Jade

by Valerie Ullmer

  She would take his place in a heartbeat. Now she understood why Kane was hesitant to put his wife through this. Watching someone you love cry out in pain was soul destroying. And there was no way of knowing if Noah would be accepting of her when he’d gone through his transition.

  If he rejected her…

  Jade shook her head and concentrated on Noah.

  ***

  She had no idea how much time had passed. She’d guessed it was early morning on Sunday. But as she watched, Noah’s skin steadily turned darker as he practically glowed with a fever. The morphine wasn’t enough to hold the pain at bay, so Jade made quick work of laying cold towels, along with strategically placed ice packs, around his body. When the towels touched his skin, he let out a sound halfway between a groan of pleasure and a gasp of pain that brought tears to her eyes.

  “We can turn up the morphine now. I purposely started low so by the time the worst of the pain struck, he wouldn’t overdose.” Liv pressed the arrow twice, the readout changing, before she turned to Jade. “How are you holding up?”

  “I want to take it away from him. I would gladly go through it if he didn’t have to. I feel so helpless.”

  “We all did.” Xander pulled Frost close.

  “And watching Noah, we wish we could take the pain away too. I have no idea why it’s so painful, but the worst part is watching your mate hurt.” Aubrey moved closer and hugged Jade.

  “The pain, to be honest, you can’t remember once it’s done.” Ara bent down and kissed Jade on the forehead before she wrapped her in another hug. “He’ll be fine. He’ll be strong, but right now, you have to be strong for him.”

  When Axel walked in the room, he lifted Jade into a crushing hug and Jade froze when she heard Noah growl, low and unlike anything she’d heard from another shifter.

  “He’s even possessive in his sleep.” Ax sounded bemused.

  “Was that a tiger growl?” Liv asked.

  Jade reached for Noah’s hand, and although he was still hot, he squeezed slightly, letting her know he was still there.

  ***

  Jade had removed the last of the ice packs, completely melted and felt to be around room temperature, when she heard the sweetest sound.

  “Jade? Baby?”

  She rushed to Noah’s side and when he blinked open his beautiful dark-blue eyes, she smiled a watery smile at him.

  “Hey, love. How are you feeling? Do you need anything?”

  Instead of answering her, he pulled her into bed and squeezed her close. “Are…you…okay?” His voice sounded raw and scratched.

  “I’m okay. But I wasn’t fast enough to prevent him from biting you. The only way I could save you was to push my venom into your bloodstream.”

  Noah blinked his eyes closed and was slow to open them, but when he did, Jade spotted something she hoped she never would from Noah. Anger and betrayal.

  He thought she betrayed him.

  His arms dropped from around her and with pain in her chest that threatened to split her heart in two, she slowly rose from the bed.

  “What do you need?” She wasn’t sure she was asking if he wanted her to leave or if he wanted someone else to take care of him.

  “Not…you.”

  Although she knew it was coming, the pain from hearing it was more excruciating than…anything.

  She nodded at him and he watched her move toward the door with narrowed eyes, and when she looked back at him, he closed his eyes and blocked her from his view. She nodded and silently left the room.

  Jade couldn’t hear anything as she stumbled her way down the stairs and toward the front door. Silas jumped into her arms and she managed to catch him before she turned and put him in Xander’s arms. She opened the door, walked through it in a daze, and closed it firmly behind her.

  Without thinking, she shifted and started a run. Toward where, she had no idea. Everything was numb. Her mind, her body, her heart. But Noah would live, he would be alive, and that was more than Jade could hope for. And as she ate up the miles, she almost convinced herself that she didn’t matter in the long run.

  Noah would’ve died if I didn’t…

  His hatred and demand that she remove herself from his life was a small price to pay. He would move on, be healthy, never die.

  Jade slowed her run and glanced at the full moon. She had no idea how long she ran, but as she took a deep breath, she realized it was far enough away that she couldn’t scent anyone she knew. She would build a makeshift bed underneath a tree and in the morning when she woke, she would run farther.

  After that, she had no plans.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Noah

  Noah woke with a start and glanced around the strange room, looking for the one person he needed close to him. His brows furrowed when he took a deep breath and he could barely smell Jade’s scent anywhere in the room.

  Where was she?

  He searched his memory and tensed when he remembered the attack. The shifter moved so quickly that he barely took a breath before he found himself pulled from the car and slammed onto his back. Noah still had no idea what his cryptic comment meant, but after that there was pain and Jade’s panicked voice by his ear. He didn’t remember what she said or what happened after.

  What day is it?

  He heard footsteps coming up stairs, or identified them as such, before Liv walked into his room, carrying a tray of food.

  “Ja…de.”

  His voice cracked and he had to clear his throat. He tried again, but his throat was dry. Noah gratefully took a glass of orange juice Liv handed him and downed it all in a few gulps.

  “Where’s Jade?”

  Liv gave him a sad smile. She placed the tray on his lap and backed up a couple of steps.

  “Where?”

  “Eat first and then I’ll tell you.”

