Lost Wolf (A New Dawn Novel Book 4)

by Rachel M Raithby

  “W-What happened?” Regan stammered as she sat. Her heart pounded through her skull, her gaze unable to look away from Tyler’s too still form.

  “You passed out about halfway through. Karen said you gave all you had to keep Tyler here.”

  Please let it have been enough. “Is he… is he going to be okay? Is… Is he alive?”

  Terrified of Katalina’s answer, Regan almost didn’t want to hear it. Her fear was like a living thing inside of her. Icy cold as it crawled through her veins, freezing her mind, her rational thoughts. Please, I can’t live without him.

  “He should make a full recovery.” Relief flooded her, thawing her mind into living once more. “The muscle damage was severe. Karen thinks it might be months of physical therapy, even with his shifter healing. The knife cut deepest into his shoulder. He’ll struggle to use his left arm for a while.”

  Regan lifted an unsteady hand, placing it gently on his uninjured shoulder. Pleased to feel some heat back in his skin, Regan took her first deep breath since she’d awoke and allowed a few moments to be grateful they were both breathing before asking, “When will he wake?”

  “That’s all on him. You’ve been out for four hours. Karen finished operating about three hours ago. It’s the middle of the night.”

  Regan glanced out the window, seeing nothing but darkness beyond. “I had a dream,” Regan whispered. “He was telling me to let go.”

  Katalina’s hand landed on her shoulder, the touch one of comfort and support. “Tyler’s going to pull through. He’s a fighter, and he loves you, Regan. He won’t leave you.”

  “Sometimes the people who love us have no choice but to go.” Regan dragged in an unsteady breath, swiping at the hot tears rolling down her face. “Everybody knows.”

  “It’s going to be all right, Regan,” Katalina promised.

  Regan turned in her seat, staring at Katalina. “How? How are we ever going to work? The packs, my parents…. Oh God, my parents. I bet they hate me…. We’ll have to leave.”

  “No one is leaving,” Bass said as he entered the room.

  “I agree,” Jackson added, entering behind him. “And as for your parents, give them time.”

  Bass pulled Katalina into his arms, kissing her forehead as he did. “I’m heading back now. Dark Shadow needs its alpha present. Are you staying with Ty, or shall I send someone to take over?”

  “I’ll stay.” She kissed him. “I’ll ring when he wakes.”

  Nodding, Bass released Katalina and walked to Tyler’s bedside. He placed his hand over Regan’s resting on Tyler’s shoulder, then touched gentle fingers to her cheek. Regan sucked in a breath as the eyes of Bass’s wolf met hers, his smile soft and reassuring.

  “Welcome to Dark Shadow,” he murmured.

  Regan had no words. Her wolf stirred deep within her as she gazed back at the alpha who had just accepted her as his own. A tear slipped down her cheek as the heavy weight lifted from her shoulders. She didn’t know the right words to say to him, to explain what Bass had done for her, for Tyler. Instead, she smiled back and cupped her hand over his on her cheek, leaning into his touch in acceptance.

  “Get that idea out of your head, Bass. You’re not stealing my girl,” Jackson grumbled.

  Bass’s smile turned mischievous as he rolled his eyes, and Regan had the sense she was meeting the real Bass for the first time. He released her and stepped back. “I’m just letting her know I’m here for her if she needs me. That Dark Shadow welcomes her.”

  “I’m onto you, son. If anyone’s stealing anyone, I’m having Tyler. I’d say Dark Shadow owes me a few good fighters after all these years.”

  The two alphas eyed each other, and Regan tensed. She’d been afraid of this, afraid her and Tyler’s relationship blurred too many lines.

  Bass laughed. “I dare you to try. Tyler’s loyal to me.”

  “Squabble later,” Katalina scolded, shooing them with her arms. “Out, the both of you.” Silence descended when Katalina closed the door, shutting the two alphas out. She turned toward Regan, leaning her back against the door.

  In some ways, Regan was relieved and touched from Bass’s gesture. To have his acceptance eased many of her fears and she knew many of Tyler’s, but while Jackson and Bass had appeared playful in their banter, it didn’t silence her concerns of where she and Tyler now belonged.

