by Sadie Moss
No. My men weren’t supposed to be out here. I couldn’t let them yell like that. They’d bring the Strand hunters down on us all.
“Run, Noah…” I choked out. “Run.”
“Scrubs!”
The voice was louder, more insistent.
Why wouldn’t they listen? They needed to get away. Nils was here. He’d kill them, right after he killed me. I squeezed my eyes shut, anticipating the sting of his knife as it pierced my skin.
“Scrubs! Jesus fuck. I found her!”
This time, the voice was West’s, thick with worry.
Hands brushed my skin, and my eyes flew open. I lashed out, trying to fight off Nils with the last of my strength, and pain shot down my arm when I moved. My feet kicked feebly, but the bear trap around my ankle had disappeared. It wasn’t real. It never had been.
My feverish mind reeled, no longer sure what was a dream and what was reality. But the fingertips touching my face were gentle, and the musky scent that hit my nostrils was achingly familiar.
“Alexis. It’s me,” West whispered.
It was dark—that much of my dream had been true, at least—but I didn’t need much light to see his inky eyes glinting like stars.
“West…”
I wanted to reach for him, but now that consciousness had found me again, so had the pain. My body hurt everywhere, and I was so weak I could hardly move. So I just stared up at him, trying to absorb every detail of his face in the heavy shadows, trying to convince myself this was actually real.
His hands didn’t leave my face, but he glanced up, peering through the woods.
“She’s here!” he called in a low voice. “And she’s… she’s hurt.”
Three other figures burst through the trees, and even as I struggled not to pass out again, my body reacted to their presence. It felt like I’d been living with a ten-ton weight on my chest, and as soon as I saw the four shifter men, it lifted, allowing me to draw a full breath for the first time since I’d woken up in that awful mockery of an ambulance.
“Oh fuck! Alexis!” Jackson threw himself to his knees on the ground beside me, his eyes wide and horrified as he took in my body. “What the fuck happened?”
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. The little burst of energy I’d gotten was fading already, and my eyes rolled back in my head again.
“The crash. She must’ve been in the thing when it rolled,” Noah murmured, smoothing a hand over my hair. Even that hurt, but I didn’t want him to stop.
“We need to get her out of here. She needs help.”
West’s comforting hands left my face, and then arms were sliding under my shoulders and knees, lifting me from the ground. I cried out, the pain rousing me once more, and West’s breath hitched as he clutched me to his chest. I buried my face in the soft fabric of his shirt, trying to lose myself in the feel of him, the scent of him.
I was vaguely aware that I must look like a horror show—naked and covered in dried blood, purple bruises, and dirt—but I didn’t care. West’s skin against my skin as he carried me in his arms was the best thing I’d ever felt.
Although he tried to be gentle, every footstep he took jarred my body, sending pulses of pain throbbing through me. No one spoke as we made our way through the woods, or if they did, I was too out of it to hear what they said.
Some time later, we finally stopped. A door opened, and I was placed gently in the back of a car. Someone rested a blanket over me, and then a large body slid into the seat near my head, lifting it slowly so that my cheek rested on a warm, hard thigh. Someone else climbed in near my feet, and I shivered as the vivid memory of a bear trap snapping around my ankle washed over me.
That wasn’t real. It was just a dream.
The thought was hardly comforting. I kept expecting to wake up from this dream any minute, to realize I was still alone in the woods, naked and exposed, dying slowly with no one to help me.
“Please,” I whispered, the sound raw and choked. “Don’t leave me.”
“Fucking never.” Rhys’s voice came from above me, and I felt his fingertips ghost over my cheek. “Never.”
“We need to get her looked at, man. She’s banged the fuck up,” Jackson said, his voice tight. He was the one sitting near my feet. “I think she’s been shot too.”
“Goddamn it.” West slammed the driver’s side door, and the car roared to life with a rumble. “We can’t go to a hospital. We still have the IDs Carl made us, but I don’t trust anywhere Strand might be able to track us down. It’s a miracle we got to her before they did.”
