21
Aella
“Grab his legs, Seraphim. Jamie, keep that pressure firm on his abdomen, you hear me? Don’t let up.” Tara’s voice was a fog in my brain, distant, hollow. “Breathe, Aella. Just breathe. He’s going to make it.”
We were moving as a unit, back the way we’d come, toward the house where the rogue attacked that poor kid. It seemed so far away now. I’d run so fast, so far. I was so stupid. And Wilder... Oh God, Wilder was bleeding out. He was dying right in front of me.
“He... he saved me. She would have killed me if he hadn’t come,” I didn’t sound anything like myself. My voice was a shell, empty, muted.
“I know,” Tara said softly.
Night was falling, which worked in our favor as we broke into the home of the last attack victim. Blood dripped on the tile floors as we hauled Wilder’s unconscious body through the kitchen, into the living room, and finally put him down on the long sofa.
“Jamie, get as many towels as you can find. Seraphim, go get me a bowl of water so I can clean the wound. I’m going to find a medical kit.”
My team dispersed throughout the house, on a mission to save my mate while I sat there, uselessly staring at him. He was white as a freshly bleached sheet. There was no color left in his lips and his shirt was clotting with blood. He’d lost so much already. Too much.
I pressed my hands into the wound and a small sob broke through my lips as blood seeped up through my fingers.
“Don’t die,” I whispered. “Please, please, don’t die on me you stupid, stubborn, ill-tempered pain in the ass.”
The sound of his breathing was painfully shallow to my ears. It unnerved me that this could really be it. I’d found and lost him within a blink. Was fate so cruel?
Sure, I never wanted a mate. I never wanted to settle down or rely on someone else. I thought it would make me weak. I thought that wanting him would muddy the lines of my lifestyle. But I never wanted this. Wilder laying in my arms, helpless and dying. It killed me to see him this way.
My wolf thrashed and howled in my head, but there was nothing I could do now. Not unless...
I sucked in a jagged breath as the idea struck. Wilder was a very strong lycan. He sustained a pretty severe injury, but his body should be healing itself by now and that just wasn’t happening. But he was a product of the rogue... The rogue I was truly beginning to believe was part lycan, part vampire.
My stomach soured at the thought of what I was about to do, but I had little choice. I couldn’t watch him die and even though I was just going off of a hunch, I had to give it a shot.
With a small growl, I let my wolf take an inch until I felt the sharp press of canines in my mouth. I brought my wrist up to my lips and only hesitated for a second before biting down hard.
Blood pooled up and trickled down my arm. I’d made a deep enough bite that it wouldn’t close up immediately.
I gasped when Wilder shifted beneath me. He was still unconscious. His eyes were still closed. But there was a frown marring his colorless lips. He looked as if he were in the middle of a horrible dream.
My hand shook as I lowered my wrist to his mouth.
“What are you doing?” Jamie asked behind me.
If it weren’t for my training, I would have jumped ten feet in the air.
“Trying something,” I answered breathlessly.
She eyeballed me as I let my wrist meet his lips. Blood trickled across his mouth and for a full minute, nothing happened. I was just starting to pull back, feeling like a useless idiot, when a large, powerful hand grabbed onto my wrist and held it still.
My eyes shot to Wilder’s face. He sucked at my wrist hard, though I couldn’t feel any fangs. His eyes were still firmly closed, but a low, rumbling noise started up in his chest.
“Holy shit,” Tara dropped the first aid kit to the floor as she entered the room. “He’s...”
“A hybrid,” Jamie answered, as if she’d suspected as much all along. “Part wolf, part vampire. He needs to feed to heal. Look, the wound is already closing.”
Relief swallowed me whole as I watched the huge claw punctures gradually close up. He was healing. I was healing him.
“Ouch!” I yelped as a sharp pain tore into my wrist. He bit me!
Wilder’s eyes flew open, meeting mine, and I sucked in a breath. They were silver rimmed in red. His breath quickened as he drank, and a feral growl shook the entire couch.
“Wilder, you have to let her go. You’re hurting her,” Tara said.
I wanted to protest that he wasn’t really hurting me. The initial bite was a bit shocking, yeah, but he needed this. He was recovering. But then I started to tilt on the couch. My head became too heavy for my shoulders as I swayed and landed on the floor.
He followed me, never letting go. His big body covered mine until there was nothing but his warmth, this annoying ringing in my ears, and the vague sensation of being swept under a black wave.
22
Ryn
The door to my cell opened with a screech of metal. I blinked up at the figure standing there, disoriented. I must have fallen asleep at some point. Or maybe I was having a nightmare because that figure looked a whole lot like Loraine.
“Rise and shine, bitch.” Yup. That was definitely Loraine.
I tried sitting up, but I barely had the chance before she grabbed my wrist and yanked me forward. My body dragged behind her as she pulled me out of the room and into a dimly lit hall. There were rows of doors on each side. Damp, cold stone covered every surface. It was a legitimate dungeon.
“Time to meet your new roommate,” she sneered as she tossed me into another room.
The back of my skull bit into the concrete and air hissed through my teeth at the barking pain.
