~

 

Lily wiped the sweet from her brow with the back of her hand and fought against the haze that was clouding her vision. She’d driven for hours to get away from him, and night had closed in around her.

She still had a mountain to climb – literally – albeit she’d be driving, but the way that she felt; she might as well have been walking with a weighted backpack and wading through quicksand.

She reached down and fisted her shirt, yanking it up and over the wound that had been gouged deeply into her flesh. It ran from her hip to her ribs and hurt like hell.

The white dressing that she’d applied was seeped through with fresh blood and she felt a little woozy just looking at it.

She’d need to clean it – try to seal it as best she could with her magic – before she applied a fresh dressing.

What she really needed to do was to find Chelsea. That witch could help to heal her, and she needed that help because she couldn’t do it alone.

All that she knew was that Chelsea lived on the mountain with a bear shifter named Tyler. While she wasn’t overly fond of the idea of being around shifters; she knew that she could trust Chelsea with her life.

She’d have to do just that if she was going to survive this thing was Zane.

Chelsea reached for her bag and dragged it towards her. Just turning in her seat set off the kind of burning, stabbing pain that made her catch her breath.

She gave herself a moment before she reached for the door and forced it open; grunting in pain as she pushed up from the seat and stepped out into the cold night air.

She welcomed that feeling. It woke her body and her mind up, and she needed that more than ever.

The sign above the bar door filled her with a small amount of trepidation. Where there was a bar there were usually shifters, eating and drinking their fill, but she needed to sort out the wound before she even attempted the drive into the middle of nowhere.

She felt bone cold and desperately alone on the slow walk towards the bar, more alone than she’d ever been before in her life, and she knew that was down to her injury.

If she’d been fully fit then she could handle anything – well, almost anything – but right then; she just wanted to climb in between clean sheets and stay there until she either died of her wounds or was fighting fit again.

Fighting, being the word that she clung onto.

The sound of the meaty engine gunning into the parking lot made her turn her head enough to clock the truck out of the corner of her eye as tension gripped her body. It was the wrong colour to be Zane’s, and she almost sighed with relief.

A reprieve, but for how long?

Lily dragged herself forward on legs that felt like mush. Her muscles protested and quivered beneath her, and she wrapped her jacket tightly around her body like it was a lifeline to hold onto.

She needed to patch herself up and be gone. Staying around too long would garner attention, especially from the shifters that would be able to scent her blood.

Lily felt a wave of dizziness hit her and she stumbled sideways towards the wall, reaching out with one hand for the stability it represented. She guessed that her diet of protein bars and coffee hadn’t been the best idea to keep her going, but if she could just reach Chelsea…

“Are you sick?”

The deep tone of his voice, so full of bass, rattled her brainpan, and echoed through her bones. He was that close to her that she could feel the tingle of his supernatural being against her shields as they sounded the alert to his presence…

Shifter.

What kind she didn’t know, but then she didn’t much care either. She didn’t much care about anything but keeping her protein bars and coffee down at that point…

“No,” she answered as blandly as she could, trying to keep the quiver of pain from her voice.

She didn’t look around, she couldn’t risk moving her head and starting another wave of dizzying nausea.

“You look sick,” he said,

Lily had the urge to tell him to get lost, but drawing that much attention to herself was a bad idea. Especially as she didn’t have enough energy in her tank to do much more than keep her shields in place.

“Drunk too much,” she offered back.

She readied what little magic she could gather within her to strike and be gone as fast as possible should he decide to push the point and make an issue of it. The fact that she didn’t think she could move faster than a snail at that point would be a drawback for her escape plan…

“You want me to get someone?”

“No. There’s no one.”

Lily felt her own words cut her to the bone. The truth was; she was all alone.

This latest kerfuffle meant that was a good thing, but she was tired of the emptiness within her life. Of going home to an empty bed and a microwave meal…

The grunt that he gave signalled his feet moving as he started towards the door – she felt part relief mixed with the sadness of being alone again. She was dying – she could feel it within her very soul, and if she didn’t get to Chelsea that would be the end.

Lily didn’t want to die alone.

She tried to turn towards the door, but her legs got stuck beneath her. The quivering got so bad that her whole body shook, and then she felt herself falling – she gave into it – she was too tired – too weak – too alone to care anymore.

Life be damned. She was done.

Stick a fork in me and send me to hell if that’s where I’m going…

Lily was sure that her body never hit the ground, but she couldn’t swear an oath to it because the darkness slammed into her mind and she knew no more. 

 

~

~

~

 

Jacob guessed it was his own damn fault for stopping in his stride and asking the question in the first place. He’d learned a long time ago to keep his nose out of human business…

Now he had a drunken female in his arms and he wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to do next. The woman had passed out – and that wasn’t good for either of them.

He’d reached out and caught her before she’d hit the concrete and that was a good thing because it saved her getting hurt. It was also the worst decision he’d made that day, because now he was sort of stuck with her.

Smooth move jerk!

Way to go, man … you couldn’t just walk on by.

Stupid humans and the fact they couldn’t hold their booze, and females are the worst…

Damn it to hell!

What am I supposed to do with her now?

It’s not like I can lay her down on the pavement and walk away…

She’s unconscious. Unable to defend herself … I can’t walk away from an unprotected female … not even if my damn life depended on it…

What about if her life depends on it?

That’s different…

My wolf is sitting right under the skin…

What if I’m the biggest danger this female faces?

Jacob chose not to sniff the air. It was safer for everyone that way.

His damn wolf had a habit of pushing forwards when he least expected it, and to give it an excuse was paramount to giving him free rein to take over – and that wasn’t happening in the middle of town.

Jacob took a step towards the door of the bar and paused for thought. 

What if someone thought that he’d hurt her?

What if she woke up and screamed bloody blue murder?

Could he really take that chance?

His beast raised its head as curiosity got the better of it, and they said curiosity killed the cat, one of these days he was sure it was going to be the death of his wolf.

The beast urged him to scent her. That was the last damn thing that he wanted to do

His wolf grumbled a growl and tried to push forward. There wasn’t much further that it could go than to burst from within him, and that would be very bad for everyone; including his new pack.

Dexter was a pretty decent guy, but he thought that he would definitely draw the damn line at him parading his wolf through town.

“Damn it…” Jacob growled.

He scented the air and was stunned to find the scent of her blood. Fae blood, and yet the fact that she was a witch didn’t bother him or his beast half as much as the fact that she was injured.

“Damn liar…” he growled as he turned back towards his truck and stalked back across the parking lot.

He needed a private space to see put her so that he could see exactly what her injury was. The scent clung to her like death, and he didn’t like that, neither did his beast.

That damn stupid protection gene decided to kick in right at that moment and his wolf was on alert, prowling within him, setting up its stall.

“Oh, witch – you are not what I need in my damn life right now,” he grumbled and growled some more as he manoeuvred her within his arms so that he could yank open the back door of his truck, and then he laid her down on the back seat.

His nose led the way to her wound, and as he raised her shirt and clocked the blood seeping through the dressing – he felt a sense of anxiety for what he would find.

When he peeled back the medical tape and got a look at the deep wounds; his beast roared within him at the same moment that his anger spiked. His wolf pushed forwards and his fangs elongated.

His only problem was that there was nobody to fight. Nobody to rip apart for what they’d done to the female. Nobody to tear limb from limb in an effort to avenge her…

Jacob couldn’t push his wolf back into the cage, and he sure as hell couldn’t go into a human bar to look for help from the witch that worked there with his fangs down.

He slammed the back door and stalked around to the driver’s side. He’d have to drive up the mountain to his pack.

Three witches lived there and three witches were better than nothing.