  As if reading her mind, Katalina walked to her and pulled her up out of the chair and into her arms. “Please don’t worry about them. Yes, your mating complicates things, but we’ll find a way to make it work.”

  “Our loyalties are blurred, Kat. How will that ever work?”

  “Don’t you think my loyalties are blurred? I know I didn’t grow up here, but that doesn’t change the fact River Run is my family as much as Dark Shadow. Hell, it was like five minutes ago that my world was falling apart, and I didn’t stay with Dark Shadow. I ran to Jackson, my father, the other alpha. It’s complicated and messy, but we all make it work because that’s what you do for those you love.”

  “I guess you’re right, but I can’t see it being that simple. How are you anyway?”

  “We don’t have to discuss me and my emotions right now.”

  “Actually, it would be quite nice to think about something else other than Ty.”

  Katalina smiled. “I tell you what, I’ll go fetch us some drinks and food, and I’ll tell you all about my messed-up life.”

  She smiled at Katalina’s retreating figure and turned to face Tyler. Standing slowly, Regan leaned over the bed and brushed his hair from his face, getting her first real look at him. Many emotions churned inside of her, but mostly Regan was grateful Tyler was alive, and thankful for the extra time they’d been given.

  Chapter 51

  He was on fire. His back, his arm, it was like the blade had been molten lava melting his flesh. The pain consumed him, blackening his vision. He had a distant thought of Katalina, an urge to get up and defend her, but the agony of his wounds was too much. His body betrayed him. His body gave up.

  A numbness beckoned him, an endless, eternal silence. It promised the pain would stop, promised him peace. And oh, how Tyler begged for it to stop. With each shift of his body, his wound protested, raw and angry. His mind was slipping, his body ready for the fight to be over, yet there was another voice calling him. One far more powerful than death. It started as a whisper, a distant memory he couldn’t quite reach, and then it was there, a face in his mind, a voice in his ear, a plea. Regan…

  Stay with me. Stay, she begged.

  Always, always, he wanted to scream, but his mouth wouldn’t work. His body was shutting down. Tyler felt the whisper of her touch, the softness of her lips, the cool dampness as her tears fell onto his skin.

  Please don’t cry, baby.

  He was fading, slipping away into nothingness. No! His wolf snarled in defiance. I will not leave her. I will not leave my mate. My heart.

  Mate….

  The word hit him like a shock to the heart. The darkness was blinded by a living sun. Regan, his mate, she surrounded him, her scent, her very essence. It flowed through his veins like the sweetest of drugs. She was everywhere, flowing through and anchoring him to life.

  The pain faded away, yet it wasn’t the darkness that called to him. Instead, Tyler slipped into a peaceful sleep, cocooned by Regan, wrapped in the arms of her love.

  He first became aware of the dull ache across his back and then the absence of Regan through his veins. Yet she’d not left him completely. There, connected to his heart, his soul, was the bond that tied him to Regan for all eternity.

  Happiness flowed from his chest, momentarily blocking out his pain, but memories invaded his mind—Regan’s distraught voice as she told him about her parents, her cries as she’d said they’d never accept him, and they’d have to leave.

  Urgency rushed through him. He had to get to her, protect her from the consequences of their mating. Tyler pried open his eyes, his vison too blurred to take in his
surroundings. He didn’t wait for his eyesight to clear; instead, Tyler moved his arms to push himself up when agony rippled through his back and down his left arm, a thousand tiny needles digging into him at once. He hated the pained cry that left his lips, cursed his body when it collapsed back onto the bed, and refused to try moving a second time.

  “Ty! Stay still. Don’t move.”

  “R-Re-gan?” Tyler rasped, his throat like sandpaper. Her blurry face appeared before him. He blinked rapidly, his vison clearing at last. “Regan.”

  “Hey.” She smiled, tears pooling in her eyes. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

  “Never,” he promised.

  A tear rolled down her cheek. Tyler went to wipe it away, but again, his arm protested. He stopped himself from crying out but couldn’t control his face as it crumpled in pain.

