Her Fated Mates (House of Wolves and Magic Book 2) Page 20
“You’re right,” she said finally. I could see the exhaustion of her body healing weighing on her and knew she had to be tired and needed to nap. She could rest while we were gone. “I understand, and I think you should go to at least check on him, but if anything goes wrong, you howl and I’ll come and get you.”
“You’ll hurt yourself,” Micah said.
I shook my head, trying to correct his slight misstep with our sensitive mate. “Nothing is going to go wrong.”
“But if it does, you’ll howl for me? Send me a signal somehow so I can come and get you?” Nina looked between the two of us and gripped our knees as she waited for our agreement.
“Nothing is going to happen,” Micah said firmly, picking up what I’d been putting down a moment ago. “But if it does, we’ll howl for you.”
“Agreed,” I said, though I hated the idea of her trying to come and find us while she was hurt. “While we’re gone though, you’re going to need to eat and drink, get some of your strength back. Let me go and see what the vending machine has.”
Nina nodded absentmindedly.
Before I could stop myself, I pushed to my feet and walked out of the room. The vending machines were thankfully out of the way and not located in the office with the clerk, because I knew if he saw the havoc I was about to cause, he’d be wondering what the hell I was doing with so many Cheetos or whatever it was I’d find in there.
Once I had my arms full of more bags of snack foods and candies than I thought possible, I went back to the room, only to find Micah waiting outside.
“She fell asleep. I wasn’t sure if we should wake her before we go.” Micah kept his voice low so only I could hear.
“We should. She’d never forgive us if we left and something did happen. Plus, I want to make sure she knows she has food to eat, even if that food is mostly sugar. It’s better than nothing.” I nodded at the door to get him to open it for me, and as soon as he did, I came face to face with a furious Nina.
“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?” she demanded, though the exhaustion seemed to be riding her twice as hard now.
“No, angel. I went to get you food and needed help getting it back to the room. We’re right here. Now please, eat something.”
She glared at me for a moment before grabbing a candy bar. Without breaking eye contact, she brought the wrapper to her mouth and held it between her teeth, tearing it open until she could get at the chocolatey goodness inside. Why was she so sexy? Surely doing something like that, while glaring at me no less, shouldn’t have been something I found attractive, and yet there I was with a half chub.
Finally, she glanced over at Micah, releasing me from the hold her gaze had on me. I moved to the side and put the food and bottles of water down on the table.
“We’ll be back soon, promise,” Micah said as he cupped the side of her face and gently kissed her.
Before things could get heated, I cleared my throat and said, “We’ll howl if we need you, angel, but please rest, eat, and drink. All you need to worry about for now is letting your body heal.”
“Be safe out there,” she said before pulling me to her for my own kiss.
Her lips tasted of the candy bar she’d been eating, as well as a little of Micah, and I didn’t mind either. When I pulled away, I looked pointedly at the bed. “I love you, Nina. Please rest,” I said before turning and exiting the room.
My heart pounded in my chest as the door closed behind me. What we were about to do was stupid, but it was better than Nina risking herself getting hurt again. If only I didn’t feel like this was all about to go to shit.
27
Nina
The guys had only been gone five minutes when I started to get antsy. The idea of them being out there on their own was terrifying to me, even though I knew they were both badasses in their own right. They could take care of themselves, hell, they could be alphas if they wanted to. I knew without a doubt that Roman had it in him, and I thought Micah did too if he’d let himself believe it.
Blake I still wasn’t sure about and would never get the chance if the guys didn’t get him out from under Jax’s nose. As much as I wanted Blake back with us though, I wanted them all safe even more. If that meant Blake staying with Jax’s pack for a time, I could learn to deal with that. I’d have to.
I’d already devoured most of the food on the table and guzzled the bottles of water. I was tearing into the last candy bar when I started pacing, slowly and carefully so I didn’t open my stitches back up. I needed more information about what was going on, and I needed a plan in case they ran into trouble.
Being stuck in the room made me feel like I was helpless, like the princess in the tower waiting to be rescued. I’d already promised myself that I’d always be my own savior, but when I’d had that thought, I hadn’t had any mates to rely on. Now I didn’t mind them saving me every once in a while, like when they got me to the doctor, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t save them as well.
If they got in trouble with Jax and his pack, then I’d break their asses out and I honestly didn’t care who got hurt in the process, so long as it wasn’t my mates.
The thought surprised me. It was cold, calculating, and generally not who I was, but ever since I’d run into Jax at that warehouse party, I’d felt like I was slowly changing. What that meant and how exactly I was changing, I had no idea. I just knew it was happening.
When I glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table, the big red glowing numbers seemed to mock me, and I realized that they should have made it to Jax’s land by now. I needed to give them enough time to get Blake and get back before I started freaking out. I had to be patient, right? That was what adults did?
The reality was I wanted to run out there and find them, though I wasn’t capable of running much of anywhere at the moment. Though I was healing faster than I had thought I would, given what the doctor had said.
