“I think we’ll talk now,” the same man hissed. His green eyes blazed with hate. “I am the representative, and I have a message for you, prince. You had better be ready for war!”
The cry became a powerful bellow as the man transformed into a massive buck with an impressive rack of sharpened antlers.
“Run!” Jace said. “Go fetch the Guard! Hurry!”
Keiran raced away, barking frantically. A handful of the attacking shifters, another deer—a doe, rather than a stag—and two horses set off in pursuit; Jace just had to hope his lover was faster.
And then there was no time to hope at all as he fought for his life.
Predator society taught that prey animals were weak, but Jace didn’t exactly feel confident as he faced down more stags, a buffalo, an elephant, and still more fearsome creatures who were all technically prey. What so many people forget is that predators contributed to the natural order of life, picking off the small, the weak, the old, and sickly so that better genes were passed on to the next generation.
And none of these creatures were small or weak.
Jace lashed out with his paws as the green-eyed deer stampeded toward him. A resounding crack resonated up toward the sky as one antler snapped clean off at the base where he struck it. Small droplets of blood spattered his face, and then the heavy body of the stag slammed into him and bowled him over. Hard, sharp hooves struck his body again and again, kicking him across the ground like a child’s ball. By the time he got to his feet again, pain stabbed him from inside.
Ribs bruised. Maybe broken.
He couldn’t attack them head-on when he was so outnumbered. It became a game of evasion, leaping and dashing in short bursts to keep from being gored to death or trampled again. When he could, he clawed out or bit at an errant limb or tail, but he was tiring and they weren’t being injured enough to slow them down.
His breath coming in terrible, ragged gasps that burned his lungs, Jace shoved himself up into a massive leap and came crashing down hard on the back of the elephant. The huge grey beast reared up on its hind legs, trumpeting deafeningly. Jace sank his nails and fangs into thick skin, clinging desperately.
The elephant crashed down onto all four feet again and brought up its hind legs.
No!
His grip slipped and he fell, landing hard on his side. This time when his ribs broke, he heard it.
He heard nothing else for a long time after that, pain buzzing in his ears and eyes, blocking out all else as the animals took turns hitting him. When it stopped, he hardly knew it had until he found himself staring up at the sky with the green-eyed shifter grinning down at him. A mad glee glistened from deep in those eyes.
Metal glinted from something nearby, but he couldn’t turn his head to see it.
“You know what? You won’t live to see the war,” the deer shifter said. “I have you right here and you couldn’t even put up a fight. Screw waiting around. Your father won’t last another year. Hell, word is he’ll die any day now. With him gone and with you gone... prey will rise.”
The metal thing came into Jace’s view, though blood clogged his eyes. He recognized the shape and the way the object was held.
“Long live the prince.”
A howl sounded through the air. The deer shifter fell to the side, knocked away by a canine form. But, it was too late. The high, sharp crack of a pistol echoed through the air an instant before.
Compared to everything else Jace felt right then, the bullet hitting his shoulder might as well have been a playful swat from Keiran. But, judging from the hot wetness that seemed to almost instantly soak his entire body, it was a lot more serious than that.
He caught only one more glimpse before his eyes closed. Keiran’s terrified expression, and the chaos of a battle just over his slim shoulder.
Chapter 13
“Guards!” Keiran screamed, desperate. The shifters at his back had long since given up on chasing him as he was far faster than they would ever be, fueled as he was by adrenaline, but he didn’t stop running until he actually reached the castle. And now he ran down the hall as a human, shouting at the top of his lungs. Where was everyone? It normally seemed like he couldn’t sneeze without seven people blessing him, but now that he actually needed people around, there weren’t any!
“Guards! Guards, help! Somebody! Please!”
Turning the corner, he pulled in another lungful of air and prepared to shout when someone else slammed into him, knocking him backward onto his ass.
“Hey! What are you doing, yelling like that?”
Keiran looked up to see another young man standing over him, hands on his hips and a puzzled frown on his face. He wore a trainee guard’s uniform.