  Without looking away from Liv’s expressive face, he ate whatever he reached for, not even looking at or tasting what he was eating. He tossed the empty tray to the other side of the bed and widened his eyes when it skipped off the bed and onto the floor. Noah moved to retrieve it, but Liv waved him away. He knew that she was buying time, but he needed to know and implored her.

  Please.

  It took several tries, but each time Liv opened her mouth, she closed it and cleared her throat. He could see tears in her eyes and something stilled in his chest.

  Is she dead? Did I hurt her?

  “You rejected her and she left.”

  Noah’s head whipped to where Kai was standing in the doorway, glaring at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “When you woke up yesterday morning, you said something to Jade that made her leave. By the look on her face, it seemed as though you rejected her. And knowing Jade, she would never force you to do anything, including accepting her as a mate, if she knew you wanted nothing to do with her. She thought it best to leave. We tracked her for several miles, but lost her scent. If she doesn’t want to be found, you won’t find her.”

  Noah suddenly remembered the fragments of conversation with Jade. His throat was tight and he woke up angry because he felt so helpless and weak. And although he had no say whether he wanted to be immortal or not, he wasn’t mad at Jade. He was angry at himself for knowing he wanted to be with Jade and not being able to tell her before the decision was taken from him. Then he remembered his words.

  Not you.

  Fuck.

  “I have to find her. I promise, I didn’t reject her, even though it might’ve seemed that way.”

  He whipped the covers off himself and wondered why Liv turned her back. It wasn’t until he glanced down that he realized he was naked.

  “Do you have some clothes I can borrow?”

  “You’re a shifter, Noah. You’re going to shift sooner or later—you might as well try now and use your animal senses to find her.”

  He could do with less hostility, but Kai was right.

  Noah closed his eyes and could feel a strange energy cir
cling around him. He centered his thoughts on the feeling that traveled from his chest to his limbs and felt parts of his body change. Although he’d never had a conversation about what it was like to be a shifter, whether it hurt to shift or not, he found the sensations of stretching and not pain.

  Guilt swamped him because out of all their conversations, Noah never asked Jade anything about who she essentially was as a shifter.

  It only took a few minutes, but when he opened his eyes, he felt his solid mass wobble a bit as he stood on the bed and noticed everything in the room was sharper. Noah could detect movement downstairs and the rustling of the wind brushing against the trees outside. But most importantly, he could also detect the faint scent of Jade, his mate.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Ara stood glaring at him from the doorway and he moved to shake his head, but found it wasn’t that easy to move side to side. Noah glanced down at his paw and found a huge orange, black, and white paw gripping the bed after Ara’s outburst.

  What…animal am I?

  You’re a fucking tiger. How did you shift so fast?

  Huh, a tiger. He tried to shrug at Ara’s question, but realized he couldn’t.

  I felt a ball of energy in my body and concentrated on it, and when I opened my eyes…tiger. Now, I have to go and find Jade.

  Noah paused after his first step. Wait. How the fuck am I a tiger? Jade is a red fox.

  “The man who bit you first, he’s a tiger. I can only suspect because I haven’t tested your blood or his, but since his venom hit your system before Jade’s, your shifter form is a tiger,” Liv said.

  Okay.

  Noah realized how big he was when he hopped down off the bed and the floor shook with the impact of his weight hitting the ground. He winced and made sure that he didn’t damage anything as he maneuvered out the door, down the stairs, and past the furniture. It turned out to be a pain in the ass. Liv followed him downstairs, moving things before he could accidentally swish his tail into it.

  Holy fuck.

  Noah glanced around, looking for Axel.

  Dude, a fucking tiger? You’re even bigger than I am.

  Good. Now keep your hands off my mate or I’ll rip your throat out.

  There were chuckles around the room, but Noah made it past the front door and nothing was standing in his way of finding Jade. He was about to take off running, but had no idea where Jade headed.

  Kai, which direction did she go?

  Southwest.

  Thank you. I’ll bring Jade back, I promise.

  ***

  Jade

  Jade had woken up that morning, determined to run until she was far enough away from Noah and the assassins before she could find some place to rest. But everything hurt, from her head pounding to the bottom of her feet.

  And as she ran, the constant pain made her movements slow.

  This was the first time in her existence that she’d truly experienced a constant pain that wouldn’t disappear by her regenerative healing. Even being shot hurt less than walking through the pines in the mountains.

  Her body temperature had dropped and although she hadn’t shifted back from her red fox to human, she shivered as the cold wind blew in from the west.

  Maybe I should’ve gone to the east. Not as cold.

  Somehow, Jade knew her pain and listlessness wasn’t due to anything other than Noah rejecting her. The pure disgust in his beautiful dark-blue eyes had told her everything she needed and only because she told him the truth behind his transition.

  Sam. I forgot about Sam. How the fuck could I have forgotten about Sam?

  No wonder Noah hated her. She’d done the one thing that she’d sworn over and over again to never do. She took his choice away from him. And on the nights they were alone in the cave or the tent, she’d heard his futile desperation at wanting to save his friend from his fate whenever he spoke of him. Noah had tortured himself with what-ifs and wondering what more he could’ve done. The same guilt that plagued her since she followed Liv’s instruction and injected her venom into his system.

