“Trish, stay back,” Derek said, moving silently over to her and putting a cautionary hand on her arm. “Silver-sickness has him. He’s got no idea who we are. I’m not sure what went down here, but they must have somehow shot him full of silver. More silver than…” He broke off and shook his head. “I’ve never seen a wolf as strong as him so far gone.” From somewhere behind the wolf, Trish could hear a low agonised moan.
“Gabi?” she gasped, unconsciously taking a step towards Kyle.
The wolf snarled again viciously even as he swayed slightly on his feet. An anguished yowl came from the shadows to the left of the alcove. Razor was pacing back and forth, his fur on end.
“She’s behind him. We can’t get to her, not even Razor can get past.” Derek tightened his grip and pulled her back a step.
Trish turned to glare at him, and that was when she saw his wounds. She gasped, putting a hand up to the bleeding fang marks on the side of his neck.
“I’m fine,” he told her. “Just flesh wounds. Luckily he’s fairly weak. Gabi was able to talk a little when we first arrived. After Kyle went down, she thinks they tripped some kind of spell aimed at her directly. Wounds are appearing on her body as though she’s being stabbed with an invisible weapon. She’s helpless and she’s losing blood.”
“I’ll find the source of the magic,” Athena said, flicking her hand upward as the ball of light flared brighter.
“We have to try to reach him somehow, or wait until he falls unconscious,” Derek muttered. “This one time we really could do with him being weaker…”
“Let me try,” Trish whispered, gently pulling free of his grip as Butch’s words resounded in her mind. She could feel her brother’s reluctance to release her, but she looked into his eyes and allowed her wolf to show just a little.
After a long second, he nodded and let her go.
She sank to her knees, ignoring the sharp stones digging into her flesh and the dampness soaking into her pants. Then, slowly, she moved closer to her mate, on all fours, her head in a submissive droop. And as she did so, she closed her eyes and concentrated on opening herself to her wolf, laying out what she wanted to do, feeling for that strength, the connections, those ethereal wisps of power that always hovered just out of her reach. It was time she laid claim to them. They were hers to take, hers to control, hers to command. Her wolf threw her head back and howled in triumph, growing in size and stature until she encompassed Trish’s mind. But there was no sense of the physical Change coming, just a sense of completion, a merging of two halves. And then Trish’s world went dark, she had the feeling she’d been swallowed, engulfed, and she began to panic.
But before true fear could take hold, the world around her shifted again, and when she looked around, she could see…what?
What was she seeing?
She’d been swept into a cosmos of glittering threads, like spider silk in the morning dew, each one vibrating with life and strength. She was in awe; they were so beautiful that she was drawn to reach out and touch them, but there was some kind of mental nudge, something making her look to her right. And then she saw it. One particularly strong thread, one that the rest seemed to gravitate towards, one that hummed with power but also drooped as though heavy with something coating it, something…wrong.
Kyle. That thread was Kyle, it had to be. She reached towards it, trying to connect with it, but it shied away from her desperate grasp. She forced herself to calm down before trying again, this time sending out her own essence, one filled with love, adoration, and a sense of home, allowing her essence to wrap around his, encompassing it. With her eyes still tightly closed, she was edging physically closer to Kyle, aware that his snarling had died back to a low, tired growl.
She concentrated on his thread, trying to clear the heavy greyness away, but it clung like tar. Suddenly she was aware of two more strands in her peripheral vision, bright and strong. She reached for them, and they came willingly, melding their strength with hers, bolstering her and filling reserves she didn’t know she had.
She knew these strands, they were familiar: Derek and Riley. As that knowledge sank in, more and more strands appeared in her mind’s eye. First a handful affected like Kyle, weighed down by sickness and pain, and then more, these bright with health, some stronger than others, some hesitant at her first touch, but then willingly joining with her once they recognised her essence. She knew them. They were Pack, those at Haven, those in the City and those nearby. They were all part of her world, and they would help her now.
