We held back, hiding at the base of the cliff until she came down. I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice by cornering her again. I watched her, clothes destroyed, exhausted, bear dung still clinging to her. But she was beautiful.
I imagined the light in her eyes when I told her I was letting her go. My wolf snarled at me, furious, but I would deal with that later. Letting her go was against every instinct I had but if my family and friends supported it, she would have her freedom by nightfall.
As I watched her, I planned it. She was unharmed. I would take her back to the pack, she could wash, eat, then go with an escort to the airport. Get her out of the country.
I turned to Charlie, nodding at the phone attached to his leg. He nodded back and retreated a distance away so she wouldn't hear him make the call back to our pack. We'd need a car to pick us up, there was no way I was making her walk all that way, exhausted as she was.
Time passed, long minutes where I waited for her to come down and I planned what I would say. Suddenly, my heart lurched in my chest as she went over the edge, a final look in our direction before she disappeared.
She'd known we were here...how? We hadn't made a sound.
Panic high, we sped around the base of the cliff, rocks biting into my paws but when we reached the other side her scent was nowhere to be found. On the ground anyway. I caught a whiff of it on the air, turning my nose up I searched.
The trees. She was in the fucking trees.
I growled in frustration. We spread out and scented, long minutes passed as we jumped up at each tree, front paws on the bark, searching for her.
Jake yipped suddenly as he caught her scent back on the earth. She was running again - how was she still running?
Our paws pounded the earth. She was only minutes ahead of us now. It was over. My stomach turned as I heard people in the distance, heard a car door slam before the vehicle set off.
She could catch them. If I let her go, she could catch up to them, flag them down and get out of here. My wolf snarled at me, urging me on but I found my pace slowing. Her freedom was in her grasp.
We were so close, metres, yards away. I could see the swish of her hair through the trees, hear the pant of her breath.
I smelled it before I saw it. We were trained to smell them as pups to make sure we never stepped in one. Cold metal, covered over by leaves.
I wanted to scream at her to stop but I had no voice in my wild.
I heard the sharp swish of the trap and then....blood. Blood and agony as her scream ripped through me.
I was there as she fell to the earth, the trap snapped shut on her beautiful leg. Her precious body.
My wolf threatened to break out at the sight of his wounded mate. He blamed me, furious for slowing my pace, furious for letting her get away, furious that I hadn't claimed her on sight and avoided all of this. But he didn't understand. I forced the instinct driven creature back. She needed me.
Her screams were a torture as I shifted, slowly, painfully. Finally, I felt the earth under my bare skin and I rushed to her.
The steel jaws were embedded deep in her leg, flesh ripping as she struggled. I scooped her into my arms, pinning her to my body to keep her still. My skin sang at having her in my arms again, despite my panic.
I tried to soothe her but of course my touch only made it worse. I needed to get her out of here. I needed to get her to Kara.
Kara...
What was I going to do?
Around me, my warriors shifted. Jardis emptied her pack, looking for something to wrap her leg. Jake was on the phone, calling whoever was on their way to us. The road wasn't far, less than half a mile but it would take them at least an hour to get here.
Konnor nodded at me, our eyes meeting for a second as he studied the trap. I needed to keep her still, we had to be careful getting her leg out of there. I looked down at my mate.
"Stay still, you'll make it worse," I panted. Her blood filled the air and I could feel my own boiling like lava.
"I won't go back..." She sobbed as she struggled in my arms. Konnor took her leg, keeping it still as he surveyed the damage. Everyone else hung back, not wanting to antagonise my already very pissed off wolf.
She wouldn't stay still, she fought me with the madness of a wolf caught in a trap. They would rather gnaw off their own leg than stay trapped. Her eyes wild with panic and pain. I tried to soothe her, tried to let my alpha power sink into her but she was too far gone.
She struggled harder, kicking at Konnor and Sam as he joined the effort to keep her still. I tried not to snarl at a naked male touching my mate. She writhed with impossible strength, pulling away from the strange touch the unmistakable sound of her leg snapping cracked through the air.
"Get that fucking thing off of her!" I roared but it was too late. Her leg was destroyed. I stared at her once perfect leg, now just a mass of broken bone and blood, one sliver of flesh holding it together. She panted, no longer screaming, her face pale, her skin turning grey around her mouth. She was in shock.
"Please...please..." She gazed up at me, begging. Next to me, I could feel Konnor and the others getting ready to pull what remained of her leg out, but I couldn't look away. I needed to see her eyes, her pulse...her slowing pulse.
"Iona, stay awake, please." I pulled her closer, cupping her face so she would keep her eyes on me, "just keep looking at me."
