Page 79 of Half Wolf Mate
His gaze jumped to me, and the murderous rage in them vanished. Hobbling over, he dropped beside. “Goddamnit, Sydney. Don’t you dare die. We haven’t even had our first sibling quarrel yet.”
I laughed, but it came out as a grunt. If I survived, I’d enjoy spending time with Adam.
“Sydney!” The sound of Cole’s voice sent relief surging through me. At least I’d get to see him one last time.
He took one look at Benjamin and went on the defensive. “Get your hands off her.”
“It’s okay. He’s my father. He helped us.” He’d saved Cole’s life, too. Now I knew it was his arrow that had stopped Philip from killing Cole earlier.
“We need to get her inside. Macy is on her way,” Cole said. He gave me a once over, saw my blood gushing through Benjamin’s fingers, and swallowed hard. There was sheer terror in his eyes that he didn’t bother to hide. “Please, stay with me.”
I nodded, but right after that, everything went dark.
***
The sound of a beautiful male voice lulled me to the surface. I felt as if I’d been floating in darkness for a while, unable to find my way back to the land of light. That voice, though, it was so melodious, so soothing. I held on to it until my eyes opened. I winced against the light flooding my sensitive half-wolf retinas. Immediately, the light switched from bright to dim.
It was Cole who reached over to flick the lamp’s switch. He sat in a chair, with one hand holding mine. When gazes locked, the first thing I blurted was, “Holy crap, you can sing?” That rock star voice wasn’t something I’d expected from the hard-ass Alpha.
He blinked and then laughed.
I smiled, liking that I could always say something silly to shift his ever-somber demeanor, even in a serious situation.
“It’s my hidden talent, and it stays between us. Got it?”
I smiled harder. “Got it. What were you singing?”
“A lullaby my mother sang to me as a child. It always soothed me.”
Staring at him, I realized how tired he looked. His hair was in disarray, his eyes bloodshot, and his jaw more stubbled than usual. His clothes looked rumpled, too. “You look like hell,” I joked.
“I bet. You’ve had me on edge for days.”
I groaned and tried to sit up but winced when the pain hit me in the side.
“Don’t,” Cole said. “You can’t overdo it. You were stabbed with a silver blade, and you don’t heal as fast as a full-shifter. Recovering is going to take a while.”
I groaned, going back over the horrors of the shifter-hunter battle. “The baby?”
“She’s fine.”
I gasped. “A girl? You’re not disappointed?”
Leaning forward to kiss my forehead, he said, “Never. I can’t wait to meet her. Two girls to keep me on my toes.”
My smile faded. “How bad is it?” I asked. “Violet? Adam? Everyone else?”
Cole searched my face. “We don’t need to talk about any of that yet.”
“I need to know.”
He sighed. “Violet is fine. She healed quickly. Adam is too. Damian, Alex, Stephan, and Dominic are okay. They’ve all been worried about you.”
I blew out a relieved breath. “And the other members of the pack?”
“We lost a few,” he said sadly. “And of the five elders, only Simon is here.”
“I watched Jasper die. He was trying to protect me.”