Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was happening again. The cracks of the stone cut into the bare flesh of his knees as he knelt beside Cat’s dying body. A thick layer of blood stained the white wolf’s fur, pulsing out of her to the tempo of her heartbeat.
“No. No, Cat—” he growled, grasping desperately with his hands in an effort to put pressure on the gaping wound on the side of her neck. Aurelia had missed. She’d ripped into the side of Cat’s neck instead of the front, and given her more time and the ability to breathe. She made no sound beneath his fumbling fingers, but she looked at him with wild abandon, her eyes rolling around and unable to focus on him. The hot liquid made its way through his fingers as he shoved at her neck, but both his hands could hardly cover the large wound. One of the weaknesses of a wolf was the neck because it took an immense amount of energy and magic to force a wound so substantial to close. The separation of the heart from the brain usually didn’t leave much time to heal properly.
God, this was all his fault. He’d killed the woman he loved all over again, like a curse that would keep running over and over again in his head. Cat’s eyes flashed brown, her hair darkened, and the floor of the basement turned to one of moist grass—an image of Phoebe dying on the forest floor. That didn’t make sense, though, since Killian had killed her as a wolf.
He shook his head against the bombardment of memories, focusing in on the real luminescent eyes that weakened by the minute. If he had only shown up minutes—no, seconds—before, then he could have had the chance to save her. The feeling of panic that tore through him when he’d seen the older woman choke Cat on the video sent him flying through the forest, not even caring if the rest of his pack followed. He hadn’t anticipated the person attacking Cat but had assumed they would let her go after receiving the Faol Geal along with the others.
Maybe if he hadn’t listened to Aidan…
The stone! If that moment wasn’t a crucial one, Killian didn’t know what was. Luckily, he had listened to Aidan despite his prideful thinking that he could do it all on his own and had brought it with him. He shoved himself off the ground and found the backpack he had brought in his mouth by the basement door. His fingers fumbled inside the small front pocket. The moment he grasped cool stone, he sucked in a breath.
This better fucking work, or I’m hunting your ass down, Aidan!
“Aidan!” he screamed, panting past the constriction of his lungs. He needed this to work. He needed her to live.
Not waiting to see if the stone worked, he rushed back to Cat, but she was no longer alone. Finn sat next to her, inspecting the wound on her neck with the careful precision of his medical degree. The sad gaze that met Killian’s only confirmed what his heart already painstakingly understood. He crouched next to her, digging his hands into the rough fur on her stomach. Each breath she took barely lifted her body. They were losing time. He never thought he would pray for the damn Warlock, but fuck if he didn’t hope the guy had the ability to heal.
The earsplitting noise that told of Aidan’s arrival sent a shiver of trepidation down Killian’s spine. If he couldn’t do anything to save her… But he wouldn’t let himself think that way. His life without her would be empty, just a shell of what it had been the past month with her. She had brought out a happiness in him he hadn’t felt in a long time, and he would do anything to keep that.
Aidan crouched next to him and looked at Cat as she gasped for air on the floor. Her eyes were shut since she’d passed out from the shock and lack of substantial oxygen.
“Ah, little Cat, what have you gotten yourself into?” he murmured as he brushed his hand across the red matted fur at Cat’s neck. All that remained was a vast opening of muscle and bone and pulsing blood beginning to slow.
“Can you heal her?” Killian croaked, oblivious to the tears running down his cheeks. His whole body was numb at the idea of losing the woman who had become so much a part of him.
Aidan nodded, hovering his hands slightly over the gore. “Yeah, it’ll take a bit of time”—he flashed his eyes to Killian’s—“and it might hurt her. So don’t attack me, or she will die.”
Aidan moved his body to a more comfortable position, crossing his legs and not caring his gray sweats and white shoes were splashed in the blood underneath them. When he mumbled beneath his breath in a deep, lyrical tongue, his hands emitted a beautiful blue light. Killian chewed his lips anxiously and watched Cat for any outward signs of pain. How could she even fathom any more pain than she was already in? Wouldn’t her mind just block it out? The three of them sat completely still, the only sounds in the room Aidan’s spells and the quiet whispers of the women as they explained everything to Brian.
Cat’s body shook, her fur vibrating above the small spasms of muscle beneath. Her legs kicked sharply, and one of her back paws nicked Killian’s knee, leaving a gash that oozed softly before it began to heal. Killian hissed, more at her pain than his own. He gave Aidan an accusing look. The Warlock opened one eye and glared back before shooting a look at Finn. Get him away from here. The words read clear as day through that simple look, before the Warlock focused all his attention back to Cat.
Killian didn’t like it. Relinquishing control to a stranger, and one who wasn’t even a Shifter. His wolf paced within, not satisfied with the blood he had already spilled. He wanted more retaliation. He wanted to rip into Lia over and over again until he was satisfied she had gone through the same pain as Cat tenfold.
Finn grabbed underneath Killian’s arm to pull him to a standing position before Killian shook him off with a frustrated growl. His body moved toward the betraying bitch, and he looked down at the fully decapitated corpse. Killian had no mercy on her, and even looking at her in the aftermath, he had no twinge of regret.