Once again, she turned her attention to the sludge that clung to Kyle’s thread, willing it away, but as quickly as she cleared some of it into the void around her, just as quickly the stubborn taint reattached itself. It wouldn’t remain suspended in the darkness. She suppressed a little growl of frustration, but then she understood; it had to be taken from this place, drawn away. Perhaps if she…
This time when she approached it, she called to it, pulling a small section of it towards herself instead of leaving it floating. The foul stuff broke away with ease, rushing towards her and hitting her own thread with a dull splat, bringing with it the vile taste of silver and a flare of pain that instantly radiated through her body. She heard her own gasp.
“Share it.” Derek’s voice was hoarse. “Share it amongst us,” he repeated.
She didn’t want to; she didn’t want to put them all through this pain. Her wolf snarled in annoyance. This was the only way. This would help Kyle. And save Gabi. Trish drew in a deep breath and braced herself. Slowly but steadily she began drawing away chunks of the contamination towards herself. As each piece hit with renewed pain, she would fling it towards one of the other threads. They each took their share, not a single one balked, not even those Trish could sense weren’t Hunters or fighters. Their willingness to help brought tears to her eyes.
A loud huff of exhaled breath drew her attention, and suddenly she knew that Kyle was back with them. That he was able to recognise those around him. His thread sparked to life despite the remnants of the silver poisoning still dragging at it. He reached for her, and their threads touched, and the world turned into fireworks.
And then the dam wall broke. A hundred new sparks brightened the darkness. Each flare of light was a new strand, a new connection. Kyle’s thread convulsed, and the remaining ooze was flung in all directions, out to the mass of new threads. Trish looked on, stunned.
These new threads, they weren’t Pack. Not their Pack. These were the others—Red Shadow and Black River. Trish understood that Alphas had a mental link to their wolves, and now that she’d experienced it for herself, she understood it on a whole new level, but how were they connected to the other Packs?
A loud thud and a hissed intake of breath pulled Trish from her reverie. There would be time to figure this out later. Extricating herself from the microcosm of Alpha power, she opened her eyes. She was just a foot from Kyle’s wolf, who had collapsed to the ground but was already picking himself up. Behind him Gabi’s body lay curled in a foetal position, clearly in distress. Trish could smell the blood even as the wetness pooled around her friend’s body. Razor was already there, pressing his face to hers, purring with worry.
“Athena,” Melinda’s voice called out, and Trish turned to see the Healer rush to the High Magus’s side as she swayed on her feet.
“It’s done,” Athena gasped. “I’ve broken their connection to her.” And then her legs gave way, forcing Melinda to catch her and lower her to the cave floor.
“Shit, shit, shit, Gabi.” Kyle’s voice was ragged as he rushed to her side, his Change back to human form had been so fast that Trish had missed it entirely. He dropped to his knees, running worried hands over their friend. Trish hurried to his side as Derek crowded into the crevice near her legs.
Gabi was holding her chest and her stomach as blood oozed from between her fingers, bright and smelling of copper. She opened her eyes and tried to smile; red smeared the corner of her mouth.
“Y
ou’re…okay,” she managed to say, with her gaze on Kyle.
“Don’t talk,” Kyle ordered, his voice betraying his desperation. “We have to staunch this bleeding. How many wounds, Gabi? Let us see.”
“Too man…” she tried to say but was interrupted by a gurgle of frothy blood. She coughed weakly.
Trish felt her heart turn to ice as anguish swamped her. This was her friend, Kyle’s friend, someone closer than blood family, and she was dying right in front of them. How had this gone so horribly, horribly wrong?
A rush of movement caught Trish’s attention. It was Melinda trying to edge past Kyle and get closer to Gabi.
“Where is Julius?” Kyle demanded of Trish. She’d never seen him look so lost, so terrified. “How far away?” He ignored Gabi’s attempts to brush him away as he ripped aside her body armour and shirt, exposing the true extent of her injuries. Five surgically round puncture wounds pierced her chest and stomach, oozing blood at a rapid rate. Her skin was growing pale and cold, her black bra a stark contrast to the almost blue of her skin.
