Every step jolted and jarred things that really couldn’t handle the impact, but I gritted my teeth and hung on the best I could while he dodged trees and periodically stopped to listen for pursuit. I considered it a win that I stayed conscious.
Eventually, we hit a small clearing, what looked like the very rough end of a remote logging track. A black Jeep sat facing the road, and I breathed a sigh of relief as we broke out of the trees.
Until Samuel went stiff and slid me off his shoulders. I swayed on my feet as he whispered, “Just get in the truck and lock the doors. Don’t let them get their hands on you, and if you have to, leave me.”
Yeah, right. Even behind the wheel, I wouldn’t make it far before I passed out. The bottom of my shirt and the left leg of my pants were saturated in thick, sticky blood. Running through the woods had been faster, but it hadn’t been easy on my battered body.
But Samuel didn’t give me a chance to argue. One second, he was a man, the next, he was a wolf, bolting into the forest back in the direction we’d come.
Angry howls pierced the air, and I got moving. If we had to make a hasty getaway a second time, I’d like to be in the damn Jeep, where I could pass out in peace.
Progress was painstakingly slow, and twice I stumbled and fell to the ground, each time harder to get back to my feet than the last. But my eyes were locked on the passenger door, and somewhere inside, the burning will to live urged me forward. Okay, live and get revenge on the fuckers who did this to me.
When my fingertips finally met the blessedly cool door handle, I could have wept with relief. I fumbled a bit as I pulled open the door and hauled myself into the tan leather seats, which were about to be destroyed by my filth.
“Hopefully, he got the rental insurance,” I muttered, pulling the door closed with a satisfying snap. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep for a hundred years, but I forced myself to look around, see if there was food or water to help my wolf heal some of these wounds.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to go far. There was a still-cold bottle of water in the cup holder, and the center console was full of beef jerky and protein bars with writing on the wrappers I couldn’t read.
Hot damn, I’d never been so happy to see a piece of meat as tough as shoe leather. I chugged half a bottle of water, not wanting to push it, and then chewed my way through three pieces of jerky before Samuel showed up.
He was bruised, bleeding, and naked, but he was still a damn sight better off than I was. He slid into the driver’s seat and threw the Jeep into Drive without bothering to put on a seat belt.
I glanced up as he pulled away, catching sight of something in the rearview mirror. It was a shifter, no, two-one arguing, pointing our way. The other, holding him back.
I blacked out before we made it out of the forest.
Olivia
Late on the night of the full moon, Maiden’s Enclave
Mate. He’d called me his mate.
The word hung in the air, making my head spin and my pulse pound.
I stared down blankly at Lucien’s grip on my wrist, shock filtering through me, slowly at first, and then all at once, making me shake with the intensity. My own wolf paced restlessly in my chest, the complete opposite of her usual easy quiescence-and yet, she wasn’t disagreeing with Lucien’s proclamation that we were his mate.
Before I could even begin to process, his eyes lost focus, falling closed as his grip on my wrist went slack, and Brielle swore, using words I didn’t think the polite doctor even knew.
“He’s fading. I’m not sure what’s wrong!”
Her panicked words spurred me out of shock and into motion, the ludicrous idea that Lucien and I were mates instantly shelved to deal with the medical crisis in front of us.
Brielle used her newfound strength to tear off his bloodstained shirt, not bothering with the medical scissors that were tidily packed into one of the drawers around the room. The problem became immediately evident.
A huge, gory wound in his abdomen, puckered red with infection, and ominous black streaks leaching from the edges out across his chest.
My eyesight sharpened with my wolf’s presence, the problem registering in my brain without any conscious effort from me. It was my turn to panic and blurt, “They dosed him with wolfsbane! If he loses his wolf, there’s no way he’ll be able to heal from this. We need the antidote.”
Brielle and I both spun away from the table, dragging open drawers and cabinets, ignoring the medical supplies scattering like chaff. Wolfsbane poisoning was an emergency, even without the grievous injury. Wolfsbane destroyed the wolf if left too long untreated, and suddenly, Lucien’s wolf making a last-ditch appearance to grab me made a lot more sense.
I nearly wept with relief when I pulled open the last cabinet on my side of the clinic, spotting the well-marked autoinjectors with the antidote.
“It’s here, I’ve got it. Get his pants off so I can get to his thigh!” I shouted in my haste, spinning back toward Lucien’s side with sweaty hands and a racing heart. I didn’t know if it was too late to reverse the damage, but as I bit the cap and yanked it off with my teeth, I didn’t waste a single second. Brielle and Kane worked together to lower his tattered pants, lifting the hem of his black boxer briefs to bare his thick, muscled thighs for the needle.
I didn’t let myself consider the fact that if we were too late, I lost my mate. The needle sank painfully deep, but his leg didn’t twitch or jump beyond the force of the impact when I slammed the injector against his flesh.
His feverish flesh.
Brielle already had her hands on either side of the wound, eyes closed as she poured her omega powers into his still, lifeless body.
When the injector was empty, I cast around aimlessly for the cap, tears blurring my vision. A tanned hand appeared in my line of sight. Kane, holding out the red cap wordlessly.
I took it and covered the needle, then on autopilot dropped the whole thing into the wall-mounted sharps bin. Hesitating there by the wall, I braced my hand on the doorjamb, giving myself a single moment to breathe, reset.
I couldn’t heal anyone with tears in my eyes.
Frankly, I wasn’t that girl. The one who got all choked up over patients. I cared about them, of course. I’d dedicated my life to healing; you’d be a pretty damn awful healer if you were completely detached. But I had a certain clinical wall that allowed me to function in high-stress situations. It didn’t come down until I was alone, back in my empty apartment, the crisis passed. That was when I let myself cry, when there was no one around to see or judge me falling apart. Not now, in the thick of things. It was unprofessional and ineffective.
Granted, finding your mate and the fact that he had been tortured, wolfsbane poisoned, and might lose his wolf and die all hitting you in a minute flat was a lot more to process than normal medical stress. This was an emotional moment, not just a clinical one.
I gripped the doorframe hard enough that my fingertips hurt, willed the tears away, and then spun back toward our two patients.
Brielle was still hunched over Lucien, pouring everything she had into him to try to fight back the infection and the wolfsbane. Which meant there was nothing else I could do for him that she couldn’t, not yet.
Cleaning, bandaging, poultices-those could all come after he stabilized. I turned toward Samuel, their other pack mate, and offered my best healer smile.
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