Sorry about the long wait for the update, i had some industrial strength writers block to get through. But i think i am on a roll with this story again. It was a huge relief to finish 'Sins of love' and now i can get back to this one.

Enjoy!

When Everest opened her ice blue eyes after a couple of moments, she found herself looking into two concerned sky blue ones. "Marshall. . ."

"Everest," he said relief evident in his voice. "Are you okay?"

She took stock of her body and realized she wasn't in any pain. Then she looked down and noticed a patch of red blood on her snow white body. "There's blood. . ."

"It's not yours . . . Are you okay?" he asked.

Puzzled by his response, she looked at the splotch of red again and noticed the blood was dripping onto her body from something else. She looked up to the Dalmatian and realized it was dripping from a wound in his shoulder. "Marshall!"

As he moved off her, he winced. "I know. . ."

"Come on, I'll help you inside." The husky said. As she helped the wounded Dalmatian across the street, she tried not to think about the fact the bullet that was in Marshall's shoulder, was probably meant for her.

A couple of hours later, Marshall came hobbling through the double doors of the waiting room on three legs. His injured leg was in a sling and his shoulder was covered in several thick layers of gauze. As soon as she noticed him, Everest ran towards him.

"Don't do that to me again." She said. "I was so scared when I heard the gun shot. . . I . . ." She couldn't complete the thought. She just nuzzled him and let a few tears fall into his fur. "I was so worried about you." Everest looked up into his eyes. "I can't believe you took that bullet for me." The husky spoke in disbelief. She nuzzled him again.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear. "You're my sister Rissy; there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you."

Before he could move, she gave him a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you." She whispered back.

After a moment, he looked past her and locked his eyes with Ryder's. "Come on," he said softly, "the doctor said Drake just came out of surgery and he'll be coming in soon to let everyone know how the surgeries went."

Everest nodded, and then asked "do you need help?"

Marshall smiled and shook his head. "I think I got it." Everest raised an eyebrow, and then watched as the Dalmatian focused and carefully walked forward with only three legs across the waiting room and eventually stop in front of Ryder.

"The doctor said the bullet hit my shoulder bone and stopped." Marshall said to his leader. "But it shattered the bone, so I can't move my shoulder at all right now . . ."

"How do you feel?" Ryder wanted to know.

The Dalmatian gave a small smile. "I'm okay . . . The doctor who was working on me numbed my shoulder until they can put a pin in it." Marshall sensed the human's next question, and answered it. "They can't do it now because the only surgeon who can do that is cleaning up after working on Drake."

The teen nodded, "thanks Marshall. . ." He bent down to look the Dalmatian eye to eye. After a long moment, he placed his knees on the floor and wrapped his hand carefully around the pup's neck and gently gave him a hug. "You're such a good pup." Ryder was not known for public displays of affection for his pups, besides a pat on the head, so this caught the others off guard.

"Ryder," Marshall asked, "Are you okay?"

The human released his gentle grip on the pup and locked his amber eye with Marshall's blue ones. "I was just worried about you," he said. "We all know this could have turned out a lot worse than just a broken shoulder.

"I know," Marshall said nodding.

They let the words hang between them for a few moments. Finally, Everest walked closer to them. "That's true Ryder, but it didn't." Everest spoke softly, "We're all fine now." Marshall cleared his throat and cast his eyes on his broken shoulder. "Okay. . ." she giggled, "mostly fine."

Ryder shook his head, "that doesn't mean I won't stop worrying about you guys. . . I don't tell you enough, but I love you pups. All of you."

He looked up to see Jake kneel beside him. "He's right," the man said, "you're family."

Dundee was woken up by the slamming of a door. After a moment, cast his green eyes at one of two men that he shared the one room cabin with. He growled behind the heavy duty muzzle they put on him while he was unconscious. The dingo watched as the man who just came thought the door threw a rifle on the table in the middle of the room.

"Did you get the husky?" the man at the table asked without looking up from the card game he was playing.

The other man shook his head. "No, this Dalmatian got in the way."

"Boss won't be happy with that." The first man said moving a card on the table. "He wants to put more pressure on this Jake guy."

The standing man's eyes flared with anger. "Look, I got one shot off and the stupid Dalmatian took it for her. I would have taken another shot, but-."

"Calm down." The man at the table said standing up and looking the other man in the eyes. "We got this Jake guy's attention and that's what the boss wanted. It's not the way he wanted it, but it's done. And there's nothing we can do to change it now."

As he sat back down at the table the other man spoke. "So, what do we do now?"

"Whatever the boss says," the man at the table said simply as he picked up his cell phone and dialed. A few seconds later the call connected. "Hey boss. . ."

Dundee listened to the one-sided conversation at first, but then let his thoughts drift to Everest and Marshall. He hoped the Dalmatian was okay, the dingo knew that Marshall wouldn't hesitate to give his life for Everest; he also hoped that hadn't, and would never, come to that.

He closed his eyes and immediately saw the ice blue eyes that belonged to the pup he fell in love with. At the moment, he was wondering if he would ever see them in person again.

"The kidney that Isis gave us was a perfect fit for Drake." The doctor said smiling. "Both pups pulled through that surgery just fine. . . We were also able to reattach his stomach without complications. Once we know everything will heal properly, we can go in and set his ribs." He looked at all the smiling faces in front of him and took a deep breath. He hated giving bad news after such wonderful news, but it couldn't be helped. "There is some bad news."

Marshall locked his knowing eyes on the doctors. "You weren't able to save his leg, were you?"

The doctor shook his head. "No. . . We had to amputate. . . We might have been able to save it, but one of the bone fragments severed a large nerve." He took a deep breath, and then continued. "He would have lost eighty percent of the feeling in that leg anyway."

"And for an active pup like Drake," Marshall spoke solemnly, "It made more sense to lose the limb entirely knowing he would adapt faster not having the limb at all." The doctor was stunned for a moment, and Marshall noticed. "When I was younger, I was in an accident that caused some nerve damage in my hind legs." He gave a small, wry smile. "The reason I'm so clumsy is because I only have about forty percent feeling in each of my hind legs."

After a few moments of silence, Everest finally spoke up. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"We'll. . ." He cast his blue eyes down at the floor. "I didn't tell anyone. . ."

Ryder nodded, "not even me."

Marshall slowly nodded. "Not even you Ryder, because the accident is something I've tried really hard to forget." The Dalmatian let a tear fall from his muzzle.

Ryder knelt down placed his hand underneath the Dalmatians chin and brought the pup's tear filled blue eyes to meet his own. "You know me Marshall; I would never force you to talk about something you want to forget. We all have things in our lives that we had wished had never happened."

The Dalmatian sniffed. "Even you?" he asked.

Ryder nodded, "Even me."

Marshall moved closer and put his good front leg around the human's neck. "Thanks, Ryder."

Tada!

Hopefully the next chapter will be coming faster than this one did.

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