When he had seen Lia hiding in the shadows on the tiny screen, the shock of her deceit had hit him with harsh devastation. She had problems with Cat, but to go so far as to turn on her own pack—that was something Killian couldn’t quite comprehend. They had burst into the basement in time for Killian to watch as Lia sank her filthy teeth into Cat’s neck, and the blackness of the desire to kill had swept through him. His wolf had glorified in the kill, digging into the crunching goodness of Lia’s neck until nothing was left. She tried to convince him otherwise, though. As he tackled her, she shifted back to human form and screamed at him. Yet no amount of begging could stop his wolf from killing such a treacherously weak specimen.
“Killian,” Jessica whispered from behind him, and he shut his eyes at the sound of weakness in her voice, the way it shook and croaked over his name. He had let them down. Still, he turned to her and took in her broken appearance. Filth and blood covered her body, and her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. She wrapped her arms around herself, more in an attempt to hide her dirty appearance than to hide her nudity. “Is she going to make it?”
He nodded, looking over at Aidan and Cat. Her body still convulsed beneath Aidan’s hands, and Killian looked away with a heavy sigh. He hated feeling so helpless. Jessica shook her head, her usually perfectly styled hair caked with dirt and mud.
“It was her aunt, Killian. The person who wanted to kill her, who killed her parents? It was her aunt.” Her eyes were awash with horror.
Killian swept a hand through his hair as a chill swept to his core. “Oh God, That must have destroyed her.”
Jessica swallowed and looked down at the floor, shivering against the shock coursing through both their bodies. Brian walked up behind her, fully clothed and holding up a backpack. His eyebrows were drawn tight when he looked down at Jessica.
“I brought you some clothes.” His voice was gruff, but Jessica still managed to look up at him with a shaky smile. She accepted the backpack gratefully and pulled on the provided sweats and loose shirt.
Killian scanned the room, determined to look at everything but Cat and Aidan. Finn and Kelly huddled in a corner, both of them dressed. Kelly’s form seemed unusually small as she curled onto Finn’s lap, and the man rocked her back and forth, murmuring delicate words into her ear. Tears streamed down her darkened face, streaking her pale skin with lines of ruined eyeliner.
The stench of death became overwhelming, copper and rotting flesh prevalent throughout the room. He felt empty even as his insides knotted tight and painful. The murmur of Aidan’s voice, the incessant droning of the couples as they consoled each other, and God, the whimpering. Was that him? It sounded like Cat as the pain of whatever Aidan was doing harmed and simultaneously mended her body.
The sounds amplified in his ears. He shut his eyes, lifting his hands to block the noise. Why wouldn’t the sound stop? A yell ripped out of his chest, and he dropped to the floor as his legs gave out, slamming bone and flesh into hard floor. Sobs racked his body as he knelt next to Aurelia, a woman who should never have met death, but because of his inability to communicate with her, had chosen it. He yelled at the woman he loved, who lay on the floor with her only hope being a strange Warlock and his glowing hands. He yelled at his heart that wouldn’t stop aching from the loss of a pack member, shattering relentlessly in his chest. He continued until his whole body heaved with exhaustion and his voice became hoarse from exertion. The whole room was silent aside from his breathing; even Aidan had stopped.
When a hand touched his shoulder, he looked up into the eyes of the Warlock and hated the desperation that made him seem weak.
“Please tell me she’s not dead,” he croaked out from a dry throat and licked his lips in nervousness.
Aidan smiled with quivering lips and brushed a sheen of sweat from his forehead. “I did what I could. I sped up the healing process enough that she’ll make it, but she needs to rest and preferably not on a cold floor.” His body shook and he rubbed his hands up and down his leather jacket. “I really wish I didn’t feel the cold like you guys. It’s freezing down here. Do you know…”
His voice trailed away. Killian stared at him, watching as his lips continued to move but not understanding the words. She would live. Killian’s heart thrummed back to life, sending him into motion toward Cat, lying on the floor. He lurched clumsily toward her. She was still a wolf, and there was still a large wound on her neck, but Aidan was right. The edges of raw flesh had closed in slightly, and blood no longer poured from the much smaller hole.
“I won’t be able to get her on an airplane like this.” Killian brushed his hand across the fur by her ear, grateful for the pulse fluttering there.
“I’ll transport you. The others will have to take a plane, but I can get you two home. I don’t have much energy left, and I still need to clean up your mess down here and get back to my own place.” His voice had lost its usual tenacity, hinting toward the edge of exhaustion.
Killian nodded but didn’t take his hand off Cat. He leaned down to dig his face into a white part of her fur to inhale the aromatic scent of life and Cat hiding beneath the copper blood. Aidan gripped his shoulder, and Killian saw that the Warlock also touched Cat, so he looked toward Brian and gave him a quick nod.
“See you at home.”
The words had barely left his mouth before the room disappeared, and he knelt on his living room’s hardwood floor.