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But that doesn’t matter at this moment because a bolt of muscle-binding pain hits my back like a lightning strike, so strong that I fall to my knees, nearly hitting my head on the table. My vision blurs and my hearing goes in and out, like a short-circuiting radio. Voices shout in spurts, panic and rage flying around me, but I can’t react because everything hurts. Everything is agony. And all the while my head throbs and the world around me spins, tipping up until I don’t know where I am.
Then, above the cacophony, a loud, powerful growl fills the room. Even with my vision blackening at the edges I know it’s Thane who crouches over my body like a shield, his scent enveloping me like a warm blanket.
A flash of white and I know his teeth are bared at his parents, his chest rumbling with a threatening growl.
“I’m taking her to the hospital,” Thane bites out once the room has silenced, the Alpha impulse in his voice stronger than I’ve ever heard. Everyone in the room—even his fathers—winces as the power overwhelms them. “You three, follow me in Levi’s car. And you three—” He jabs a finger at his parents.“Leave.Now.”
He scoops me up like I weigh no more than an injured fawn, holding me to his chest as he runs out of the room. I bury my nose in his shirt, drinking in his heady jasmine and citrus scent, trying to calm my body.
It doesn’t work. Another racking pain seizes me, and I writhe in his arms. Thane curses under his breath and picks up speed, sprinting through the front door toward his SUV.
He throws open the passenger door and tucks me inside, lowering the seat back and buckling my seat belt. He presses a heartbreakingly gentle kiss to my lips. I can taste tears in the kiss, but I don’t know if they are mine or his.
“Hang on, Riley,” he says, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’ve got you.”
TWENTY-TWO
—
T H A N E
What have I done?
I jump into the driver’s seat of my SUV, cranking my key in the ignition and taking off at full speed before the others have even reached their vehicles. All the way out here on a Saturday night there’s no way an ambulance will get here quick enough, and I know all the backroads to the hospital to avoid traffic.
Levi, Miles, and Fox know where to go, so I don’t need to worry about them keeping up with me. All I have to worry about is the girl in my passenger seat, her body contorted, face twisted in pain.
Riley barely makes a sound, suffering in an agonizing silence, her face alternating in shades of red and frightening pale as she tries to keep her discomfort in, not allowing me to see it.
I want her to scream and shout, if only so I know she’s still with me as I take turns at double the posted speed limit and zip through red lights, but she doesn’t.
It’s cervus, my brain shouts on a broken loop. It’s cervus. It’s cervus. It’s cervus.
But it can’t be.
She would’ve told us.
Wouldn’t she?
Would I if the pack who’d taken me in was only planning to give me away?
FUCK.
No. It can’t be cervus. I won’t let it be that. It could be a thousand other things.
A thousand other things don’t presentexactlylike cervus does.
Goddamnit.No. The universe wouldn’t be that cruel.
Until I know for certain this isnotwhat I think it is. It’s something else. Something small and manageable and non-life threatening. The more I tell myself that, the more my mind is able to sharpen into focus. Onher.
Her pain, but also her strength in the face of it. Gritting her teeth. Willing her fingers to still, her face to remain placid even as her eyes begin to go unfocused and her breathing begins to shallow. So fucking strong.
How had I not seen it before? How had I thought it was anything but something to be admired in her. It hits me all at once like a shotgun bolt to the chest.I can’t lose her.
I won’t lose her.
“We’re almost there,” I promise Riley, aching to touch her, to soothe her, but unable to take my hands off the wheel.
