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Every move I made had to be rooted in my training. If it wasn’t, he would suffer. My emotions couldn’t interfere. I refused to allow them to even enter into this. My mate deserved better than that.
Utilizing as much of the first-aid kit as I had, within half an hour, he already started to look better. It was cosmetic, of course. There was no real healing happening in this short period of time. Simply clearing away the dried blood helped his wounds have the air they needed to start to heal.
I was relieved to see that underneath all the dirt, debris, and blood, he seemed to at least have begun the healing. The cuts knitted closed, and the bruising took on the yellow-purplish hue. It wasn’t as bad as I had first suspected on that front. But his fever was higher than even ten minutes earlier. He was hardly out of the woods.
His eyes remained closed and his breathing even. I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or out cold or simply trying to hold it together, but I kept talking to him as I worked. It helped to keep me focused.
“Your arm is broken,” I said, “and it’s already partially healed.” Unfortunately, it looked like it was healing in a craptastic position. I’d had to help re-break a bad heal before, and I didn’t wish that on my worst enemy And here I was needing to do it to my mate.
“I’m so beyond sorry, but I need to re-break it.” I knew how to do it, but the only time I had, it was with assistance. “This is going to hurt very bad,” I warned. I didn’t want to build mistrust by sugarcoating anything.
“It’s fine,” he gritted his teeth. His eyes were open now, looking at me. “Don’t tell Steelwick where I am,” he pleaded, his voice clearer than before.
Against my better judgment, I agreed, “Okay. I won’t.” There would be hell to pay on the other side of that agreement, but this was my mate. Even if he had another, I couldn’t deny him a feeling of safety. “Hold still.”
Never in my life had I imagined that I’d ever cause my mate pain. It was ingrained in us not to harm those important to us. I was a gentle omega, I wanted to heal, not hurt. Yet the world had taught me differently, and I could hold my own in a fight. I’d had to in the past.
Hurting knowing I needed to in order for him to heal didn’t make it any easier. With a strength I barely knew I possessed, I gripped my mate’s arm and twisted it quickly. The bone snapped and the arm straightened back into place. It was quick, but in no way painless.
My mate jerked, but otherwise didn’t say a word. Sweat broke out on his brow, and his breathing labored. He was holding back for me. He didn’t need to.
“There. That’s done,” I said. “I wish there had been another way.” I’d have gladly broken my arm in his stead. It unfortunately didn’t work that way.
“Thank you,” he said.
I barked out a laugh and wiped the sweat from my own forehead. “You’re welcome. Let’s never do that again.” Ever.
Only now I was talking to no one. My mate had drifted back to sleep or perhaps passed out from the pain. He needed it.
“Sleep well, mate. Let your beast help you heal.” He needed every ounce of strength he could get.
I took a moment to stare at his unconscious form. When I’d longed to meet my mate, I had envisioned him being able to walk and talk and sit up on his own, not to be beaten and broken, unable to so much as lift his hand. I was so unprepared for this. I wanted to be everything I needed, but when that need went against everything I believed in, then what? Steelwick was after him. Steelwick.
If he’d said the council, I’d be struggling far less. They were as corrupt as the human government. But Steelwick? They were better than that.
My mate had said he was innocent, yet he didn’t want to turn himself in. Could those two things go together? I wasn’t sure. And who was this Nathan? A lover? A friend? Had I found my mate only for him to be taken by another?
I couldn’t imagine fate would be so cruel, but I supposed it shouldn’t have surprised me considering the pain and suffering I’d endured in this world and the things I’d seen. Life hadn’t been any better for my mate, if his current situation was any indication.
Whoever this Nathan was, I hoped that he was safe. My mate’s concern had felt sincere, and that made it mine as well.
Once my mate awoke and was able, I needed some questions answered. Not some. Lots of questions answered. But until then, his job was to rest and heal. And my job? To make sure he was safe from those who sought to do him harm while he did.
He hadn’t hidden his tracks when he arrived, blood leading anyone who wanted to find him directly to his current place. I got up and stripped my clothes, calling forth my beast. I might not be able to prevent a shifter from finding my mate, by my beast was prepared to keep them from coming inside at all costs.
Please don’t let it come to that.
Chapter 5
Silas
I woke with a start, leaping from the sleeping bag, the cold ground biting into my back. Pain shot through my limbs, radiating in my ribs, and reminding me where I was and how I got here. How long had I been out? How had I gotten where I was? What in the hell had happened? I suspected I knew at one point, but everything was a hazy fog. I was able to jump up, though, and I took that as a good sign.
Jerome and his two Betas had dropped me unceremoniously on the edge of someone’s territory after beating me to a pulp. But before and after that? That part was extremely unclear. I remembered letting them think I was unconscious so that I might have a better chance at getting away. It seemed to have worked.
What about Nathan, though? How was he? Where was he? I needed to find him, to protect him.
Ha, what a joke. I couldn’t even protect myself enough to avoid being discarded for dead.
