This story is m/m and m/f.
There are two more chapters to come which will be up shortly.
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She burst through the door to the stairwell and heard the sounds of a fight going on above her, and worse than that, a pained yelp from Dill. She raced up the steps and saw him struggling with a man in the doorway. The man was bloodied, but Dill looked worse. He was lying at the guys feet and as Tilly headed towards them she saw him kick Dill in the chest and then the head, and felt Dill's pain again, increasing her own adrenaline. The whole scene seemed to go in slow motion and she watched in horror as Dill stilled after the kick to his head, and the wave of his feelings stopped hitting her. She could only hope he had only been knocked unconscious. Still in slow motion she saw the man raise one of the cattle prods in his hands, starting the downward motion to bring it down into Dill's head....
8
Tilly leapt from the top of the stairs, claws out, taking the man down before he had chance to lower his weapon and probably kill her mate. Her claws sank into his chest and legs and she heard bones breaking as he landed. He screamed in pain, and she clawed him a little more for good measure. She felt anger like she had never felt before and grabbed the man by the throat, pressing her teeth lightly into his neck. She stilled like that, aware that the pressure of her jaws could kill him, or she could rip his throat out, but wanting to feel his fear when he realised he was going to die. She felt satisfied when his eyes went wide and an almost dog-like whimper came from him as her teeth pressed tighter and she hissed.
Despite the pressure on his neck he managed to speak, although his voice was faint and he was obviously in a lot of pain and very afraid, not that Tilly minded. 'Please don't kill me.'
Tilly laughed, feeling the bloodlust and desire to rip the throat from this man who might already have killed Dill, and her teeth pressed harder on his throat. He gasped for breath and she thought it might actually be better to slowly press the life out of him and let him feel his force drain from his body.
Totally focused on tormenting her captive, she didn't notice that Sam was nearly upon her and started when she heard his voice. He had headed after her when she hadn't responded downstairs, but had to make sure Finn knew to get out. He was shocked to see his usually placid sister on the attack and looking like she would kill a man who had already been subdued. It could only be the sight of Dill that had pushed her over the edge. He could hear the faint sounds of breathing from him and breathed a sigh of relief before he spoke to her.
'Tilly, NO.'
he thought clearly, making his tone an order. She hissed at him and didn't let go of the man's throat.
'NOW.'
She hissed again, but this time reluctantly released her death grip. Sam pushed her out of the way.
'Check on Dill while I deal with him.'
The look he got from her was still full of hatred.
Sam turned back to the man and growled. In the moment of freedom he had scuttled back so he could lean against the wall and was cradling one arm, which was clearly broken. He stilled when he heard the growl and fear was evident on his face. His eyes kept darting from the wolf in front of him to the panther who had nearly killed him who was now nuzzling the one on the floor. 'I'm sorry.' he said. Sam gave another growl and jumped towards him with a dosed pad ready to knock him out. The fear finally faded and he slumped to one side asleep.
Sam took control again. He saw Tilly licking softly at Dill's muzzle and thought to himself that after this she'd better admit something was going on, because there could be no other excuse for disobeying orders and being ready to kill.
'I'll carry him out. You lead the way and keep your eyes open for anyone who might be starting to wake up. We need to get out of here now.'
She stopped licking and looked up at Sam as he changed to mostly human, keeping as much of his wolf face as he could to avoid any identification if any cameras had not been disabled. Even in her cat form her eyes showed her fear for Dill, and as he picked him up she hissed at him when the sound of bones grinding together was heard.
'I'm trying not to hurt him, but we have to get out or he stands no chance.'
Tilly lead the way back down the stairs and through the foyer, trying to keep her mind on the task at hand but unable to totally focus when she was also worried for Dill and wondering why she had nearly killed that man. He was lucky Sam had come along, and so probably was she, as she wouldn't have forgiven herself for killing someone like that. If he had been killed in her initial attack that would have been different, but the desire to slowly take the life from him scared her now she was away from that moment. The trip back to the car seemed to take forever, as they couldn't run with Dill in that condition. She knew he was still alive, but she couldn't feel him and knew he was unconscious from the blow to the head he had received. She prayed it had not been too bad.
Sam shot out thoughts as they moved slowly through the woods, taking care not to trip or jolt Dill as he lay limp in his arms.
'Tom, we're on our way. Dill got hurt and will need attention. Get ready to leave, we should be about five minutes.' 'Peter, tell your dad we are out and we've freed five prisoners. We're on our way back now. Ask Mark to contact the local medic, we'll need some help as soon as they can.'
He heard the responses, Tom's annoyance at Dill slightly tempered by the news he was injured.
'How bad?'
Sam kept his reply tight so the teams couldn't all hear.
'He's unconscious, lots of broken bones, and probably badly bruised. The main concern is the blow to the head. I've asked Mark to send a medic.
'The wolf Finn brought back could use that too. She's barely conscious.'
'I think Tilly will also need to see them. She's not doing so well.'
'What? You didn't say she was hurt too.'
'She's not, physically, but I had to stop her ripping the throat out of the guy that hurt Dill. She's walking ahead of me but I can see her shaking. I think she's in shock and I'm concerned once we get to you it'll hit her hard.'
