Page 48 of Wolf's Fate

She was on her hands and knees, her hair wild and bloody. She was swaying, and I guessed it was because she hadn’t consciously fallen. She was so out of it. From my position, I could see the glazed, vacant look. She was hurt and in danger of passing out.

But I couldn’t run to her because of the shifter who was across from me. We stared at each other, and a quick inhale toldme it was only me, him, and Willow, who was currently in the middle of us.

Which one would get to her first?

We had the same thought as we both rushed forward at the same time. Only, he made the mistake of thinking she was my target.

She wasn’t.

He was.

So, when I jumped over her body, my body shifting to my wolf, claws and fangs ready, he wasn’t ready for the savagery of the attack.

The fight was over before it began, and I shifted back to human, turning to see she was lying on the ground, her eyes closed. Crouching down beside her, I placed my hand on her neck, checking for a pulse.

“Willow?” I whispered, my fear closing around me. “Willow, can you hear me?”

She didn’t move, didn’t stir. My heart lurched, my pulse throbbing with how fast my heart was beating. Hovering over her, I laid my head on her chest. Faint, so faint. She needed a hospital.

“Willow…” I tried again, but my voice sounded raw.

Nothing. No movement. No response.

I stripped the dead shifter of his pants, his boots, and the shirt he’d been wearing, and hurriedly dressed. I didn’t care what I looked like; I needed to get her to the EMTs. My eyes fell on the backpack across the other side of the underbrush, and I knew I couldn’t take it. I could only hope that there was nothing discriminating in it, and it was for that reason that Isprinted across to it, grabbed it, and stashed it as far as I could from sight.

Picking her up gently, I rushed back the way I’d come, encouraged when I saw the red and blue lights of the ambulance still there.

“Help!” I yelled. “She needs help!” Men surged into action, and when I ran up the embankment, there was a gurney waiting. They took her from me, my fingers digging into her soft skin before I relinquished my hold of her.

Questions were fired at me as they buzzed around her like bees. A mask was placed over her mouth, and somehow, not long after, I was in the back of an ambulance with her while being told I was lucky I wasn’t in worse shape.

They assumed the blood that covered me was hers and mine. I didn’t correct them. The scratches and cuts I had from the bushes where I put her backpack and the run back to the road served me well. I willed my body not to heal too quickly so I wouldn’t look even more suspicious. Not that it would work, but maybe there was a chance that Luna was listening to me.

“We’ll check you out at the hospital,” the male told me.

“Just focus on her.”

“We are.” He reached over and patted my knee, and I almost ripped his hand off for trying to console me when he should have been paying attention to her. “She needs blood and a lot of it.” He didn’t notice my anger as he returned his focus to Willow. “It’s a nasty cut on her forehead, but nothing seems broken. We’ll know more when we get her to a hospital.” He continued to check her when he looked up again. “You were the driver?”

“No.”

“Her?” He looked confused, and I suddenly remembered Doc.

“Our friend, he was driving, did you find him?”

He shook his head, and using his phone, he told someone there was another body out there.

Body.

I remembered the two I had killed. I didn’t need them to find them. With sudden clarity, I remembered Royce’s number.

“I need your phone,” I told the medic. “Please.”

He thought about it, and then he handed it over. Quickly punching Royce’s number in, I waited for him to answer.

“Who is this?”

“Caleb.” I sensed his stillness. “They ran them off the road, not sure if it was intentional, think it was. She’s in an ambulance with me to the hospital, two behind, not sure where our driver is.”