“Wait,” the man said. His face lit up. “Keiran? Recognize me? You helped me when I was sick on the journey!”
For a moment, he had no idea what this man was talking about. Even when everything clicked, he still didn’t recognize the trainee guard. It didn’t matter. “I need help!” Keiran gasped out, staggering up to his feet. “Please, go get help!”
“What’s going on, Keiran?” the man asked, but the omega wolf already was halfway down the hall.
“Just send guards to the gardens!” he cried over his shoulder.
“Wait!”
Keiran kept running through the castle, screaming and alerting everyone that he could until a big hand clamped down on his shoulder from behind and spun him around. “Keiran, what is it? Where’s Jace?”
He stared up into the eyes of a man with crazy hair. Martin or Marvin or Melvin, whatever his name was. The captain of Jace’s Guard! And more men ran up through a nearby doorway, all of them wearing the Guard uniform.
“We were attacked,” he huffed breathlessly, struggling for words. “In the grounds... behind the castle. Prey animals. Didn’t recognize them.”
“Take us there,” Marvin-Melvin commanded. “Lead us, and then get out of the way once we’re within range.”
Keiran nodded and dropped down as a wolf, charging off through the halls as fast as he could. His legs screamed from exhaustion, but he pushed his strides wider and faster, stretching out his entire body to get just a fraction more speed.
Far in the distance, he saw the havoc near the fountain and bolted for it. A howl of warning sounded from behind, telling him to get back, but he ignored it. The slower alphas fell farther and farther behind as Keiran ran, desperate to see the state of the fight.
It wasn’t good.
A crescent of shapeshifters surrounded Jace, battered and bloody. He had at some point regained his human form, too devastated by the attack to maintain his wolf form. A man crouched over him, mouth moving. Keiran couldn’t hear the words, didn’t bother to read lips because he saw a gun in the man’s hand and knew it was all about to end.
He screamed out a howl, so loud and hoarse that he lost his voice, and tossed himself the last bit of the way. There was no grace in it at all. Tumbling through the air, he slammed into the attacker with the gun just as the shot was fired.
The shapeshifter stared up at him with an expression Keiran had never seen in the eyes of a person before, composed of so many parts he would never be able to unravel it all if he tried.
“You’re too late!”
I know.
What happened next was a blur. Keiran somehow found himself separated from the fight. A member of the Guard clutched his scruff with his fangs, preventing the omega from jumping back into the fray... not that it discouraged him from trying. The rest of the wolves knocked out a few of the attackers, while the others fled during the process.
Marvin let out a growl of frustration, pelt spiked up wilder than usual. He barked and waved his tail around, sending a few of the Guard after the fleeing shapeshifters. Another was sent running back to the castle to fetch reinforcements, while the rest of the Guard spread out to form a perimeter around the fallen.
Jace lay still in their midst. Keiran smelled blood and a lot of it. The alpha holding on
to him was the one sent back to the castle, so he was free to do as he pleased now. But the sight of Jace lying there, shot and half-dead, possibly dying right there, with his body soaked in blood... He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even breathe.
“Hang in there,” Marvin murmured, not looking at his prince but clearly speaking to him. “Help is coming.”
“It won’t come fast enough.”
The alphas turned in Keiran’s direction. Each one seemed surprised that he’d spoken, but no one was more surprised than he was because he hadn’t even meant to say anything at all. But now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop. “Do you see him? He’s hurt! He’s dying! He needs my help!”
One of the Guard looked over toward Marvin, uncertainty in his wolfish eyes. “He’s right, captain,” he grunted. “You should have left one of us behind at the castle in the first place.”
Marvin growled, fur rippling up over his skin before receding again. “We barely won that fight as it is! I needed every single one of you here.”
“Does that include the guy you made hold me back?” Keiran snarled.
