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She’s still breathing faintly, but her heartbeat has slowed to a dull thud. I bend over her, my hands on either side of her hips, and I press kisses to her stomach, trying to stem the blood. He’s hit her right in the gut, off to the left. Even though I’ve just met her, it’s like her pain is my pain, and I shudder against her.
My instincts kick in as I lap at her, tasting blackberries even as the life drains out of her. She isn’t moving at all, only the slightest resistance offered to my ministrations before she passed out.
I don’t even hear the Will coming toward me until he’s already close enough to set off alarm bells, and I whip around to snarl at him, crouching protectively over my mate. He lets loose a snarl of his own—but quickly corrects himself, raising his hands in an attempt to calm down.
“Reyes, it’s me,” he says. “Are there any others?”
Someone is stomping around in the underbrush, but it only takes me a moment to smell Grant’s scent in the trees. He must be looking for any other attackers.
“No,” I say. “Killed three of them, the last one rode off on his horse.”
Will glances up to find that the other horses are still tied to a tree, giving us a wide berth. “Well, these could be useful,” he says. “And there are only four horses, so I guess you must be right.”
I can’t even process what he’s saying—I don’t understand why he isn’t treating this with more urgency. “Will, she needs help,” I grit out.
He cocks his head like he doesn’t understand. “Reyes, she’s with the Heavenly Host, why would we—”
I’m up on my feet with lightning speed, my hand wrapped around his throat as I pin him to a tree. Will unleashes a warning growl, but I silence it with a growl of my own, channeling the powers of the Alpha Prime. He’ll bend to my orders, whether he likes it or not.
“Get her help,” I grit out.
Grant emerges from the trees to our left, taking in the scene. His eyes flit to the woman on the ground, then to us. She’s still bleeding out. “Uh…” he says.
“Get Suyin,” I order. “I don’t care if she’s in the middle of something, we need her out here right away.”
“Got it,” Grant says. “I’ll be right back.”
Grant takes off toward the den and I look back at Will. “Scan the area for anyone else who might be here,” I say.
His jaw clenches, but he nods. “On it.”
He leaves too, and then me and the strange woman are alone. I crawl back over to her, resting my head against her chest to listen to her heartbeat. It’s getting slower by the second as she loses more and more blood. Even if Suyin gets here in the next five minutes, it’ll already be too late.
And I should let this woman die—IknowI should. She came here with a gun and a knife to hurt my pack. If her friend hadn’t shot her, chances are she would have come back for one of my people eventually. If she was awake right now, she would probably be screaming at me to get the fuck off her. If I want to keep my vow of celibacy, I can’t take a mate anyway, and having her here will just make the full moon that much harder for me.
But those are a lot of if’s. And all I can think about right now is the fact that, despite the odds, I somehow found this woman that smells like the most delicious thing I’ve ever scented.
She sucks in a harsh, cracked breath. She’s dying.
She’s going to die if I don’t do something.
Bite her, my wolf urges.
My choices are limited. If I don’t bite her, she’ll almost certainly die. If I do, she’ll heal…but she’ll be forever bound to me. I’ll always know where she is, what she’s feeling. She’ll feel as mad with lust for me as I do with her, as the venom in my bite will infect her with just a touch of lycanthropy…
Her full moon will never be the same.
But I can’t bear the thought of letting her go when she’s right here in my arms.
I run my nose over the wound, hoping if I bite closer to the gunshot, it will help weave her flesh together faster. Her chest rises and falls in light, fading breaths.
I have to do this now.
I sink my teeth into the flesh of her hip.
The woman—my mate—jerks at the pain, so she must have enough life in her to at least fight back. I bite down hard enough to leave a mark, my four sharp fangs puncturing the flesh while my other teeth leave a line. It’ll scar over like that; she’ll notice it when she’s lucid again. I haven’t actually spoken to her, but I have the sinking suspicion she’s going to bepissedwhen she sees what I’ve done.
But I don’t much care, not when my mate’s flesh is clamped in my jaws.
