Wild Invitation

hisschedule for this afternoon—a simple walk with a small group of children under his authority, the aim to work out the parameters of a new project in a stress-free environment.
    He’d never risk the children by taking them into a section that hadn’t been cleared by SnowDancer security, and she’d heard no alarms that indicated an attack of some kind. Yet Walker had all but disappeared under the brutal force of an iron control that made her feel like the mating bond was being strangled to death.
    Forcing herself to breathe, to think, she decided to walk outside and follow the tug of the bond until she found him. It might end up being nothing but—“No, don’t go there.” With that shaky admonition, she managed to tell Lucy she was heading out, and left.
    She’d barely reached the middle of the White Zone, the safe play area for the youngest SnowDancers, when Walker exploded out of the trees, a child’s limp body held in his arms. Healer instinct slammed into force, and she was running full-tilt toward him before she’d consciously decided to act.
    “What happened?” It was Tyler in his arms, the boy’s dark brown skin sheened with a thin layer of perspiration that smelled “wrong” to her senses.
    “Far as I can figure,” Walker said, chest heaving from the speed of his own run, “he’s had an allergic reaction. An insect bite, maybe a plant. He collapsed after complaining of shortness of breath and dizziness—it was a rapid reaction, less than thirty seconds from complaint to collapse.”
    An allergic reaction triggered by a pack’s long-term natural environment was so rare in the changeling population as to be negligible, but there was nothing to say this pup might not be one of the outliers. “Place him flat on the grass.” Ignoring everything else, she put her hands around the boy’s throat, worked to open air passages that had all but closed up. If Walker hadn’t reacted as he had by bringing the pup to her, instead of calling for assistance, they could’ve lost Tyler.
    “I’ve managed to open his airway for the time being.” Having bought a temporary reprieve, she checked the boy’s body for any clue as to what had provoked the near-lethal reaction. The presence of a toxin or venom would require a different treatment from a response incited by a plant.
    “There.”
It was on his ankle, just above his sock. “A sting of some kind.”
    Working on him again to ensure his airway remained open and his heart continued to beat, she asked Walker to carry him into the infirmary. “Where’s Judd?” She knew that if at all possible, Walker would’ve alerted his telekinetic brother at the first sign that Tyler was in danger and requested an emergency teleport.
    “Other side of the country till eight tonight. With the psychic energy he’s already used over the past couple of days, teleporting back to the den would’ve wiped him out, left him with nothing to help Tyler.”
    “I don’t think even a Tk could’ve gotten Tyler to me as quickly as you did.” Lara grabbed a scanner as Walker placed Tyler on a bed inside the infirmary.
    Turning to face her, he said, “I have to go. I left the other pups alone and they’re in shock.”
    Lara nodded, her concentration on what was happening inside her patient’s body. “Go. I’ll tell you the instant he’s out of the woods.”
    Lucy was there to assist after Walker left—with a brush of his hand over Tyler’s tight black curls and a touch of his knuckles to Lara’s cheek. When the boy’s parents arrived, Lucy made sure the distraught couple didn’t disrupt Lara.
    Much as Lara understood their worry and fear, she needed to focus. The scanners confirmed what she’d suspected: The venom had provoked an overwhelming negative reaction in the pup’s body, the worst she’d ever seen. The average changeling, child or adult, would’ve perhaps felt a tingling, maybe had to deal with an itchy red bump for an hour or so, but that was it.
    Tyler’s entire body was threatening to shut down.
    “I’ve got you now. You’ll be okay,” she murmured, injecting him with a drug designed to counteract the worst of the effects, before using her abilities to stabilize the systems of his body. She not only soothed the ragged edges, she worked to make sure he’d never again respond in the same dangerous way to the same type of sting.
    If an M-Psy or a human physician had asked her how she did what she did, she couldn’t have explained it