a second longer than necessary.

They followed the accompanying police cars to the hospital in an ambulance with blue and red lights flashing against the darkness. The ride seemed endless. But eventually the ambulance entered the brightly lit emergency entrance, and Diana drove away from the circus of police cars following the ambulance. When he saw the main entrance, he parked by the gates; The party was pretty empty as it was late.

Before Diana could open the door, she saw Henry Thompson heading towards the emergency room and stepped quickly and decisively.

"Damn," Diana said in a low voice.

She hated any man or lupus garou who approached She bella, especially a fool in love with wolves. Would Bella confuse Thompson's desire to help the wolves with wanting to possess him?

Diana shook her head and fisted her hands, still not sure what she was finding in men. Still, she intended to make a man understand how meaty they were, how lame, weak, and cowardly their own kind could be, and worse, how dangerous they could be.

"What is the problem?" ' Argos asked, his voice stern with concern.

Diana nodded to Thompson, the zookeeper. He was the person I spoke to to get Rosa out of the zoo. He's going to wonder what the hell I'm doing here."

Argos watched Thompson disappear in the hospital, and then gasped. "Then you can stay in the vehicle."

Diana quickly opened the door. "I'm like hell."

The room smelled of germicidal and the air conditioner had burst through the vents with the intention of putting patients in the freezer, Bella was sure of it. She lay quietly in her hospital bed, pretending to be sleepy, the high starched sheets rubbing the exposed back of her dress. Four or five layers of freshly piled white wool blankets from the blanket warmer bury it, raising its internal temperature. But the knowledge that he wasn't safe yet froze him again.

The room was quiet except for the beating heartbeats nearby. When he was hooked up to the IV, the medicine gushed into his veins and warmed his blood, and the nurse left the room. But Thompson and the doctor were watching him silently.