Free Werewolves of Chicago: Curragh (Werewolves of... Book 6) by Faleena Hopkins Page A

breathing strangely, in soft short bursts separated by long pauses. He rasped, “Kill him.”
    “I’m going to,” Curragh promised his packmate. “I will fucking murder the man. You have my word.” He cocked a sideways look to Xavier, both of them feeling that he was nearing death. Curragh went to the other side of the table, and he and Xavier both took hold of their friend’s hands, clasping them tightly. The Nordic wolf began panting and then he lost consciousness again. They listened for his heart, theirs suspended. Xavier exhaled loudly. There was a faint heartbeat.
    “It’s probably the pain. He passed out from the agony.” They waited a good twelve minutes before a knock came on the door. “I’ll get it.” He threw a warning look over his shoulder that said, behave yourself.
    Curragh hadn’t let go, and he stayed there like that with Draik while Howard rushed in with a leather satchel of supplies. So used to seeing gruesome corpses, Howard Peters did not even pause at the sight awaiting him. Simultaneously falling to his knees as he started unpacking the bag, he asked, “Who did this?”
    Xavier paced as he whispered in anger, “A dead man.”
    “You’re gonna be okay, buddy,” Curragh told Draik’s sleeping form, gripping his friend’s cold hand. “You’re gonna be okay.” He looked at all the bottles and tools being strewn on the floor around Howard, all within reaching distance. “You can save him…right?”
    Howard’s lips were tight. His shaggy light brown hair hung over his glasses as he looked up. “I don’t know. But I’m going to do my best.”
    He instructed them to help him disrobe Draik. As they peeled off his clothes, they discovered slashes from where he’d been whipped, slices where he’d been cut, and dark, charcoal like patches where they’d burned him. It wasn’t just his feet. They’d burned him in random places that would hurt when he bent them, like his elbows and knees. On one wrist, too.
    Together they worked. They cleaned him with hot towels, and handed Howard whatever he asked for. The scrawny wolf sewed up what could be, and covered all the wounds in heavy aloe vera for healing, and numbing herbal medicine for the pain. Twice Draik screamed himself awake, and both times his packmates gave him whiskey to help. Normal painkillers don’t work on werewolves. It was the best they could do, and in between giving him the booze, they drank some themselves.
    It was five torturous hours before they carried Draik to his gauze-covered mattress, and laid him there to sleep. The three backed away, each exhausted.
    Curragh’s body was tight and weary, his chest twisted on the inside. He turned to Howard. “Thank you.”
    The younger wolf glanced over, tired. “You’re welcome.”
    After a weighted pause, Xavier asked, “He’s going to live?”
    Howard pushed his glasses up on his nose and nodded. “Yes. We did it.”

Chapter Twenty
    S tanding out on her balcony with a cup of very hot chamomile tea, Kara watched Chicago from her perch. It looked so beautiful from up here, and she had to admit, she was beginning to feel at home. The detectives on the scene today were different. They treated her with a little more respect, or at least less disrespect. She’d caught a few judgmental glances, but for the most part, it had been a big win in the Kruglov case, and she’d helped make it happen. One step closer to catching the man, when it was usually two steps back. And she’d taken a hit for it. When a cop gets hurt, the others rally and show respect. It’s just the way.
    She took a sip and leaned her forearms on the railing, her favorite worn-in T-shirt hanging loosely over blue pajama pants. The air was strangely calm that night, the moon a little more than a sliver. She was exhausted, but it was a good tired. She felt peaceful, maybe for the first time since she’d moved here.
    Her thoughts went back to when she found this apartment, a small one bedroom on South