Melinda hissed in a breath, but immediately set to work, resting her fingertips on Gabi’s temples. Razor was lying against her other side, as close as he could get, as though trying to warm her body with his own.
“He’s probably landing as we speak.” Trish forced her brain into gear, checking the time on her watch. “I’m sure Murphy will have a helicopter on standby, but it’s still a fifteen-minute flight.”
Gabi’s hand reached for Trish even as she, Derek and Kyle pressed hands to each of the awful wounds. “Tell him…tell him…love isn’t a strong enough word,” she whispered.
“NO,” Kyle shouted the word. “You’re the stubbornest goddamned bitch I’ve ever met in my life, and you’re not going anywhere. You tell him yourself.”
Gabi ignored him, staring beseechingly into Trish’s eyes. She wanted someone to hear her, someone to take heed of what could be her last words.
Trish couldn’t speak, tears were already streaming heedlessly down her cheeks, but she nodded, letting Gabi know she’d heard.
“Riley,” Kyle growled over his shoulder, “get back to the others. Make sure Julius gets here at the speed of fucking sound.”
Trish heard the woman leave at a dead run.
“Melinda?” Athena’s voice came from behind them. She’d recovered enough to be back on her feet. The Healer was already breathing hard, her face drawn with strain.
“I’m doing everything I can,” the Healer responded tightly without opening her eyes. It was clear that Gabi’s life was hanging by a very delicate thread. The point was driven home by the sudden hiccup in her heartbeat, the gurgling rasp of her lungs, and the blood soaking into Trish’s pants.
“Would blood from another Vampire help her?” Athena asked. “I know she normally only takes blood from Julius, but would it help?”
“It might,” came a grim voice from the chamber behind them.
“Mac,” Trish tried to say with relief, but it came out more like a ragged sob. In a rush of air he was beside them. Trish didn’t dare look up into his face; she knew what she would see: the pain, anguish and guilt they were all feeling. Mac had been Gabi’s protective shadow for years, and she’d been hurt the one time he hadn’t been here to help.
“She’s never taken blood from one of us, so we don’t know the effects,” he said, his gruff voice cracking on the last word. “It might keep her going until Julius gets here, but it might also cause a bad reaction. Her natural aversion to it might be for good reason.”
“Shit.” Kyle was breathing raggedly, but his hands were steady on Gabi’s shivering body. She seemed to have drifted out of consciousness.
“We have to try something,” Derek put in. “Melinda is going to pass out if she keeps this up for any amount of time. Gabi has already lost more blood than a human should be able to cope with; she’s going into shock. We have to try it.”
The dank, fetid cave was silent but for their breathing and the drip of water while Kyle gazed down at his friend. It would be his decision to make, and if that decision killed her, he would never forgive himself. Trish already knew that.
“Do it,” he said, shifting his body to give the Vampire room.
The grizzled Vampire knelt, and a small knife materialised in his hand. There was no hesitation as he made an inch-long incision in his wrist and waited for the blood to well. Vampire blood smelled completely different to anything else Trish knew of, and it was unusually thick, not flowing as quickly or easily as Human or Werewolf. Gabi’s heartbeat suddenly faltered, and Trish’s breath caught in her throat. Mac shoved his wrist against her slack mouth and held her head pressed against it.
“Swallow it, swallow it, swallow it…” Kyle chanted as he began chest compressions and Trish shifted to place a knee against a wound at Gabi’s side.
The bleeding had slowed, but Trish didn’t think it was because she was healing. Melinda was pale and sweating, and Razor was anxiously kneading Gabi’s leg. Mac massaged Gabi’s throat until she took a reflexive gulp. Kyle paused his chest compressions, and they listened for her heartbeat. Breath rattled in her lungs, and then came a faint, lethargic thump—music to their ears.