Tom sighed.
'Okay. I'll send the first car back and wait for you guys with one of the others. We could do with getting that wolf back to safety straight away. See you in a moment babe.'
Sam didn't reply and kept walking, worried about both the panthers with him. He could hear and feel Dill breathing, but he hadn't come round and that wasn't good. He was also fairly sure Tilly was only holding it together because of the need to stay on alert. Being safely back with the team and in the car was probably going to be the end of that. At least she would only need some sleep and a bit of tlc to put her right, but she was his sister and he cared for her a lot. It was only them left now after their parents had died and their other brother had taken off years ago, and they were very close. It seemed now she was even closer to Dill than he had thought and he dreaded to think what would happen to her if he didn't recover.
He managed to put a brave face on as they got to the car and saw Tom and Rob had waited for them. They looked concerned, especially when they saw the state of Dill. Tom rushed to take the prone body from him and placed Dill gently in the back of the car, surrounding him with anything soft he could find to stop his body being jolted around as they drove. He took the drivers seat and Rob the front passenger seat. Sam pulled Tilly into the rear of the car and pulled her shaking body to his to try and give her some comfort. She turned herself so although she was still in his arms she could watch over Dill. As they set off her shaking increased and Sam knew she was crying. He made soothing noises as he held her, allowing her to let out all her feelings.
They travelled back to the house pretty much in silence, except for Tilly's sobs. Tom concentrated on his driving, but the thought of losing a member of his team took the shine off the success they had achieved tonight in freeing the other weres. They should also have gathered a lot of useful information and that would go off to the Council as soon as possible. With any luck it would be enough to find the people responsible, and then a bigger operation could be formed to take them down. Now though the only thing that counted was their teams and those they had saved.
The mood back at the house when they arrived was almost jubilant, but it soon turned quiet and downbeat when they saw the look on Rob's face and the Alphas each carrying a team mate. The medic, an older man who was tiger, rushed to them and quickly checked Dill and Tilly. 'Get them upstairs. She's in shock but not injured, I'll give her a sedative to get her through the night. I need to check him over more thoroughly. Do you know what happened?'
'Not really. He was attacked by a man, I didn't see the injury only the aftermath once Tilly had subdued the attacker.' Sam replied.
Tilly started to mumble, trying to get some control of herself to help. 'Kicked in the head, tasered, ribs.' she got out before starting shaking again.
The medic nodded. 'Get me my bag.' he said, and Peter was beside him almost instantly. He pulled out a bottle and syringe and gave Tilly an injection. She started to still and slipped into sleep. 'Get them to bed. I'll follow you up.' The Alphas nodded and carefully carried their burdens up the stairs. The medic updated them as they went. 'The four men are okay. Need a good meal and some rest, but they'll be fine. The young woman doesn't have many current injuries, although there are healed ones. Her confusion and weakness is pretty much all down to starvation and dehydration. She'll need lots of rest, fluids and food on a little but often basis, and I hope she will make a full recovery. She may need some therapy but for the moment she just needs the basics.'
Tom nodded. 'We'll keep her here for the time being. I expect the rest will have to go to HQ as soon as they can. We'll get someone to stay with her. Might be best if it's Finn for the time being since he's the main one who has had contact with her. It'll be more familiar if she comes round properly.' He looked at Sam. 'That leaves these two. Who stays with who?'
'I'll be with Tilly if you can keep an eye on Dill.'
'Agreed. I promise not to give him any trouble if he does wake up.' he said, with a weak smile. Sam knew he was worried too.
They left the medic to do his work with Dill and headed to Tilly's room to settle her in. Sam put her gently down on the bed and lifted the covers over her. He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. 'Sleep well sis.' He turned to Tom, finally letting his worry show on his face.
Tom moved over to him and took him into his arms.
'She'll be okay Sam. She's strong.'
'You didn't see her in there. She had the guy injured and on the ground begging for his life, and she still didn't let him go until I ordered her the second time. It's not like her. I'm really worried that she won't cope if Dill...'
he let his sentence tail off, not wanting to say the worst.
'Dill is also strong. And we know he has a thick head. It'll be okay baby. And we need to focus on the fact that we got those others out and a lot of information for the Council. Thanks to us that place is out of commission and we have a good chance of finding those responsible.'
He gave Sam a tighter hug and a quick kiss to try and reassure him, and probably also himself. They headed along the hall to see how the medic was getting on, and he was just coming out of Dill's room as they got there.
'Good, you're here. I won't lie to you, it's not good. He's got a broken arm, and at least eight broken ribs, it's hard to tell without an x-ray. The bones should heal okay, but the head injury is the major worry. If he hasn't woken up already it's serious, although as far as I can tell his skull isn't fractured. All we can do is wait for him to wake up and hope it won't be too long. I've given him what drugs I can to reduce the swelling and treat the pain he'll feel. I've also drugged him up so he won't wake until at least tomorrow morning, which will give time for the swelling to go down a bit. I'll leave more tablets here with instructions. He's gonna need a lot of care until he comes round properly, and for a while then because of all the breaks. I'm going to go home but I'll be back early tomorrow to check on everyone.'