What I needed was a distraction, and I wasn’t about to turn the TV on and not be able to hear them howl if they ran into trouble. I went into the bathroom and pulled my shirt up, revealing the bandage that covered my abdomen. It wasn’t just the bullet hole, it was the multiple small incisions around the area where the doctor had gone in and had to remove the fragments of the bullet as best he could. If he hadn’t got all the silver, then I’d been in even worse shape. Well, that was a kind way of thinking about my own death. Silver, if not promptly removed, caused silver poisoning, like Micah had had. If it wasn’t treated, then it would slowly destroy us from the inside out.
Not pleasant.
I’d seen my old alpha use silver poisoning on a traitor once, though looking back, I had to wonder how much of a traitor he really was. After all, my parents had been executed for just questioning the alpha and whether or not he’d forced the mate bond with the young woman who was clearly terrified of him. Even I had recognized that, and I’d only been a youngster myself.
I shook the thoughts away. Thinking about my old alpha was not going to put me in a great state of mind, and I needed to be clear and alert in case my guys needed me. To take my mind off the past, I focused on the present, on my wound and cleaning it up.
When I pulled the bandage back, I froze. The damage was worse than I’d imagined and looked horrific since I hadn’t really been cleaned up at all. Dirt and blood caked my skin, and the stitches were pulling taught against my flesh, pinching and puckering it as it was trying its best to heal.
I could see places where the wounds had started to knit back together, which gave me hope for how the rest of them were healing, even though they looked like shit. My skin was itchy and dry, and I desperately wanted to shower but couldn’t, not when that might make me miss a howl. So I did the only thing I could think of—I stripped down and began washing the skin gently with soap on wadded up toilet paper. I’d gone through almost two rolls before my skin started looking more normal and not stained by my blood.
Finally, my normal pink skin tone was peeking t
hrough, and as I dried off the skin of my belly for a fourth time, I actually started to feel clean, which was a relief. I couldn’t do much about the dirt and grossness that was caked in my hair, but at least my hands, face, and my belly were clean. Being the methodical person I was, I started on my arms next, and I knew without a doubt that I’d wash my whole body this way if I had to and if nothing interrupted me. It was oddly satisfying, and for the most part, distracting.
Of course the moment I thought I was adequately distracted was the moment I felt something shift within me. It wasn’t any of my wounds or any internal injuries, but something through one of the mate bonds. Something that was telling me that the guys were in trouble. Or more specifically, Micah was in trouble.
How the hell did I know that?
And more importantly, why hadn’t they howled?
The bond felt like it was twisting inside me, as though he was in physical pain. I’d felt an echo of his silver poisoning through the bond, but this was more intense. It was like I was actually connected to him somehow.
Suddenly, my brain barfed up the answer in a jolt of wisdom that had me sitting down heavily on the closed toilet. The movement jarred my wounds, and the pain snapped me out of the haze of confusion that had descended upon me.
It was Micah’s blood.
The doctor had said that he’d had to donate some blood to me or I would have bled out. If his blood was still in me, which it was, then combined with the mate bond, it would give me an even stronger connection to Micah than usual. We were bound together in a way that I wasn’t with Roman or Blake.
It was more intense, more complex, and easier for me to feel what he was feeling and even get a sense of where he was, now that I was focused on it. The more I paid attention, the more I realized that he was definitely in trouble. I thought he was in pain as well, but it was hard to differentiate his pain from my own.
Quickly, I went to the med kit that Roman had, uh, borrowed from the doctor’s office and found some wipes and another round of bandages. I cleaned myself up once more, swabbing each wound with the antiseptic wipe before wrapping them all with the roll of gauze and taping it to my skin so it was secure. I didn’t expect any of them to open back up, but I also didn’t want it to be obvious if they did. The gauze would at least offer some barrier between my wounds and the fabric of my T-shirt, which I pulled back on.
There may not have been any howls from Roman or Micah, but I wasn’t going to doubt the bond, not when it had taken me so long to accept it and understand it even a little bit. I walked back out into the bedroom area and changed my shoes from the flip-flops I’d been wearing into something a little more rugged.
I threw on a hoodie and a second pair of leggings because I knew in my current state, getting cold could be deadly since my body was already dealing with so much. There was a brief moment where I tried to pull my wolf forth, knowing that if I could transform, then I would be better able to heal, the magic of the shift would help my injuries along, just like they had with Micah.
She wouldn’t budge from her cage though, which was no surprise really. It just meant this would be harder and more painful than I’d hoped, but I could deal with that. Most of my life had been that way, after all. This was nothing new.
As I got ready to go, every movement was like fire through my veins, and I knew what I was about to do was insane, even for me, but I couldn’t leave them there if they were in trouble. The last thing I grabbed was my room key. I stuffed it into the side of my sports bra, under my T-shirt and hoodie, so that there was no chance of my losing it, then I stepped outside.
The air was fresh and cool against my skin, reminding me of the runs I would take through the city in spring and autumn. There was a loamy smell that was faint but reminded me of the cabin and the tiny moment of peace we’d had before Brecken betrayed us. I sighed and pushed the thought aside.
