Page 69 of Rabid
Then two.
Three.
More blood gushes, my body shaking with tremors, my vision spinning and dotting with black, and I realize. I’m...dying.
Dread and horror agitate through me as anguish settles in my belly, and I feel tears stroke down my cheeks. My wolf whines inside of me while my heartbeat seems to slow. Just when I was settling into my new life, Burke had to rip it away. I don’t want to die, not now when I’m right on the cusp of having so much happiness. My eyes sting with gut-wrenching sadness at the unfairness of it all.
But then I hear Tyran’s ferocious snarl, and for a millisecond, my heart leaps, knowing he’s here. That he came for me.
“Vicious!” he yells just as he pulls my face away from the dirt, rotating me onto my back. His gaze widening on the wound. “Fuck!” He presses hard against my abdomen, making a scream tear from between clenched teeth. “Vorria!” Tyran shouts, and I hate the panic I hear just under the rage.
“Presley,” I grit out, my tone imploring. “They took Presley.”
But Tyran isn’t listening. He’s staring down at his hands, where my blood is still flooding from my body. Fear charges through me, and I look up at Tyran, realization washing the rest of my strength away, because it’shisfear. And somehow, that makes it so much worse.
“This is not fucking happening!” His eyes latch onto my face. “You fucking fight it right now, or so help me, I will follow you into the afterlife and drag you back here kicking and snarling,” he threatens, and despite the terror working its way through my veins, I crack a smile at him, because I don’t like seeing him hurting.
Unfortunately, my smile just seems to make more panic flare inside of him. “Vorria!” he shouts again, and I swear his command shakes the very mountains around us, but maybe that’s just his trembling hands.
The sound of heavy paws hitting the ground is coming from somewhere I don’t have the strength to track, but suddenly, there’s a light gray wolf skidding to a stop next to Tyran. The wolf’s fathomless brown eyes bore into me.
Britton.
He whines as he takes me in and Tyran’s hands pressed brutally against the knife wound, trying but failing to staunch the bleeding.
“I’ve got her,” Tyran snaps at him. “She said they got Presley. They must be parked at the northern service road; that’d be the closest access point by car.”
Britton doesn’t even yip in understanding, he just tears off in the direction I last saw Conrad and Ryden. I send all my hope with him that he catches them and rips them apart. Another wolf bounds out of the bushes, and oddly, it’s carrying a little pack in its mouth. Bright hazel eyes meet mine, and the brown and white wolf morphs into the Healer Vorria.
I forgot she’d been with them on their Flux run, and hope flares through me as she completes her shift and kneels down next to me, assessing the damage. She lifts Tyran’s hand and then slams it back down against my stomach.
“Fuck,” the old lady snaps, turning to pull something out of her bag. I would laugh at how funny it is to hear this tiny little thing go full foul-mouth, but I can’t feel my body anymore, and I don’t know if that’s from the drug or the damage.
“Shot me...with a dart,” I pant out, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Of course they did, honey. Cockless pissants like that could never take one of us head-on,” she reassures me, and I again want to smile at what comes pouring out of her mouth. If I survive this, we’re totally becoming besties.
I look up to find Tyran staring down at me, his eyes hard and determined. “If you think you’re ever getting out of my sight after this, think again. I’ve never leashed a wolf before, but I think it’s in your best interest if I just attach you to me at all times.”
Vorria starts to chant, and despite my inability to really feel my body, the telltale cool feel of healing magic washes over me.
“You’re the one who keeps...leaving me,” I accuse playfully, my words partly slurred and clumsy as they tumble out of my mouth. “I just wanted...to stay in bed,” I add, giving Tyran my bestyou should have listened to melook. “I mean, what’s a girl gotta do to get a cuddle?”
“Stay here, Mate, and I’ll cuddle you all you like.” When I cough, Tyran’s throat bobs and his eyes go pained. He leans in, pressing his fingers into my claiming mark, like he wants to remind me of our connection, anchor me to this world even though my body is trying to slip away. “You hear me? You’re not going anywhere, Seneca.”
“Bitch ass, leg humpingfuckers,” Vorria barks out, and Tyran looks over at her with concern. “There’s a lot of damage, Alpha,” she tells him plainly.
His lips pull back from his teeth. If he were in wolf form right now, he would be snapping and growling at her. “Fix it,” he bites out, and just those two words fill me with horrifying sorrow at his desperation to keep me alive, to keep me with him.
I didn’t get enough time, I think, as teardrops flow from my eyes. Not nearly enough time with this pack, with him. My wolf whines inside of me, the wound paining her, our shared spirits cracking.
Vorria shoots him a sympathetic look. “I could drain myself dry, and I will, Alpha, but it might not be enough,” she tells him matter-of-factly, and I blanch at the truth I hear ringing in her words as fear soaks my cheeks.
Tyran looks like all the breath was stolen from his lungs in a brutal hit, like he’ll never be able to breathe again. “You’re fuckingstrong, Seneca, so I want you to fight, you hear me?” he says, hands cupping my cheeks and holding me firm. “I just got you, and I refuse to let you go.”
My eyes are pulled away from his beautiful brown ones when Vorria presses down brutally against my wound, making me see stars and let out a gargled scream. I look down, watching as she presses harder against my stomach and shoves her magic forcefully into me. I gasp at the sensation that starts to spread, feeling the cool flood of her power. I immediately close my eyes and do something my mother and I used to do. I visualize the blood stopping and the layers of muscle, fat, and skin starting to knit back together.
Leading the magic, my mom used to say.