Marvin froze, anger and bitterness battling for control on his face. He clearly hadn’t taken that into account. For all that the Guard’s purpose was to protect the prince, they apparently hadn’t actually encountered a situation like this before. They had done their best, and failed anyway. The proud alpha didn’t know what to do, but Keiran did.
“Marvin, you have to let me get near Jace! You should have let me be—I could have been working to save him this whole time!” Keiran strode forward toward the ring of wolves. They were clearly unhappy about their leader’s decision, but they were loyal to him to a fault, still obeying him even though they knew Keiran was right. The omega stared at Marvin, pleading.
“We didn’t need to focus on you in the middle of that!” The wolf bared his teeth. “We all would have died if we had to worry about your scrawny ass!”
And that was all Keiran could take. He pushed right through the wall of alphas, startling them. They flinched away from him instead of reacting aggressively, clearly not having expected him to do that. Marvin held his ground as the omega strode up and jabbed his finger against his chest, glaring.
“This scrawny ass was chosen by Jace because he thought this ass was special!” Keiran barked. “Without me, most of the other omegas on that journey would have died! I saved them because I knew what to do! And I know what to do now, so move your scrawny ass and let me keep my fucking boyfriend alive until an actual doctor comes!”
What the magic word was, Keiran didn’t know. Was it the mention of his feats on the journey, his tone of voice in general, or was it the way he called Jace his boyfriend? Probably that last one, but it didn’t matter because whatever it was got Marvin to back down. He clearly wasn’t happy about it, but he couldn’t argue now.
Keiran sprinted over to Jace and dropped down to his knees, skidding to a stop in his lover’s pool of blood. It hadn’t even begun to congeal yet because more and more of it kept pumping from the ragged bullet wound in his shoulder.
Have to take care of that first.
“You!” he said, pointing to the nearest alpha.
The wolf ran over to him. “What can I do?” he asked, earnestly.
“Take off your clothes.”
The alpha just blinked for a moment before stripping the fastest he’d ever stripped in his life, until he stood there in only his underwear and thin undershirt. “More?”
“No, these are fine.” Adrenaline pulsing through Keiran almost had him laughing at the half-panicked look on the man’s face. “Take your shirt and put it against that bullet wound. Press hard.”
The alpha did so, bunching up his shirt and jamming the ball against the hole. Almost immediately, blood soaked through it and stared to stream between his fingers. “Um.”
“Press harder! Don’t stop!” Keiran demanded. The alpha leaned his full weight against the flow of blood, jaw tensing as he strained. He took the man’s pants and tied the legs around Jace’s body, higher up on his shoulder. He tied them as tight as he could, pulling until he heard the seams tear. As far as tourniquets went, it would do.
What else can I do now?
He didn’t have the knowledge or tools to do anything for the alpha’s other serious injuries, which no doubt included broken bones and perhaps something internal. He also didn’t dare move Jace and risk aggravating anything. So, what could he do? Why the hell had he been so eager to step up and try to do something that he couldn’t?
“Stop,” he hissed under his breath. “Assess the situation. When the doctor arrives...”
When the doctor arrived, his first order of business would be to get Jace’s clothing out of the way so he could see everything. Precious seconds would be wasted on that, so Keiran went ahead and did it himself. Once that was done, he froze up again, but it didn’t matter this time because just then a howl rose up from nearby. Only a second later, a tall man wearing a white robe strode up and Keiran backed away, sagging with relief.
“Please help him,” he whispered as the doctor passed.
No response came as the man immediately set to work, opening his doctor kit and pulling out clamps, gauze, a stapler...
Keiran turned away as the stapler came out. Even though Jace was unconscious, he didn’t want to see this. He already knew he would never be able to forget the way Jace looked right then, covered in blood and so close to dying... His shoulders shook and tears came in rivulets down his cheeks, but he tightened his chin against the sobs, strangling them in his throat.
Someone touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Marvin.
Keiran turned, trying to look past the captain of the Guard, but Marvin moved to block his sight. “Is he... No...”
