Luc smiled, nodded and headed for the bedroom. He got dressed slowly and carefully. Duke was being a right pain. While very beta when all was well and right in accordance to his universe, Duke tried to be an alpha in all the wrong ways when things were chaotic. Like now. That list Kevin had brought wasn’t bad. For the most part, the bits that Duke was complaining about were things he never dealt with in any way shape or form. The unfamiliarity with the business was Duke’s downfall. Duke didn’t know that Ginny handled all the dispatching as well as ran the front office. Nor did he understand that Peter ran the warehouse and Kevin managed shipping and receiving with Peter. Somehow, Duke had gotten it in his head that Luc did all of this, and that the interplay of people was in fact chaotic. Luc knew from the IM chats and other bits of information from Ginny that things were really rather quiet. The only real chaos was Duke interfering.
Luc walked back out into the living room to find Kevin watching out the front windows. He walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“How soon until Meg should be here?” Luc asked.
“In a few minutes. I figure that if Duke was heading this way, he’d get here early,” said Kevin.
“I agree. At least I don’t have too many shrubs or trees to hide behind,” said Luc as they stood there waiting.
“No, that is a good thing. No parking garage either. Is that her car pulling up?” Kevin asked.
“Yes,” said Luc as he looked out. “I’m going to go out to meet her. This way the door will be open and you can be ready too.”
“Okay, I’m not exactly comfortable with this, but it will work,” said Kevin.
Luc nodded and slowly walked out to meet the Neon as it pulled up in the drive way. He waved at Meg, and she waved back. Looking around, he didn’t see anything. So far, so good.
Meg was curious as to why Luc was outside. She was about to ask him why when he opened the door.
“Meg, come into the house as quickly as possible,” he said quietly. There was a sub-vocal quality to his voice that Meg noted.
“Okay Luc. Let me grab my bag and we will get inside and you can explain this,” she said. She reached over and grabbed her laptop bag and stood up out of the car. She heard a noise behind her and tried to turn.
“Watch out!” Kevin hollered from the doorway. He was out and moving as fast as he could towards the car.
Meg felt the car slammed into her and the scrape of claws on metal. Then she felt Luc shove her back inside the Neon and slam the door. The top of her car started to cave in with the weight of whatever had attacked them. There was a thump, and then what looked like a large dog slid off the side of her neon. Watching from the inside, she saw Kevin tackle the sandy colored animal. Meg realized a second later that it was a wolf. Kevin didn’t shift, but he and the wolf were locked in battle. The wolf grabbed at his ribs and bit. Kevin grabbed the wolf by the ears with one hand and thumped it around the snout and jaws with the other. The wolf let go and went for Kevin’s hand that hit him. Kevin delivered another punch to the wolf’s skull right between the eyes. The wolf was stunned for a moment and then lunged for Kevin’s throat. Kevin blocked the attack with his fist. By this time the wolf was trying to squirm away from the hold Kevin had around it’s middle. Peter from work appeared from the other side and waded into the fight.
Meg looked to where Luc had been a minute ago and saw his body pressed up against the door. “Good! At least he has the brains to stay out of this fight!” she thought. Looking back at the fight, she saw Peter pull a thick baton from his back pocket and hit the wolf. The wolf went limp, and collapsed on top of Kevin.
“Stay put,” said Luc as he walked away from the car door towards the limp form of the wolf and the two men. She didn’t move.
Luc helped Peter heave the wolf off of Kevin. There were some bites and his shirt was torn, but he didn’t look too bad. Peter grabbed the wolf by the scruff of the neck and started dragging him to the back of the house. Luc helped Kevin to the door of the house and then came to get Meg. He opened the door and held out a scuffed and bloodied hand to Meg. She took it and they moved quickly into the house.
“Who in the hell was that?” she asked once they were inside and the door was closed. She was shaking with adrenaline and noticed that Luc was going very pale. “Luc, sit down,” she said, all concern transferred to him.
“I’ll be okay. Go see to Kevin. He’s in the bathroom,” he said as he reached for his phone.
Meg nodded and headed to the bathroom. When she got there, Kevin had the remains of his shirt off and was trying to mop up the blood with a wet washrag.
“Here, let me help,” she said. He nodded and she took the washrag from him and started to clean up the deep gash on his side. The teeth grazed over the ribs before biting into the softer flesh near his stomach. It wasn’t bad, just bloody. She rinsed the washrag and repeated the process over his other scrapes and bites. His hands and arms were covered in scratches and teethmarks.
“Ow!” hissed Kevin as she worked on one deep bite.
“Sorry,” said Meg and tried to be more gentle. There was a flap of skin that tore and no way to clean it gently. It was just an ugly bite. She finished and looked into the medicine cabinet. Nothing. Then she remembered, the box under the sink. Meg pulled Luc’s first aide kit out from under the sink and found what she needed. She remembered how fast they healed, but still, some of those bite marks were going to hurt for a few days.