  You had no other choice.

  Despite those exact words running through her head whenever guilt assailed her, she didn’t care that it was a reasonable excuse for her to have bitten him. She’d taken his choice away.

  She blinked and glanced around her surroundings. She leaned against a tall aspen tree and heard her harsh breathing sawing in and out of her chest. Her bones ached with exhaustion, and with what was left of her energy, she dug a burrow into the ground by the tree. It was deep enough she would be protected from anyone who stumbled upon the desolate area and she covered her tiny red fox body with dirt to keep herself warm. The moment she closed her eyes, sleep overtook her and she felt nothing.

  ***

  Images flashed behind her closed eyelids. Brilliant colors of orange and red, green and blue, swirled around in her mind and she sucked in a deep breath when happiness flooded her cold form, unable to understand how she’d gone from sleep where she was surrounded by darkness to this amazing dream of nothing but colors.

  Slow to come to awareness, she burrowed deeper into her hole, happy the dirt was enough of an insulator it finally warmed her body. She didn’t want to stretch in case her bones still ached, but instead, kept her eyes closed and savored the warmth she thought she would never feel.

  In that moment, she almost wished she hadn’t managed to keep herself so warm. Jade had hoped, because she was unwilling to lie to herself at this point, that she would’ve perish during the harsh winter night on the mountain.

  Knowing she had nowhere to go, she settled back and absorbed the warmth from the ground, hoping the pretty colors would come back as she fell asleep. But her eyes shot open the moment a purr rumbled through her body. She didn’t see anything in front of her and since she protected her back by butting it up against the tree, she had no idea where the odd sound had come from.

  Jade.

  Biting back a curse, she hoped Noah wasn’t close. If she kept quiet, he wouldn’t be able to find her.

  She had been so out of it, her senses and her body failed her. A familiar arm wrapped around her fox form and pulled her close, and she wondered why she hadn’t scented him.

  “Jade, baby, you’re gonna be fine.”

  Why…did you come?

  “Because I was a fucking idiot. I didn’t mean what I said after my transition. I was upset at myself for not telling you that I had been thinking about it anyway, about committing to you and being your mate. But whatever I wanted to say, I couldn’t get it out. I’m sorry, but I didn’t mean what I said.”

  Jade felt her entire body shaking and Noah pressed her closer.

  “It took me over six hours to find you. I was starting to panic when I caught your scent.”

  I’m…sorry.

  “Don’t…it’s not your fault. It’s mine. You are so weak now because you thought I rejected you. I’m not going to reject you, Jade. I want to be your mate and I want you to be mine.”

  I want to be yours.

  She paused for a moment.

  I’m so tired, Noah. Can we go home?

  “Of course, baby. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.”

  Wait. Are…you’re a red fox, right?

  Noah chuckled, the reverberation sending happiness flooding through her body.

  “No, I’m a tiger shifter.”

  Jade’s mind couldn’t process that fact and so she stayed quiet.

  “Are you okay with that?”

  Of course. She was quick to reassure Noah that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with him, whatever animal he shifted into. I’m just…confused.

  “I know. We’ll go home and get some sleep so you can recuperate. After, we have a shifter to question.”

  Jade growled, low in her throat.

  “That’s my girl. Relax and we’ll be home soon.”

  Okay, Noah. I love you.

  Chapter Fourteen

  N
oah

  For the past two days, Noah had replayed Jade’s last words to him.

  Despite the fact he’d treated her like shit as they’d had gotten to know each other, he hesitated about the thought of being her mate, and accidentally rejected her, she loved him.

  Holy shit.

  Jade was a beautiful woman, but she had so many other qualities that he would identify with her before her beauty came into play. She loved her family, took care of others before herself, and had the biggest heart of anyone he’d ever met. And her ultimate sacrifice. She allowed him to decide for himself what he wanted, even at her detriment.

  How can I not love her back?

  And he realized he did.

  Although she had trekked hundreds of miles after she left him at Kai and Liv’s, his rejection of her had lessened her life force and she’d stopped because her energy had waned and she couldn’t continue.

  For long minutes after he’d found her, she was unresponsive. He could hear her heart beat, although it was weak, and when he nosed at her shoulder, she cried out in pain. Noah noticed then that she was shivering. He maneuvered his huge tiger form against her back and breathed a sigh of relief when she snuggled against his front while he moved his right paw to cover her front. It was almost as large as Jade’s entire red fox form.

  He waited until he could hear her heartbeat grow stronger and he could feel the heat of her body against his. Noah still didn’t move away, but monitored close to two hours before he felt it was safe to wake her.

  He was taken by surprise how weak she sounded, but at least before she passed out, he told her the truth. He wasn’t rejecting her, and he was sorry, more sorry than she would ever know.

  Unable to communicate with the assassins due to the distance and forgetting to bring a cell, Noah carefully picked Jade up by the scruff of her neck and ran with her all the way back to her cabin outside Snowfall. The run had felt freeing, but by the time he shifted back to his human form and carried Jade into her bedroom, Noah was exhausted.