  “Stop moving,” Regan scolded. “You’re badly hurt, Ty. Please keep still. I’m going to go fetch Karen.”

  “Karen?”

  “Yeah, you’re at Jackson’s, at River Run.”

  “Bass? Did he… did he….” But Tyler couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t say his fear aloud. That he’d worried Bass would reject him, that in gaining a mate, he’d lose his family, his pack.

  Regan smiled softly, her eyes filling with sympathy. “Our mating hasn’t happened without consequence, but Bass hasn’t left you, Ty. Dark Shadow stands with you. You’re here because Kat knew you needed me.”

  “I could feel you, willing me to live,” he whispered.

  She caressed his face, her fingers sliding into his hair, each tiny touch sending warmth through his skin. “I’ll always fight for you. You’re my mate.”

  Tyler smiled at the word, his chest filling almost painfully with joy. “I like the sound of that word.”

  “Me too. Now I’ll be right back. Don’t move, okay?”

  He nodded, and even that tiny movement hurt.

  She was back in minutes, Karen with her.

  “Hi,” Karen said, coming up beside him and taking his wrist. “Let’s check your vitals.” She peered at her watch as she silently counted his beats, then returned her attention to him. “How’s the pain levels?”

  “Okay.”

  She rolled her eyes slightly. “It’s just Regan and me. No need to be all macho for us.”

  “Fine,” Tyler grumbled. “Hurts like hell. Even moving my arm does, but I could have sworn the blade hit my back. God, I didn’t even asked how Kat is. She wasn’t hurt was she?”

  “Katalina is fine,” Karen reassured him. “And you’ve been through a lot. I think you can be forgiven for not asking right away. Now, as for your arm, the knife hit your shoulder and cut deep at an angle across your back. The lower half wasn’t so bad, but the initial contact cut deep into your muscle and caused a lot of damage, which is why you’re having trouble with your left arm. The ligaments and tendons that help your arm move are damaged, and recovery is going to be slow I’m afraid.”

  “But I will regain use?” Tyler asked. His stomach flipped with unease. He needed to be fully functioning. To be strong. His pack needed him. His mate needed him.

  “If I did my job right, which I did, you will. We’ll give it a few days, then try some simple tests to gauge the amount of movement you’ve lost. In the meantime, let’s get some painkillers into you and try getting you onto your back. Though I suspect it’s going to be painful, I’m guessing you’d rather not meet two alphas laid on your front.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.” Tyler met Regan’s gaze. “How much trouble are we in?”

  Regan winced.

  “That bad huh?”

  “I’ve not actually seen my parents, but Jackson told me he had to throw my father out the house when Karen was operating. Bass actually welcomed me to Dark Shadow, which pissed Jackson off a little. To be honest, I’ve been holed up in here with you, and Kat kept me company for a while. She left not long before you woke up.”

  “Problems that can all wait,” Karen added. “Right now, I want you to concentrate on healing.”

  Tyler smiled. “Thanks, Karen.”

  A few minutes later, with morphine running through his veins, Tyler managed to sit up without his body exploding in agony. Both Karen and Regan helped him as he slowly, step by step, swung his legs up onto the bed and leant back onto the raised bed.

  “I’ve put the softest pillows I could find behind you,” Karen said as Tyler gritted his teeth against the pain of leaning back on the wound.

  “Be… fine,” he puffed between breaths.

  The simple act of sitting up and moving around to lean back on the bed felt like a marathon to him. He was breathless, with beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. The morphine might have helped but it didn’t nearly kill the pain of moving.

  “Kat’s just messaged to say she and Bass are heading over,” Regan said.

  Karen touch his hand briefly. “I’ll leave you to catch your breath. I suggest spending as much time as possible on your front. I can come help you once your company leaves. If at anytime the pain becomes too much, or you start to feel hot and shaky, call me right away. I’ve got you hooked up to antibiotics to prevent infection, but it’s always a risk.”

