pack, and God alone knew where the nearest hospital was. If I could pry a bullet out of him, I could do this, too. I hoped.
“Back up, please. Give me some room, guys.”
“No, Shia! Get inside. Whoever did this is still out there,” Chaz said.
“I’ll get inside as soon as I take that thing out. Guys, hold him down, please?” I turned to Nick and Dillon, gesturing for them to keep him still. They looked helplessly between me and Chaz, obviously not wanting to upset their pack leader, but also wanting to give me the chance to help him. None of them seemed interested in touching the wooden shaft of the arrow, as though that part of it would magically turn into silver and start hurting them too. “Come on, we don’t have all night.”
Reluctantly, the two guys gripped Chaz’s upper arms, holding him down against the log we’d been sitting on earlier, muttering apologies as they did. Simon leaned on his legs without being asked, and I was grateful for the help. Growling soft epithets under his breath, Chaz shut his eyes and waited for the inevitable, his expression and the tension in his muscled frame telling me that he was steeling himself the way that someone else might for getting a shot at the doctor’s office. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.
I took a deep breath to steady myself and put one hand around the shaft of the arrow. I didn’t know whether it was barbed or not. Yanking it out might do more damage than leaving it in there. Using the edge of Chaz’s ruined shirt, I gently brushed some of the blood out of the way and peered at the wound, trying to catch a glimpse of the silver head through the swelling, irritated flesh. Gross. Only the memories of having seen far, far worse from Max Carlyle’s handiwork kept me from being too squeamish to do this.
The head of the thing didn’t look barbed, but I wasn’t sure. I had to move hair out of my face so I could see. The shifting shadows, as people behind me moved in and out of the light, also trying to catch a glimpse, didn’t help either.
The arrow had lodged fairly deep and, though the silver was keeping the wound from closing, it was hard to see around the swelling the best way to drag it back out. Setting my free hand against his chest a little below where the arrow had pierced his skin, I used my other hand to pull it out as gently as I could.
There were a couple of times in the process of removing the stupid thing that I could feel it catch on muscle or tendon, making his breath hitch. I made every effort not to do any more damage on the way out than it had caused on the way in. Difficult to tell around the blood, but I was pretty sure I was pulling it out straight.
It took a few intense minutes, during which sudden muscle spasms or jerks made me grateful that some of the guys had agreed to hold Chaz down, but eventually the arrow was freed. I grimaced as I looked over the blood-coated shaft, noting that silver lined about half an inch of it above the arrowhead itself, guaranteeing the wound would be more irritated and slower to close. To a low-ranking Were, or a new shifter like Ethan, it would have been fatal.
Chaz lay there for a long moment, taking deep, shuddering breaths as the others stepped back, giving him room to recover. With a great deal of grumbling and groaning, he levered to his feet, waving off any efforts by the others to help. Keeping a hand pressed to the still-bleeding wound, he started off toward the woods, followed closely by the Weres who had stayed behind.
Despite the pain lacing his tone, there was anger and hard command in Chaz’s voice. The promise of retaliation was almost enough to make me pity whoever had done this. Almost. “Do you know if the hunter has been found yet?”
“No,” someone spoke up from behind us. “No one’s come back from the forest yet. They’re still looking.”
Dillon touched my arm lightly as I moved to follow, giving me pause. “You should go inside now. Let us handle this.”
“She can hold her own,” Chaz said, looking back over his shoulder. “We might need her help if there’s more silver involved. Just keep her safe.”
Dillon looked back and forth