Loraine's hand bunched in the fabric of my shirt, a wicked smile on her cruel face. She'd been dreaming about this moment since I stepped foot into the clave - I was sure of it.
"How does it feel?" she sneered. "To have no one to come to your rescue? Poor, defenseless little Ryn. Did you seriously think that you could take my position in the clave? Did you think you were anywhere near strong enough?" Loraine leaned in, her breath brushing across my lips. "You are nothing without him."
Try as I might to deflect the power of her words, I couldn't. She was right. Without Luke, I was no Queen. I was still just a human girl stuck in an immortal body. I'd been tricked by my sorry excuse for an ex-boyfriend again. And if I couldn't even get myself out of trouble, then how was I supposed to save the entire supernatural world?
Time after time after time I'd been bested. Not for the first time, I felt sorry for Luke that he'd ever been fated to mate with me. I would be the death of him.
Loraine leaned back, a slow smile slithering across her face. As she let me go, I slid down the wall, crumbling at her feet. The fact that I couldn't feel my legs should have bothered me more.
"There it is. You finally get it." She raised one heeled foot and pushed my shoulder back against the wall. "You're right where you belong. Groveling at my feet."
I wanted to punch her in her overwhelmingly pretty Barbie-doll face, but they'd beaten the fight right out of me. I could barely hold my head up as it was.
"Are you... going to kill me?" I swallowed back the bile in my throat. Not only was I nowhere near ready to meet my maker, but Luke... poor Luke.
Loraine threw her head back and laughed, a cackling sound that set my nerves on edge. "Did you hear that?" She addressed a dark corner of the room.
A chain rattled in the shadows, and the hairs on my arms started to rise when I realized that we weren't actually alone.
Squinting, I peered into the darkness and held my breath.
"No," Loraine stole my attention. "I'm going to make you bleed, Ryn. Blood seems to incense our little monster. And when your voice is hoarse from screaming, and your body is broken, we will wait for that mate of yours to come for you, and then I'll feed you to my dog and make him watch."
The
chain jingled again, and then a huge white animal lunged toward us both. Teeth snapped just out of reach of Loraine's arm. The roaring growl that echoed off the stone walls was loud enough to make my bones rattle.
I stared into the silver eyes of a seething wolf. Not normal lycan eyes at all… "Our little monster," Loraine had called her. The monster from the dungeons...
This was the one Aella was after. I was sure of it.
Loraine laughed again, sounding more and more like a madwoman. "This is going to be so much fun."
Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulled out a sharp, glinting knife. My stomach twisted until I thought I might puke.
She crouched in front of me, her heels scraping against the stone, and pressed the blade to the exposed skin just beneath my collar bone. I squeezed my lips together, sweat building on my brow. My heart pounded like a jackhammer.
I didn’t want to give Loraine the satisfaction of hearing me scream, but at the first burning slice of my skin, I lost that battle. She carved and carved in a never-ending pattern, and when I stopped screaming, my head lulling to the side, she carved deeper to wake me up again. It wasn’t until my clothes were torn and she’d made her way down my arm that I could finally tell what pattern she was engraving over and over again.
Bile crawled up my throat. It wasn’t a pattern, but a word – endlessly looped.
Queen. Queen. Queen.
23
Aella
Waking up was slow and painful. My entire body felt like liquid. I’d never been so weak in my life.
“What was she thinking? She could have died!” Seraphim’s voice cut through my mental fog. “She knows that vampire venom is lethal to us. If he’d injected her with even an ounce!”
“Enough!” Tara growled. “She knew the risk and she took it for her mate. Any of us would have done the same. We avoided tragedy today. Let’s count our blessings.”
I was laying on something endlessly soft and fluffy and it took me too long to realize that it was a bed. The cool sheets slid over my skin as I wiggle my fingers, then my toes.
“Aella?” Jamie’s small voice said from above me.
I blinked my eyes open and let the black spots in my vision settle. All three of my pack mates were standing over me, staring down with worried expressions.
“How are you feeling?” Tara asked.
“Hungry,” I croaked. My mouth was incredibly dry.
That wiped the fear from their faces.
“I’ll go get you something to eat. Be right back,” Jamie said just as she slipped out of the door.
I was still trying to get my bearings. The bed that I was in was covered in white sheets and an expensive-looking downy comforter.
My eyes scanned each wall, assessing, trying to understand where in the world I was and what exactly had happened to make my group hover like mother hens.
“Are we in a hotel?”
Seraphim sucked in his lips. That was his tell whenever he did something that he knew I wouldn’t like.
“You needed to rest, and we couldn’t stay in that family’s home any longer. We didn’t have many options.”
That family’s home...
Just like that, my mind flooded with the events that put me in this state. The rogue... Wilder dying... Me giving him my blood.
I sat up so fast the room started to spin.
“Woah!” Tara held me back from getting all the way out of bed. “You’re not back to one hundred percent yet. Take it easy.”
“Where’s Wilder?” I demanded. I threw the covers off and moved to the edge of the bed.
