Page 53 of Wild

Automatically, I ducked down but glanced up, watched the wood as it fell. A tree branch came with it. There was a huge cottonwood behind the barn, and it must’ve been struck by lightning.

On instinct, I ran and tackled Marina to the floor, covering her body with my own, my arms cradled around her head to keep anything from hitting it. All around screams, growls and snarls rang over the crashing wood and pelting rain as pack members’ wolves sprang to the surface to help them survive.

It was only through years of military training I suppressed my own urge to shift. It helped that I had Marina safely beneath me. If I hadn’t, my wolf would’ve gone nuts to save her.

“No!” a woman screamed. The terror in her voice made me jerk my head up. She was throwing slats of wood away with shifter strength. “Liam?”

A child. Fuck, a kid was under there.

I scrambled up to help her. Boyd and Rob were right there, too, throwing the pieces of wood away until we uncovered the fallen boy, a shifter child no more than ten years old.

“Don’t move him!” Audrey yelled, pushing her way through and dropping to her knees beside him, forgetting she was wearing her pretty wedding dress. Rain poured through the destroyed roof. “His neck may be broken.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll heal,” Boyd said to her in a low voice. He squatted beside her, dripping wet. “It would heal faster if he was old enough to shift, though.”

Audrey knelt beside the boy, carefully checking his pulse without moving him. “He’s alive.” She looked to the boy’s mother and nodded in reassurance.

“Shift.” Rob’s voice rang out with alpha command. Every shifter in that barn felt it, and the familiar internal response.

Some of the younger wolves—teens or more submissive pack members, actually shifted, even though Rob wasn’t talking to them. Whimpers sounded over the rain as clothing ripped and shredded and the animals were released.

Marina gasped, grabbing my hand and stepping closer to me. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her snugly against my side.

“He doesn’t shift yet,” the boy’s mother cried.

“Shift,” Rob moved to stand directly over the boy, blocking some of the rain and commanded again.

“He can’t.” The boy’s mother wept. “Don’t you think he would’ve if he could?” She appealed to Audrey. “Is there anything you can do for him, Doctor?”

Marina trembled at my side, her slender body shaking with the trauma of everything she’d seen.

Fuck. She saw. She knew. There would be no coaxing her to the truth. It had hit her on the head like a piece of falling roof. I hadn’t wanted her to find out this way. Fuck.

“Shift, Liam!” Rob commanded again. Marina looked up at me in confusion, but I didn’t say anything. This time he infused so much command it exploded through the barn. My body shuddered in response. More pack members shifted, whimpering and tucking their tails.“Shift now.”

It worked.

The boy’s body moved of its own accord, joints snapping and rearranging, clothing tearing until he lay on his side, a panting young wolf.

Audrey stroked her hands down the wolf’s spine, like she was checking for breaks. There had been no bleeding when he was in boy form, so I had to assume he’d been hit on the head from falling debris.

“Now isn’t that a sight? Liam’s got black fur, Mama,” Boyd said calmly, looking up at the boy’s mom from where he knelt beside Audrey. “Give him a little bit. He’ll be okay now.” While he wasn’t a doctor, he assured the weeping mother. “I snapped my neck more than a few times riding bulls and pulled through just fine.”

“Oh, thank you,” the mother exclaimed, dropping down on the other side of her shifted son. Clarinda, I think her name was. I remembered her from high school.

Rob took charge. “Everybody out of the barn. Clearly, it’s not safe. If you can get home, go on. If not, we’ll put you up in the bunkhouse for the night. Johnny, Levi, pick up Liam and carry him to a bunk so he can recover.”

Everyone moved at once, Johnny and Levi doing as told, Clarinda following them out into the rain. Audrey and Boyd stood. He set his hands on her shoulders as he spoke to her. She nodded and then was pulled into his arms.

Boyd looked to Rob. “If you don’t need us, we’re leaving. I want to get to the cabin before that small stream between here and there rises. The last place I want to be on my wedding night is with you guys.”

“What if someone else is hurt?” Audrey asked.

Boyd tipped her chin up, wiped the rain from her face. “Everyone’s fine. You and the baby are on my watch. It’s time to get you home. The only one who can’t shift and heal is Marina.” They looked our way. “And I’m sure Colton will take good care of her.”

I squeezed Marina close, but I didn’t have to say a word. There was no fucking way anything was going to happen to my mate. I’d had a moment of sheer terror when she wasn’t by my side when the roof collapsed. It only confirmed my plans. I was staying. She was it. I just had to wait it out. Hell, maybe I’d even go to LA to be with her. Whatever the plan was, she was in it. Front and center.

Audrey’s glasses were speckled with water, and her face was marred with concern. She didn’t care that her dress was wet and muddy or that her hair was dripping wet or that the party was ruined. She was thinking about others like a true member of the pack.