“No, no.” Marvin held up his hands, flashing a ghost of a smile. “No, he’s not dead. Uh, Dr. Sanjay is just... packing the wound and it doesn’t look very pleasant.”
“Oh.” Keiran wiped his face and sniffled, only to find a handkerchief shoved into his hands. “Thanks. Why are you sorry?”
The alpha sighed, rubbing his face now as well. “I’m sorry that I acted that way toward you. It’s just that... I’ve known Jace since we were both children. I’m not that much older than he is.”
That was startling to hear, though Keiran realized it was true when he took a closer look at Marvin. The Guard was so callused and wrinkled from his hard life that it had prematurely aged him, giving him the roughened, weathered skin of a middle-aged man, covering the supple muscles of a young man’s body.
“I understand,” he said. “I think I got it across to you pretty accurately that he’s special to me, too.”
“Yes, you did.” Marvin tried to smile. “You got it across to me and the entire Guard. We aren’t known for our gossip, but you know that the rest of the castle will somehow know about this by morning.”
“Yeah.” Keiran sighed and handed Marvin the handkerchief. “How come you just carry that thing around?”
Marvin smiled in earnest now, though it clashed with the tension on the rest of his handsome face. “It’s the oldest trick in the book. If you pass by someone you’d like to get to know better, you walk past them and drop your item of choice. They pick it up and you take the chance to strike up a conversation.”
Keiran laughed a little. “And then what? You’re mated for life after that?”
“I hate to interrupt your little chat, but I need your assistance.”
Keiran spun around at the dry voice. The doctor—what was his name? Keiran was so bad at remembering names—gestured them both over to Jace. The alpha looked so pathetic, so much smaller than he really was. “Is he going to live?”
“I do not know,” the doctor said, honestly. “I’ve done what I can do out here, but I need to get him to the hospital where I can get him under an x-ray and prepare for surgery. Sounds like a punctured lung.”
How can he say all this so calmly?
“My ass
istants stayed behind to prepare. I have a folding cloth stretcher here with me in my kit. I need help taking him.”
“I’ll do it,” Keiran said, immediately.
“And I as well,” Marvin volunteered. But then he shook his head. “No, I need to stay here and round up these prisoners. Trix, Pasha, you do it.”
Working as a team, the group of four slid Jace’s body onto the cloth stretcher, grabbed onto the handles, and headed back toward the castle. The journey seemed far too long. As much as he tried not to, he listened intently to every single breath and knew that he was waiting for them to stop.
But, they didn’t. Jace continued breathing all the way to the hospital, where a group of assistants waited at the door with a proper stretcher. They wheeled their prince away, speaking in high, rapid voices and using words that Keiran didn’t understand.
Left alone now, with the two members of the Guard leaving to return to Marvin, Keiran slumped down to the ground and put his head in his hands. Alphas were abnormally strong creatures and Jace was just strong in general; plus, shapeshifters had remarkable healing powers. But was Jace strong enough to overcome this? He’d hardly looked like a person anymore...
“I did the best I could, Abigail,” he whispered into his fingers. Oh, he wished she was here. Not for healing now, since there was nothing she could have done that wasn’t already being taken care of. No, she was his only friend. He just wanted someone to talk to, but he’d only made friends with Ty and Jace and both were unavailable. That left no other option but to wait.
Rising to his feet, Keiran staggered inside the hospital and dropped into a waiting room chair. No one asked why he was there, since it was obvious. Folding his hands on his lap, he looked down at his feet and waited.
Chapter 14
For a moment, Jace thought he was seeing an eclipse. A circle of darkness, surrounded by bright light.
Pretty, he thought, hazily. I could just reach up and touch it.
Somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he knew his thoughts were all wrong. Some sort of medication if he was correct, presumably a painkiller because he knew he should be feeling some sort of pain and wasn’t. However, he couldn’t quite bring the thought to the surface of his mind; slithering like some sort of tadpole, it flicked out of reach and rested in the shadows.
Wild Ride: An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Page 89