“Don’t get up yet, you’ve lost a lot of blood,” Seraphim said. He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes tight. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Aella Crowe. We almost lost you twice in one day. What were you thinking going after the rogue alone like that?”
My gut twisted, guilt gnawing at me. He was right. I’d been a huge idiot to go after the rogue without backup. I’d let all that anger inside me take control. Because of me, Wilder had nearly died. Because of me, William and Loraine had the rogue again.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I thought that I could handle it. I underestimated her.”
Tara rolled her eyes. “You think?”
“I’ve never seen anything like her before. She was nearly feral. There was no control there.”
“Did she say anything? Give any clues where she was running to?”
My eyes widened. “Not running to. Running from. The only thing she said was, ‘I’m not going back.’ She was running from the clave.”
Seraphim and Tara exchanged a glance.
“There were vampires there. We smelled them just after you took off. William was probably far from pleased when his little science experiment went missing.”
I nodded. “I saw them take her.”
Dread filled me. I’d had one chance to put the girl down and I’d practically handed her over to the clave. They would use her in the war.
Jamie slipped into the room with a bag full of what smelled like Chinese takeout and started to hand out boxes and silverware.
“We have to get her back,” I said, no longer feeling as hungry.
Tara shook her head. “No can do. We’ve been summoned back to the pack lands. Alpha’s orders.”
My eyes snapped up. “You called my mom?”
Seraphim threw his arms up. “What were we supposed to do, Aella? We didn’t know if you would even wake up after Wilder bit you. You could have died right here in this damned hotel bed. Do you know how powerless I felt – watching you minute by minute to make sure you were still breathing?”
My breath caught in my throat. “Ser…”
“It’s fine,” he snapped. With three long strides, he was at the door yanking it open. “I’m glad you’re okay.” And then he slammed the door shut behind him without a glance back at me.
I put the box of Chinese down and scraped my palm against my face. The couch dipped beside me and Tara’s warm arm looped around my shoulder. “He’s just afraid, is all. He’ll be alright.”
“Where is he going?”
“Probably to find Wilder. He wasn’t too kind to him after he bit you.”
I sighed and laid my head on Tara’s shoulder. My poor friends. Poor Wilder, who hadn’t done anything wrong.
This was all my fault.
24
Aella
Tara and Jamie had just left to hunt down a rental car large enough for all of us when Seraphim came back. He barged through the door, somehow looking even angrier than when he left.
“Where’s Wilder?” I immediately asked. And maybe I should’ve been ashamed that those were the first words out of my mouth instead of humble apologies, but I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t seen his face since it was pale, his eyes rimmed with silver.
Seraphim barely looked at me. “He’s holed-up in a motel across town. He’s not coming with us.”
My stomach bottomed out. Not coming with us? What was that supposed to mean?
“I don’t understand.”
My friend’s eyes softened just a touch when he saw the expression on my face. “He refuses to come.”
Like hell.
I stood on wobbly legs and brushed by him as I headed for the door, but he caught my arm before I could reach it.
“Maybe this is for the best,” he said tentatively. “He’s a danger to the pack.”
I searched his eyes, hoping that he was somehow joking with me. Wilder may be different, but he belonged with us. He belonged with me.
“That danger saved my life. He risked himself for me.”
“That doesn’t make him family.”
I tried to yank my arm out of his grip, but I didn’t have the strength.
“He’s my mate, Ser,” I argued.
He let me go. “So, you would choose him over us? You would choose a bond you never even wanted? I never would have expected that from you.”
The judgment in his voice hurt, but no
t nearly as bad as the bitter sting of his words.
I glared at him as I wrenched the door open. “I never would have expected you to make me choose.”
The motel was beyond shitty. As in doors barely hanging onto hinges shitty.
There were three cars in the whole lot, and I’d guess that at least two of them belonged to the staff. It didn’t matter if there were a hundred people staying here though. My nose told me exactly where Wilder was.
With sweat clinging to my brow, I took a deep breath to center myself before I faced him. The walk across town had been long, and I felt as if my legs might give out on me any time now.
Heart in my throat, I rapt my fist against the rusty door marked number nine and waited. Not a sound came from inside, but I knew without a doubt that he was in there. He was hiding from me…
A large part of me wilted. Maybe he didn’t care to see me. Maybe after he bit me – after he tasted blood for the first time – something changed.
“I know you’re in there,” I sighed.
After a full minute of waiting, the bed creaked, and soft footsteps approached the door. The room inside was dark, curtains drawn, no light on inside. But the sun reflected off of Wilder’s white skin, making him squint before he stepped back, leaving the door open for me.
Well, hello to you too.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the gloom before I found a lamp and flicked it on.
Ugh. The inside of the room was just as bad as the outside forewarned. For a moment, I even considered turning the light right back off.
Wilder sat on the edge of the bed with his head bowed and his eyes downcast. To my relief, he looked perfectly normal again. No sign of the bloody mess he’d been before.
I’d come here to convince him to come home. I’d come to check on him and make sure he was okay. The last thing I expected was the way I would react now that he was right here in front of me – alive and well.
Marked By A Rogue: The Rogue Hybrid Book Three Page 11