She did, her gaze turning soft, I wondered if she could still see me. She was so dirty, so thin, her eyes set in dark hollows. What have you done to yourself? What have I done to you?
"Let me go."
"I can't." Didn't she know that? I couldn't let her go like this. She was mine. Alpha's were stubborn, determined, we didn't give up. But she was giving up and her body was giving up too and that...that scared me more than anything. I held my broken Luna in my arms, I would give my soul for her if she asked for it. "Just stay with me, okay? I'll make everything right."
"Liar..." she murmured, her voice fading.
"Iona, stay awake, please. Stay here. Don't leave me." Her eyes fluttered closed and I panicked, I couldn't let her sleep. "Wake up, Iona. I order you to open your eyes." I barked at her, letting my power loose just enough to bring her back.
She stared up at me, confused, lost and so sad. My wolf was angry, so, so angry with me. The elders were right. I should have claimed her on the first night. Then none of this would have happened. My family would be safe and so would she. Warm, safe and pregnant in my bed. Not here, dying in the woods.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." I held her close, breathing in her scent as it faded. "Stay with me, Iona. I'll fix it all, I promise. But you have to stay..."
Siobhan held Iona's foot, Konnor snapping the jaws open, the steel points shredding his hands, as Jake, Sam and Siobhan worked together to lift her leg carefully out. Konnor's blood mingled with my mates in the dirt. She fell away in my arms. her eyes closed and her pulse, that beautiful pulse slowed, slowed...
Jardis was there, wrapping a t shirt from the pack around her destroyed leg in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
"She's losing blood too fast. Kole, what do we do?" My brother sounded panicked. Terrified. I stared at my dying mate.
"There's a human hospital..." It would mean letting her go but if she lived
"It's too far and the car we sent for wont make it in time to get us to help."
He was right. I looked down at her, peaceful in my arms. This wouldn't be a bad way to go. Once her pulse ended, I could finally let my wolf out. The six of them could end me together. It would be over. But she didn't deserve to die like this. Broken in the dirt.
"We could carry her." This was Charlie, I recognised his voice through the mist in my mind.
"There's no time." Jake's voice broke as he said what we all knew to be true.
"We have to try something!" Sam snapped, sounding as panicked as I felt.
There was no time. Their fighting stopped as their ears picked up what mine had and they stared down at her lifeless body. Her pulse was gone. No more.
Their anguished cries lit up the air but I was numb. I stared at my love. Mine. She was mine. It couldn't end like this. It couldn't.
But the blood... she had lost so much blood.
What do I do?
My wolf whined at me. His instincts telling him what to do. The idea shone, a light in this dense dark. A very dangerous light but in that moment, I didn't care.
"I can fix it..." I murmured, staring down at her lifeless body.
Transfusions were rare amongst our kind but not unheard of for serious injuries. Blood type didn't matter, we were all connected, but a mates blood, that could heal almost anything. It might not work but I had to try.
I lifted my wrist to my mouth but Konnors hand stopped me.
"What're you doing?" His voice was low with fear, "Brother, you can't..."
"I have to." I looked at him for just a moment, pleading with him to understand.
"You can't! We don't give our blood to humans, not this much, not when they're already...you don't know what that will do to her!"
"It'll help bond them," Siobhan whispered, "blood is always exchanged between mates, the blood intensifies their bond. They would have done this at the ceremony anyway when they marked each other."
"Not like this, not this much. Not against her will, Kole, she'll never forgive you!"
"Hold him down." I looked to my warriors, they hesitated. They knew how wrong this was. So did I. But I had no choice. I couldn't let her die. I couldn't let Konnor stop me.
"You said you'd let her go! You said -" Siobhan tackled him, cutting off his words. They rolled and somehow she landed on top of him, breaking his arm and pinning him to the floor as Charlie and Sam piled on too. My brother cursing my name.
I swallowed, forcing myself to focus.
"Jake, call your father. Tell him to get the clinic ready, I need him out of retirement."
I looked down at my mate, dreading what I was about to do. Our blood was pure and sacred, sharing it to heal a human was almost unheard of. I didn't know what the risks would be but I knew what would happen if I didn't. She would stay dead.
Dead.
My mate was dead.
I felt like I was going insane, my soul was already withering inside me. My wolf was trembling, this one chance the only thing keeping him from breaking free.
"I'm sorry, I'm going to fix it." I whispered to her, then let my canines release from my gums, grunting as they sank into my flesh. Blood spilled down my chin, my throat.
I pressed my wrist to her cracked lips, praying to the moon to forgive me. The blood spilled into her mouth and moments, long moments ticked by until there....I heard it.
Her pulse.
Her pulse quickened, speeding up.
It beat faster and faster...
It sounded like mine.
***
New chapters are available on Radish right now!