Page 71 of Rabid
“Two days,” Tyran tells me, scooting in beside me with his back propped against the headboard as though he needs to be close but doesn’t want to jostle me. “Vorria was just here again a couple hours ago with the salve.” Relief washes over me to hear that the healer is okay. I test the spot gently and then sit up, only wincing slightly. “Don’t try to move,” he admonishes, but I ignore him and wiggle up until I’m leaning against his chest.
The second my head rests against his shoulder, he wraps his arms around me, careful not to touch my stomach. “How’s the pain?” he rumbles, mouth against my hair as he lays a kiss on the top of my head.
“It’s not bad at all,” I reply honestly. “Whatever Vorria did, it worked.”
“What youbothdid,” he tells me, reminding me of what happened before I blacked out. “Your mom must’ve been one hell of a healer, because you had enough in you to save yourselfandkeep Vorria from draining dry.”
The pride I hear in his voice, and his mention of my mom, make a tear leak from the corner of my eye. I don’t know if he can sense it through the bond or he scented the brine in the air, but he shifts us until I’m pulled onto his lap and he can look at my face. A calloused thumb brushes against my cheek before he presses his lips against the spot.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs, knowing exactly what I need to hear. “You’re so fucking strong, and I’m so damn proud of you.” He buries his nose against my neck to breathe me in, and I feel a shudder go through him, emotion vibrating down the bond.
After all of the fighting, all of the fear, my mind is catching up with my healing body, and my wolf and I both seem to let out a shaky sigh at just how close that was. Somehow, we survived. I sit for a moment, safe in Tyran’s arms, his strength and his scent surrounding me, anchoring me, fortifying me for the battle that I know is coming.
“Presley?” I ask, her name an aching question in my heart and on my lips.
I know the answer before he speaks. I can feel it in the tensing of his muscles, the pulse of anger down the bond. “They took her.”
Despite my healing and fragile state, I want to rage, to rip into something, to howl until the pain that statement causes me subsides. I breathe through the need for vengeance, bottling it up so I can release it later. My chest tightens with the drive to do something to make them pay, and I look at Tyran and see and feel that he’s experiencing that same overwhelming force.
“What’s the plan?” I ask, knowing that there has to be one in that beautiful and ruthless head of his just waiting to be executed.
His eyes gleam mercilessly, but his hold around me tightens, as if he’s afraid to let me go. “Britton’s been tracking them. He stayed shifted, but he lost them a few times, took him a while to track them back to their territory. He was just able to get away to call me to let me know where they have her. He can’t get to her alone. There are dozens of betas surrounding the place and even more patrolling.”
Thoughts race through my mind of all the things they could be doing to her right now...of all the things they wanted to do to me. My stomach roils, and my skin heats with fury. “We have to get her out.”
Tyran nods in agreement. “We’re leaving in an hour.”
I’m pushing out of his hold and getting to my feet in an instant. “Vicious,” he sighs. “You aren’t going.”
“The fuck I’m not,” I snap back, walking—albeit tenderly—toward the dresser to get clothes.
Tyran opens his mouth to argue, but a knock sounds at the door. He pushes out of the bed and stalks over to it, exchanging some low words before he shuts it again, and then the smell of food fills the air, making my stomach growl longingly.
I manage to slip on some pants and socks, but when I try to lift a shirt over my head, my stomach screams in protest. “Fuck.”
Large hands come around me, and I turn to face Tyran as he helps me thread my head through the neck of the shirt and then slips my arms through the sleeves. He does up the laces at the front gently, his worried brown gaze surveying every inch of me as though he’s reassuring himself that I’m okay and that what he’s doing isn’t hurting me.
“Eat,” he says when he’s done, gesturing toward the wooden tray he’s placed on the bed.
I give him a look but walk over and sit on the edge of the bed, trying to hide the sigh of relief from my aching wound. The food is barely cooked meat, both warm and tender, that practically melts in my mouth, and a huge helping of mashed potatoes. I shovel it down a bit faster than I can taste, and all the while, Tyran leans against the wall next to me with his arms crossed in front of his chest and an unreadable look on his face.
After I gulp down the cup of water, I wipe my mouth, already feeling better, stronger. I look over at him, silence stretching between us.
“I’m going,” I finally say.
“No.”
I get to my feet, proud of myself when I suppress the grimace, but Tyran cocks a brow. “You think I’m going to let my mate go into a dangerous situation when sheliterallyjust got up from her deathbed?” he demands.
“Okay, firstly, it was more like my healing bed, because I didn’t die, Ihealed. Secondly, you’re not going toletme do anything. Mate or not, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want. I’m the reason that Presley was taken in the first place. So yeah, I’m going, and it’s going to be fine.”
“How?” he shouts, his sudden raised voice making me jump a little as I come to a stop in front of him. His face looks ragged, his expression crazed with worry. “How the hell can you say it’s all going to be fine when you almost just fuckingdied, Seneca?”
I think he expects me to shout right back at him, but instead, my face softens. Because beneath the shouted anger, that fear I felt before I blacked out is still there, tormenting him. We haven’t known each other for long in human standards, but we’re wolves, and that connection is implicit.
My hands come up to lie against his chest, my palms feeling the race of his heartbeat. “I know it’s all going to be okay, becauseyou’llbe with me,” I tell him softly with an underlying edge of conviction. “I may be a little slow on the uptake sometimes,” I confess, “but it hasn’t taken me long to understand that when you’re with me, everything is always exactly as it should be. I trust you.”
A ragged breath comes out of him, and then he drops his forehead to mine. I feel all of the potent worry and suffocating fear that’s been tightening around him since the moment he found out Twin Rivers wolves snuck onto his territory.
