The Pack's Doctor by Cooper

Chapter 138

Quirin

This is definitely a side of Kennedy that I'm not used to seeing. | step back and pull off my divorts, getting on the

table,

“You didn’t mention seeing Beta Kier last night when you returned to the packhouse” | say, watching as she

looks at the

wound.

“Would it have mattered? You still wouldn't have askedto look at your wounds. You were quite clear about

Raft being strong enough to heal you. Your arrogance and the arrogance of this pack is astounding”

“My arrogance?” | ask, biting off a hiss as she begins scraping the wound. She looks at the scraping, tilting it in

the lig before nodding and putting the scrapings in a glass cylinder. That looks new too. | frown, how did she

know she would pr these things?

“Yes, it's arrogant to force your wolves to do all the work of healing you when you could help them. You expect

them to liger and then expect them to heal you and your wolves do it without any complaint. But you, as the

human, could help them and you refuse because of your own arrogance,” she says, stepping away, “Put your

shorts on and follow me,” she says sharply, barely looking at me. The anger in her is palpable,

Raif pushes forward, gently grabbing her arm. “Thank you for helping to heal me, little mate,”

| watch her features soften as she looks at us. “You shouldn't have to do all the work, Raif. Try to convince him

next tthat | can help.”

He leans forward and presses our forehead to hers. | watch her close her eyes and take a deep breath.

“Con. I'll show you what I'm looking at,” she says, her tone softer.

“You heard our mate. Next time, I'm dragging your ass over here, Raif says to me,

‘Fine. She obviously likes you more thanright now.

‘Maybe because | listen and appreciate what she’s doing. You're just arguing with her.

| follow her across the hospital, nodding at Deborah who looks uncomfortable having so many people in the

hospital. On the other side of the hospital, where | found Kennedy yesterday, she has a small workstation set up.

The microscope is sitting in the center of a counter with a chair neatly tucked underneath it.

She pulls out the chair and points. “Have a seat. This will take a moment.”

Instead of sitting, | watch her as she walks about the room, pulling out small glass plates and swiping the

scrapings across them. She tilts it in her hands and then nods again before putting it under the microscope.

Then, she looks through the lens, moving the knob on the side of the microscope before stepping back.

“There you go,’ she says. | frown but step forward and look at the slide.

| have no idea what I'm looking at, but... “What's that moving?” | say, looking at her and feeling revulsion that

something's alive in my wound.

“Bacteria. You don’t have as much as Lane had, but his injury was over a week old, as | said. Raif has done a

good job so far of keeping the wound clean, but that would have changed over time. With warrior training,

running, pretty much anything and everything you do allows bacteria to get into an open wound,” she says.

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Chapter 138

| frown and sit as | look back at the slide, watching the nasty little blob squirm around. “Is that what I'm

supposed to be looking at?”

“No. Do you see what looks like little crystals?”

“Yeah, there's a lot of those,” | say, looking at them. They're almost pretty.

“That's silver,” she says.

“WHAT?” | ask, looking up at her, then back at the slide. “That's...”

| stare at all the silver she scraped off my wound, then sit back, thinking. “So, Raif would never have been able

to heal that wound?”

“Probably not. | mean, if you'd gotten in there with a scrub brush maybe, but you would also have run the risk of

pushing the silver farther into your body instead of scraping it out like | just did.”

| narrow my eyes as | think it through. “But not everyone has silver in their bodies. You said Kier didn’t and you

checked multiple wounds on him, right?” | ask.

“That's correct. | think, again I'm not sure, but if I'm right about them putting silver on their claws where it

wouldn't hurt them and there is silver on the ground, then sof it is rubbing off during the battle. While it’s

not an immediate danger, it is contaminating our pack lands. Tommy's a perfect example, and I’m going to

guess that he’s not the only one.”

“How do you know all of this?” | ask, waving at the microscope.

“It’s a cross between biology and chemistry.”

| frown. “They taught you this in your high school classes?” | never learned any of this, but then, | didn’t care to

learn it either.

“No, not like this. | got most of this in my college level classes.”

I turn and look at her.

“When did you take college classes, Little Pup?”

She huffs at me. “I've been taking college classes for years, Quirin. | have undergraduate degrees in biology and

chemistry.”

| feel pride swell in my chest at my mate. How did | not know this about her?

“You just graduated high school, and you already have two undergraduate degrees?”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Yes.”

She says it like she doesn’t expectto believe her.

| stand, stepping up to her, stroking my fingers over her cheek. “I've been severely underestimating you, haven't

1?” 1 ask quietly.

She nods and | can smell the saltiness of tears that she’s fighting.

“I'm sorry,” | say, and her eyes snap up to mine, obviously surprised by my apology.

“I will work harder to not underestimate you again and | will strive to listen when you talk to me,” | say.

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Chapter 138

“Thank you,” she says, leaning into my caress.

I lean in and kiss her gently, slowly deepening the kiss, but pulling away before it turns into something else.

“How about you finish with Lane and then we’ll go addrew the pack together. If there are others with wounds

that aren't healing, they'll need to cget their wounds cleaned out so they can heal.”

“| can stitch your wound up too,” she says.

“Already healed, thanks to you, little mate,” Raif says to her.

As if she doesn’t believe him, she reaches aroundand pulls my shorts down to look at the now-healed wound

“I mean, if you'd rather make Lane and Emily wait while | make you scream.” | say, teasingly.

She looks up at me, her eyes wide, before looking down at the growing evidence of my attraction to her.

“I have work to do,” she squeaks, pulling up my shorts and stepping around me. She stops and looks back at me.

Tze, though, I'll take you up on that offer.”

“It's a date,” | say, falling into step beside her as we walk back to the room where Lane is waiting. When we walk

in, | can already tell that his wounds are healing.

“I think one still has silver in it,” Derion, Lane's wolf, tells her. She finishes cleaning it out and then stitches him

up. | wait while she cleans up the room and herself and then extend my hand to her.

“Ready to address the pack?”

“Let's do it,” she says, taking my hand.

| still need to figure out what I’m going to do about Jasper and about the silver on our pack lands, but it feels

good to have Kennedy happy withagain.