“Then where are we supposed to go?” Jackson demanded.
“Carl.” Rhys spoke again, his voice rough. “He offered to help before. We need that help now. And he won’t give us up; you know he won’t.”
“Yeah. Fuck, we’re at least a couple hours away. Do you think she can make it?” Jackson’s hands tightened on my ankles, and I shifted uncomfortably. He hissed a breath and immediately loosened his grip.
“Noah, pass us the first aid kit,” Rhys said. “We’ll do what we can.”
There was some shuffling, and then Rhys leaned forward to take whatever Noah had handed back. They lifted the blanket away from my abdomen, and strong fingers cleaned the area around my wound. A bandage was pressed over it, wrapped so tight it made me gasp with pain, then Rhys’s large hand came to rest over the whole thing, keeping pressure on it.
He leaned over, whispering into my ear, his voice invading the space where my mind drifted, somewhere between consciousness and sleep. “Hang on, Alexis. Please, fucking hang on. We just found you again. We can’t lose you now.”
Those words drifted around and around in my brain like tumbleweeds in a desert, causing a sharp sting in my heart that soothed as much as it hurt.
They had found me. Just like I knew they would.
Like they always would.
Because I was theirs. And they were mine.
Chapter Five
Warmth cradled me. A little cocoon made of soft cushions and smooth fabric. When I turned my head, the scent of lavender hit my nostrils.
I blinked slowly, squinting my eyes against the dim sunlight that penetrated the blinds on the windows. I was in a bed. A large, plush bed in a simple but tastefully decorated room. A few eclectic pieces of art hung on the walls, which were painted a soft cream, and a large dresser and closet took up one wall.
Where was I? This looked way too homey to be anywhere at Strand. Even the room I’d occupied for ten years in the Austin complex had maintained a sort of bland sterility that I’d never been able to erase, no matter how many personal touches I put on the place. But this place felt pleasantly lived in.
Why was I here? I dug through my memories, searching for clues.
The guys had found me. They’d carried me out of the woods, naked and covered in blood, and put me in a car, their bodies and voices tense with worry. I remembered some hushed conversation about where to go, but the only name I could recall being said was Carl’s—and somehow, I didn’t imagine he lived in a place as cozy as this.
Gathering my strength, I tried to sit up, noticing only when I did that I had an IV hooked to my left arm. Bandages wound around my bicep, covering the gashes the mountain lion had made. My right arm was in a cast, resting above the fluffy blanket that covered me. Someone had scrubbed the blood off my skin and dressed me in what looked like a hospital gown.
The door opened, and a woman walked in, eyes on her cell phone as she tapped out a message. When she looked up and found me staring at her, she paused. Then she quickly typed in another message on her phone before slipping it back in her pocket.
“You’re awake,” she said quietly, a sweet smile tilting her lips. She had wavy honey-blonde hair that fell past her shoulders, and the most open and honest face I’d ever seen.
I instantly wanted to like her, which also instantly made me wary. My track record for trusting the right people was only about fifty-fifty.
“Where am I?”
I rasped, my voice scratchy as sandpaper. “Who are you?”
She crossed over to the bed, checking on the bag that hung nearby, feeding clear liquid into my IV. Then she sat on the edge of the mattress, gazing down at me with soft blue-green eyes.
“I’m Molly. I’m Carl’s girlfriend.”
My brows drew together. This wholesome-looking woman was dating the pawn shop owner with the cunning eyes and slicked back hair? The one who dealt in fake IDs and stolen cars and who knew what other kinds of illegal activities?
As if reading my thoughts, Molly chuckled softly. “Hey, we can’t help who we fall in love with. The four horsemen brought you here. I’m a nurse, and I’ve helped out some of Carl’s friends in the past when they’ve gotten into scrapes and couldn’t go to the hospital. So the guys asked if I could take care of you.”
Her use of the nickname “four horsemen” made me relax slightly. I remembered Carl addressing them by that monicker when we’d visited his pawn shop the first time. And if the guys knew and trusted her, that meant I could too.