Right now, I needed to focus on my mates. I pulled their scents to the front of my mind and begged my human nose to be able to differentiate them from the other smells in the area. Shifters’ noses were generally more sensitive than humans, but they were still nothing like what they were in wolf form.
Using the bond, I began to move in the general direction I knew they were, and as I got farther away from the motel and the cars and roads, I could begin to scent them better. Each of them had their own unique smell, which was normal, but I was surprised how different they were. Roman, and I just knew in my gut that it was him and not Micah, was cool and dark with a slight spice to it, making me think of the nights we’d spent together.
Micah’s scent was different, it was warm and reminded me of summer. There was a tang to it that made me think of lemonade or margaritas, along with a saltiness that was what I imagined the ocean to smell like.
I wanted to ping pong between the two of them, dark sexy nights and hot sinful days, and that wasn’t even adding Blake into the mix, though I wasn’t as clear on what his scent was like, something I’d need to change as soon as we got him back.
The walk had been strenuous, and I was sweating and panting like I’d been for a ten-mile run, even though I’d probably only managed to walk a mile or two, before I had to stop and rest. I knew I needed to get there and help them, but if I got there and was completely wiped out from the journey, then I’d just be a liability not a help.
Finally, I got to what had to be the outskirts of the pack’s land. It reeked of male shifter piss, like they were all marking the territory by just peeing around it, which was probably true, considering how Jax had acted about everything else. I stopped and tucked myself next to a tree, squatting down as best as possible so I was out of sight.
I knew I was reckless and headstrong, but even I wouldn’t rush in somewhere that I knew contained my enemies without trying to scout it out first. That didn’t stop the horrid feeling that was growing inside me though, the one that was urging me to get to Micah as fast as possible.
I was beyond worried about the two of them, and all the candy and junk food I’d eaten before this all went sideways was threatening to make a reappearance. I could only imagine how painful vomiting would be with a belly full of stitches, and since I didn’t want to find out, I began breathing through my mouth, panting slightly, as I begged my body to cooperate.
The idea of waiting, of trying to be patient so I didn’t make the situation worse, was a bitter pill to swallow, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t risk their lives by not being cautious, or I’d never forgive myself. I needed to figure out the lay of the land and what was going on before I made my move. My only question was would my patience last long enough for me to accomplish that, or would my anxiety win out and send me into enemy territory too soon?
28
Nina
Everything inside me wanted to run in and fight to get my guys, because at this point, thanks to the mate bond, I had no doubt that they were somewhere on the pack’s land. My fingers curled around the roots of the tree I was hunkered next to, forcing myself to stay in place as the bark gave way under my grip.
I took a deep breath, then another, counting to four each time I inhaled and again when I exhaled. The need to gain some control over the situation was burning within me. If the only thing I could control for the moment was my breath, then so be it, but at least it was something.
Once I felt more stable and was a little more recovered from my walk, I carefully began to move around the perimeter of the land. It wasn’t hard to find, since all I had to do was follow the scent of piss. Which was disgusting, I might add.
What I saw as I made my way around the outskirts of the land wasn’t surprising. There were some houses and cabins dotted here and there, women playing with children while trying to do something else. There was a sadness in the air though—no, not sadness, tension. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I swear the women flinched when there were loud noises.
Fear crawled up my spine, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. If the women were scared, then wha
t did that mean for Micah?
As though my thoughts had summoned him, I caught a glimpse of his topknot through a window. I moved toward the sight, hoping that it was Micah and not someone else who liked the hair style and being careful not to make any noise as I went. I side-stepped twigs and branches, anything that might alert someone to my presence. Other than the scent of their territory marking, there was a slight metallic tang in the air, along with the wintery scent of evergreens. I focused on the latter and pushed everything else to the back of my mind.
When I finally got to a spot where I could see Micah through the large windows in the garage type thing, I could barely stop the gasp that tried to escape me. The building was large, and fortunately, the windows matched, which meant that I could see every detail. He was chained up with his hands tied above his head with some rope and his toes barely touching the ground. Fresh bruises covered his face and torso, and one of his eyes was swollen shut.
I wanted to scream and attack and do everything I could to rescue him, but that wouldn’t do either of us any good, since he was surrounded by guards. I guessed it was just fortunate that Jax himself wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle seeing him beat on Micah.
Roman was notably missing though, which was the one bright spot, for now at least. I knew he was in the general area, thanks to the mate bond again, but it wasn’t as specific as it had been with Micah, and my guess was that it was because I didn’t have his blood running through my veins.
I wished I did though. In that moment, I would have given almost anything to figure out where Roman was, especially as I watched the very thing I’d just been relieved about start to happen.
Jax walked into the area like a peacock displaying its feathers.
Without pausing, he strutted up to Micah and began to punch him repeatedly in the gut and the ribs, like my mate was a heavy bag for boxing practice. Each punch landed with the smack of skin on skin, loud enough to make it through the windows, making me cringe. I wanted to stop it so badly, but I knew if I tried to do something, it would just get me in trouble along with the guys, and yet I found myself taking a step toward the pack land and the clearing where the building was situated. Micah was being beaten. I had to act.