“More,” Kyle ordered Mac, and the Vampire took the knife to his wrist again over the scab that had already sealed the original wound. Gabi swallowed quicker this time, but then she coughed, beginning to choke. Carefully they turned her onto her side as blood gushed out of her mouth, a mixture of Mac’s and her own.
“What in god’s name…” A voice behind them was unfamiliar, raspy and guttural. Trish turned her head to find a figure standing just beyond the throw of Athena’s light.
“Alex.” Athena’s voice was filled with shock and relief. She rushed over to the figure. His clothes were burned beyond recognition, his head was bald, and the patches of his skin that were visible were red, raw and blistered, but he was standing.
“What have they done to her?” He put a hand on Athena’s arm, accepting her help as he hobbled closer, moving like someone with severe joint pain.
Mac and Kyle didn’t respond to his presence, resettling Gabi on her back and trying to get more of Mac’s blood into her mouth.
Riley skidded into view, closely followed by Nathan, Charlie and another sporting a bare scalp and burned clothing.
“Julius is in the helicopter,” Riley gasped out, doubling over as she fought for breath. “He’s about five minutes away.”
“Five minutes. Five minutes.” Trish turned back to Gabi and the people trying to keep her alive. Five minutes. “Come on, Gabs,” she whispered through her continued tears. “You hear me? Five minutes. You have to hang on for five more minutes.”
CHAPTER 21
“We can’t…we can’t let her die,” Alexander hissed, hobbling closer to the group of people squeezed into a damp, rocky recess of a damp, rocky cave. Trish shifted slightly, trying to ease the numbness in her legs without compromising the pressure she held against Gabi’s wounds. Melinda’s face was pale as sweat trickled down the sides of her face; Kyle’s face was anguished as he helped Mac tilt Gabi’s head up so they could drip more Vampire blood into her mouth. Razor still purred, so loudly that he almost drowned out the incessant drip of water. His fur was matted with blood, and his eyes affirmed how fully he understood what was happening.
“We know that,” Kyle growled out without lifting his gaze from what he was doing. Rage underpinned his tone.
“No,” Alexander tried again, “I know you don’t want to lose your friend, but you don’t understand. There is more at stake…”
Trish spared the Vampire a glance. His features seemed even more refined than usual, despite the lack of eyebrows and eyelashes and the angry redness of his healing skin. There were shadows in his eyes, an edge of true fear. Trish found her eyes locking with his. What did he fear so badly? This unemotional, sarcastic, irreverent personality who never seemed to take life too seriously?
“Yes, Alexander,” Ky
le ground out. “I do understand. I know what could happen. I understand the possible fallout. It’s not like we’re trying to let her die.” Kyle’s last words were agonised, his voice raw; her mate’s pain and guilt threaded through every syllable. Trish wanted to put herself between them, hug her mate, tell him it wasn’t his fault, despite not understanding what they were talking about.
The other Vampire with burned clothing and healing skin stepped forward to put a hand on Alexander’s shoulder. Tabari’s appearance wasn’t quite as jarring as Alexander’s. The darkness of his skin hid much of the damage, and his hair was always close-shaven. His clothes too hung in charred tatters, only his chest armour still distinguishable.
Gabi’s body spasmed under Trish’s touch, dragging her attention away from the Vampires and the disturbing undercurrents that ran between them and Kyle. Gabi’s heartbeat fluttered though her breath no longer rattled in her chest.
“Her organs…” Melinda said, but her words were slurred. “They’re beginning to shut down…” And then the Magi Healer’s eyes rolled up into her head, and she tipped slowly to one side. Mac’s arm shot out, caught her shoulder and lowered her to the ground, but they could all hear her heartbeat, strong and steady. She’d simply overextended herself. She would recover in time. Trish tasted blood in her mouth as tears blurred her vision to the point that she could no longer see. She couldn’t, she couldn’t take this…not Gabi.
And then the air around them crackled, as though lightning had just hit the cave. The hairs across her body stood on end, and something invisible bit at her skin.
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