“Thank you,” I croaked. “Where are they?”
“They’re with Carl. I texted him to let him know you’re awake, so they should be back soon. In the meantime, how are you feeling?”
I paused, taking an internal reading. My arm throbbed gently, but the pain was like an almost-forgotten afterthought. I could feel a large lump on the back of my head, and my side ached every time I moved. But it was nothing compared to the agony I’d gone through in the ambulance. My memory of those events—including my shift—was fuzzy, but the one thing I remembered clear as day was how much it had fucking hurt.
“Good. I feel good.” I nodded slowly, attempting again to sit up.
Molly chuckled, pressing me back down easily with one hand. “You’re tough. I can see why they like you. But you don’t have to put on a brave face for me. When they brought you in, you were…” She trailed off, a look of concern darkening her light eyes. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, Alexis, but based on your injuries, it wasn’t anything good. You fractured your radius and ulna, got a pretty bad concussion and several massive hematomas, and it’s a miracle you didn’t bleed out from the bullet you took in your side. You’re going to be in recovery for a while, and you need to let me know how you feel. The truth.”
“It hurts,” I admitted, smiling in spite of myself. I liked this woman. She wasn’t anything like the Strand doctors. “But it really is okay.”
“All right. Well, if it gets—”
Before she could finish that sentence, the door burst open. There was a human log jam as Noah, Rhys, West, and Jackson all tried to enter the room at once. They finally all fell through the doorway, regaining their footing as they stopped to stare at me.
My heart swelled in my chest as I took them all in, and Molly glanced from them to me and back, a curious expression crossing her face. Then she rose from the bed.
“I’ll… leave you all alone.” She slipped past them, turning back at the door to look at me. “Call me if you need anything.”
The door clicked shut behind her, but I barely noticed the sound. All my attention was focused on the four shifter men who stood before me, so different, and yet so perfectly matched. They complemented each other so well, and each of them complemented me, their strengths bringing out strengths in me I hadn’t even known I had.
Noah stepped forward first. His blond hair was especially spiky and tousled, as if he’d been running his fingers through it repeatedly, and his beautiful face looked worn and drawn. The smile I loved so much was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey, Scrubs.”
He bent over the bed and pressed a kiss to my forehead, letting the warmth of his lips linger on my skin for several seconds, as if he couldn’t bear to pull away. When he finally drew back and looked down at me, I swore I could see the wolf that lived inside him behind his gray-blue eyes. My own wolf roused in response, and my nostrils flared as I breathed in his scent like I needed it to live.
Mine.
The word resounded in my head as I felt a sharp tug in my heart, and I couldn’t tell if it came from my wolf or me. I wasn’t sure it mattered. The only thing I knew was that it was the absolute truth, a fact so pure and basic there could be no doubting it.
I leaned up toward him just as he caught my face in his hands, staring into my eyes in shock. His full lips parted, and he let out a sharp breath. He’d felt it too. Whatever had just passed between us hadn’t been one-sided.
“Holy fuck!” Jackson blurted, stepping forward. His head whipped back and forth between Noah and me, and I tore my gaze from Noah’s mesmerizing, wide eyes to look up at him. “Did you two just—?”
Mine.
The same tug pulled on my heart, drawing me toward the dark-haired, wickedly handsome man. Jackson broke off, his jaw dropping open in an almost comical way. He snapped it shut, and his wide amber eyes searched my face as if trying to read something hidden there. He blinked.
“Ho-ly fuck…”
His voice was deeper and warmer this time, full of something that sent a shiver racing down my spine. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he shook his head in amazement.
Inside me, my wolf whimpered restlessly, happy but not yet satisfied. Noah sat back as Jackson drifted closer to the bed, the two of them staring at me in awed wonder.