  “I’ll keep a close eye on him,” Regan assured her. Hearing Regan say such things was both weird and wonderful. He was so used to keeping the feelings between each other a secret, every time a declaration was made it sent a tiny skip through him.

  Karen nodded, pausing in front of Regan as she passed, gripping her shoulders. “And you don’t let your parents trouble you. Give them time. Grief can make us do terrible things, even years after.”

  Regan smiled tightly, nodding, and when they were alone in the room once more, she turned her beautiful face toward him and let the true extent of her pain show.

  His heart broke. How he wanted to take all her troubles and make them okay. Protect her from every bit of sorrow she’d feel in her life. But even he as her mate couldn’t do that. All he could was be there to weather the storms with her. “Oh, baby, come here,” Tyler said, opening his one good arm for her.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said between sobs.

  “Holding you will never hurt, Regan. Come here.”

  Carefully, Regan climbed onto the edge of the bed and moved gently into his arms. “I was explaining to my mom about the training, and I think she was trying to understand, but then you were hurt, and I could feel your pain…. Kat called and…” Regan dragged in a breath, sitting up slightly to meet his eyes. “I didn’t even try to hide it, Ty. I could feel your pain as if it were my own, and I knew there was no point trying to lie. You’re the most important part of my life, Tyler.”

  “Like Karen said, they’ll come around. We’re going to make this work, Regan. Just give it time.” It was still surreal to him that people knew, and not only that they’d not turned them away. Tyler had to keep reminding himself that he was awake and this wasn’t a dream.

  “You weren’t there when Jackson told me about my father. He didn’t say what he said, but he didn’t have to; it was written on his face and everyone else’s in the room. He’s disowned me, Ty, the only daughter he has left, all because I fell in love.”

  It was hard to contain his anger toward Regan’s father. To speak soothingly to her, when his first instinct was to march up to her parents and snarl until they became reasonable. “He’ll see reason. I’ll make him see reason.”

  “I don’t think you’re quite up to taking on my dad right now, even if he’s not dominant.”

  Depends how angry he gets me.

  “I’ll be out of here before you know it,” he promised, forcing himself to lean forward and kiss her.

  There was a knock at the door. Regan sat up and pulled away, climbing from his arms and to the floor, wiping her face quickly as she forced a smile and turned to great their guests. Tyler forced his own smile. He wanted nothing more than to get out of the bed and go hunt down the man who’d put tears on his mate’s face.
Be damned if he was her father or not. No one had the right to do that to his girl.

  For a second, Tyler was afraid to meet Bass’s eyes, afraid to see an expression that said what he and Regan had was wrong when it felt so right. But Tyler was a firm believer in looking danger in the eye as it came for him. He hadn’t made enforcer at twenty-one by being a coward. So Tyler met Bass’s gaze, ready to snarl at his alpha if he had to, because no one on the earth was going to tell him he couldn’t have her. She was his, always, and forever.

  “Ty!” Katalina rushed forward, greeting him with a smile before Bass could get out a word. “Congratulations,” she continued, taking his hand and squeezing. “But I warn you, you’d better take good care of my friend.”

  Letting out a heavy breath, Tyler smiled back. “Thank you, Kat. That means a lot, and I will.”

  “Hmm… same goes from me,” Jackson said, a little more sternly than Katalina. “Though I understand now who’s been helping Regan heal these last few months.”

  Nodding in acknowledgement, Tyler at last returned his gaze back to his alpha. “Bass.”

  “You should have told me. That night in the forest, you should have said something,” Bass said.

  “I was afraid you’d tell me to give her up, that our relationship would compromise the alliance,” Tyler admitted.

  “I hardly have the right to tell you that, Ty, when I went ahead and fell for a River Run wolf myself. But I’m not got to lie. Regan’s parents are a complication. Jackson has told me of the bad blood between Dark Shadow and your family, Regan. I didn’t know of her death and if Richard was still a member of this pack, the kill would be yours, but he’s not and all I can do is apologize on behalf of my pack.”

  “There’s no need to apologize, Bass. Megan’s death wasn’t your fault, and Dark Shadow isn’t the same anymore.”