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I had no idea who this man was. If he saw a large adult wolf less than five feet away, he’d either panic or try to shoot me. None of this was enough to stop my wolf from attempting to do what he wanted, which was go to the female.
There was something about the female in the car that triggered a base response, and he was on the verge of launching us across the clearing.
Stay! We may have been in our wolf form, but I was still in the driving seat.
The man walking around the car gave me and my wolf a bad feeling. He was not here to help, that’s for sure. A furious growl built deep inside my chest and before I could stop it, it was out there.
The man froze, probably assuming a bear or timber wolf was lurking nearby, only I was a lot fucking scarier than a half-starved timber wolf.
I growled again, louder this time. The guy scrambled away from the car and up the slope. Once he was out of sight, I padded over and peered in through the broken passenger window.
A woman hung upside down, still strapped in by her seat belt. Blood trickled down her face and her eyes were closed, but she was breathing. I swore under my breath. In wolf form, I didn’t have my phone or clothes. If I shifted, I’d literally freeze my dick off. But there was no way I could leave her. The temperature had plunged in the last thirty minutes, and she’d freeze to death before I could get back here.
I had no choice but to shift back.
Thank fuck my body could withstand temperatures humans wouldn’t tolerate. It was still fucking freezing, though, and I shivered without the benefit of my wolf fur to keep me warm. The woman whimpered as I yanked the door open.
Fuel dripped on to the snow and while I didn’t expect the tank to ignite in the current weather, I needed to get her out as quickly as possible.
I freed the woman from the seatbelt, catching her before she fell. She weighed barely anything, and I could feel her ribs through the thin jacket she wore. It was impossible to tell how badly she was injured. I noted a nasty gash on her temple, but I couldn’t see any other obvious wounds.
Cradling her to my chest, I left the crash scene and headed toward home.
My wolf paced anxiously inside my head the whole time, worried about the female. Her being hurt upset him, but he was happy I had her in my arms. I really didn’t understand his reaction. He was never normally like this around females.
Before long, the trees thinned. When I reached the porch of our cabin, my head and shoulders were white with snow despite how hot I was from the run. The woman in my arms was unconscious, her cheeks blue with cold.
The door swung open. Heat blasted out, warming my face, and Cole stared at me in shock.
“What the fuck happened?” he asked as I pushed past him into the cabin, my body tingling painfully as nerve endings reacted to the change in temperature. Ignoring the discomfort, I placed the female on the sofa in front of the fire. She was probably hypothermic and the sooner we got her warmed up, the better.
Cole read my intention and piled blankets on top of her before throwing some extra logs on the fire. Then he tossed a set of clothes at me.
“Well?”
“I came across a car wreck below the mountain road and couldn’t leave her there, she’d have died.” It was pointless mentioning the guy I saw. I’d tell Cole later. Right now, my only concern was making sure the female was OK.
Cole examined her gently, checking for broken bones and lacerations. I saw him frown when he touched her wrist. It looked like she’d broken it at some point, and it hadn’t healed properly, which was odd. He grabbed the first-aid kit and treated the head wound, but aside from that, she seemed mostly uninjured.
“She’s likely going to be very sore when she comes round, but some sleep will help. One of us needs to keep a close eye on her for the next 24 hours. She’s taken a hard knock to the head and I’m not ruling out a concussion. Let’s eat and then we can discuss a rota.”
I collapsed onto the end of the sofa. My wolf didn’t want me to leave the female. He was insistent we took care of her.
“There’s something you’re not saying,” Cole observed as he tidied up the first-aid supplies and tossed the bloody swabs into the fire.
I sighed. My brother always was good at reading me.
“A guy appeared just after I reached the crash scene. I thought at first he was there to help, but then he just wandered around the car and did nothing but look. My wolf thought he had bad intentions, so he growled, and the guy ran off.”
“Is that it?”
“No. My wolf thinks she’s important to us.” I stopped short of admitting what I suspected. This female was human; she couldn’t possibly be my mate.
Cole looked surprised but said nothing more. He disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bowl of stew and some bread.
After eating, I spent most of the next hour watching the girl sleep. She was so pale. Young, with hardly any meat on her frame. It looked like she hadn’t had a decent meal for a while.
I knew Cole was concerned about the old wrist fracture that hadn’t been set properly, not to mention the pale scars we spotted on her arms when he removed her jacket. Who had hurt this girl? I had no idea, but my wolf wanted to rip the fucker apart. I agreed with him.
