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And if she didn’t want to come after all? Fine. I didn’t care.
That ache in my chest tightened, and I clenched my teeth. I just needed her back at the house; that was the end of it. It made no sense for her to be out here. It made no sense for her to suffer in some cold, shitty little shack, instead of staying with me.
I paused, sniffing the air. Pine, damp earth, a deer somewhere nearby, and...blood.
I listened. The boughs above creaked, animals scurried through the ferns, but no crickets were chirping.
And in the distance...howling. Barking. Those wretched, scream-like cries of the Eldbeasts.
My veins went cold. It wasn’t only the beasts I heard screaming.
I sprinted up the mountainside, reaching her yard in mere minutes. When I broke through the trees next to that miserable little cabin and saw the swelling horde of beasts fighting over something on the ground, it felt like someone had stabbed a hot knife into my chest and twisted it.
Nothing,nothingcould touch my little wolf and live.
I yelled so loud that the beasts startled, half of them scurrying back from their prize just enough for me to see her. She was lying limp on the ground, her clothing torn to shreds, her blood pooling around her.
There were no cohesive thoughts left in my mind when I saw that. Only vicious, feral bloodlust that dug down to my deepest strength and demanded I use it. The beasts snapped at me uselessly as I grabbed them, crushing skulls and cracking bones, flinging their filthy bodies across the yard. I gathered energy around me, condensed it, and used it to push them back, push them down, and then burst their heads with the pressure. I commanded the energy around me as easily as breathing, far more easily than I’d ever been able to before.
Every soul I claimed increased my strength, but rarely did I flex my full power. But in those moments, that felt like an eternity, I would have done anything to get them off her. Even as I crushed them, tore them apart, their rancid blood splattering my face, I looked back at her continually, desperately, hoping I’d see her move, see her struggle or...or open her eyes.
I didn’t let a single beast escape. When they realized they were outmatched, and tried to run into the trees, I still caught them, crushing their rotten heads in my hands. Finally, as I dropped yet another corpse at my feet, utter silence fell as its body rapidly decayed into mud and worms.
Not one remained alive.
Juniper lay on the ground, curled on her side, her bleeding arms wrapped around her head. The tightness in my chest grew heavier. My hands were covered with gore, my claws drenched with it. But I reached out, carefully, and laid my hand against her side.
She took one slow, shallow breath, and the tightness in my chest burst.
I picked her up, moving quickly. She groaned, her arms falling away from her face, her fist pounding weakly against my chest. The beasts had torn at her back, bitten her arms and legs. What did a human need to heal wounds like this? A doctor, of course, but who the hell was I to trust with her in Abelaum? The thought of someone else taking her, touching her — fuck, I’d rip their fucking hands off before I let them.
I lay her in the car. I raised her limp head, wiping blood and dirt away from her mouth. Somehow, she’d managed to protect her stomach, but her arms and legs had been torn as a result.
Her lips moved, and I froze. She shuddered, her fingers twitching, her limp arms moving to wrap around her stomach again. Her eyes fluttered, squeezed...and opened.
She looked at me with utter confusion, blinking slowly. Then she looked down, at my hand on her wrist, and around the inside of the car, as if she couldn’t figure out where she was. I moved my hand off her, but I had to grip the doorframe to keep it away from her as she looked back at me.
“What...what happened...to Marcus?”
I wanted to shake her for being more worried about a corpse when she was bleeding all over my car. I wanted to shake myself for being worried about her at all, for being so breathless with relief that I couldn’t even respond to her for a moment.
When I finally managed to say something, it was, “What the hell were you doing fighting that many Eld alone?”
She tried to sit up, but quickly winced and collapsed back again. “What...what the hell...was I supposed to do?” she hissed, closing her eyes against the pain. “They dug him up. They...they were eating him…”
“They nearly ateyou.” I had to pause again and calm myself. I was still balancing on the edge of rage. “You need stitches, Juniper.”
“No doctors,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “Please. Please, no doctors.”
She didn’t trust them, and I didn’t blame her. I didn’t fucking trust them to touch her either. I slammed the car door and got into the driver’s seat, starting the engine. She was breathing deeper now, breathing quickly, the scent of her fear growing.
“No doctors.” She grasped my arm, squeezing weakly. “Don’t...don’t take me to a hospital...I can’t…”
“I’m not taking you to a doctor,” I said roughly, the tires skidding out as I pulled onto the road. “I’m taking you home.”
I didn’t have anything at the house I’d need to care for her, so I stopped at a 24-hour pharmacy on the way. Her eyes were closed, and her head had drooped down, but her breathing was still rapid and frightened even in her sleep. The longer I looked at her, the tighter my hand got on the wheel.
I never should have left her up there. Damn her pride, fuck her determination that she had to do everything herself.