My heart hammered in my chest as I shifted my gaze to Rhys, already sure what I would feel when I looked at him. His ice-blue eyes simmered with emotion as he stared at me intensely, his wolf hovering just beneath the surface of his skin. His shoulder-length black curls framed his face, making him look rugged and wild.
My she-wolf practically lunged toward him, and I jerked slightly on the bed, the word ripped from my lips this time.
“Mine.”
It wasn’t a question or a request.
It was a claim.
Given my past history with Rhys, I half expected him to sneer and turn away. Not that my wolf cared. She wasn’t interested in silly little details like whether Rhys and I liked each other or not, whether the moody shifter sometimes drove me so crazy I wanted to smack him upside the head, or whether I’d ever get over my shame at his rejection in the woods. This was bigger than that—bigger than any human emotions or squabbles. It was a bond that couldn’t be broken, couldn’t be denied.
But to my surprise, Rhys’s face softened, something like relief passing over his features. He stepped forward to rest his hand on the blanket covering my legs, his bright blue gaze locked on my face.
“Yours, Lexi.”
A rush of emotion made my lips quiver as I finally turned toward West. His face was serious, his shoulders tense, and he watched me as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.
The familiar feeling rose up inside me again, a need almost too deep to put into words as something in me called out to something in him.
Mine.
With that, the wild, dangerous wolf that lived inside me laid her last claim, whuffing in satisfaction as she settled back contentedly.
I stared into West’s dark eyes, trying to gauge his response. I felt the tug of the bond pulling me toward him, like it would never truly be satisfied until we somehow became one. I wasn’t surprised—I had known he would be my last. I’d felt the connection between us in the kiss we’d shared after we reached the Lost Pack, before everything went to hell. I had claimed him just as much as my wolf had, had wanted him just as much.
“You too, West,” I whispered. “I need you too.”
West shifted uncomfortably, and although heat flashed in his eyes, he fisted his hands by his sides, clearly fighting against it. His dark skin flushed slightly, and he tugged his full lower lip between his teeth.
“I’ll just… go check in with Molly. Make sure she’s got everything under control.”
He ducked his head, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck as he moved toward the door. When he reached it, he turned halfway back, glancing at me over his sh
oulder. I saw the same heat flare again in his inky irises, and a deep longing too. For a moment, his hand came off the door handle, and I thought he might stride over and crawl right up onto the bed beside me.
Then he blinked, swallowed hard, and left.
The door closed behind him, leaving a thick silence hanging in the room. My wolf twitched with anxious irritation as soon as he was gone, and I felt suddenly like an essential piece of myself was missing.
“Holy fuuuuuuck!” Jackson tipped his head back, letting out the last word like a howl. He looked back down, his eyes darting between the two remaining men and me as a wide, shocked grin split his face. “What. The. Fuck. Just. Happened?”
“I think you know what happened,” Rhys growled, his gaze still burning into me with the intensity of blue flame. “Scrubs here just claimed each of us as her mates. And if I’m not mistaken, each of us claimed her back.”
Chapter Six
A mate bond.
That’s what they called it.
I still wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, what it entailed, or why my wolf had chosen four men to be my mates. According to the guys, that wasn’t the norm among shifters—at least, as far as they knew. But then, almost nothing seemed to be normal about me. Not my upbringing, not the “elite facility” Strand had kept me in, not the size and power of my wolf. I had been a special experiment, something new for the doctors to test and analyze.
It was strange. I’d grown so close to the men over the last several weeks, falling for each of them in their own right, growing to care about them because of who they were.
But the mate bond intensified all of that, made feelings I’d been unsure of before as strong and clear as day. It was different than lust, different than love even. It was like they’d become a part of me, like a bit of my soul existed inside each of them, and I felt a constant tug to reconnect with those pieces of myself.
My wolf seemed utterly content with the whole situation, but as I lay awake that night, staring up at the ceiling, I wasn’t sure I felt the same. It was all so much, so intense. I’d never even been on a date with any of these guys—or any date at all, really—and now they were my mates. I felt like we’d blown past several milestones I’d spent my whole life looking forward to.