Chapter 8
Gray
My wolf was going crazy, shoving at me with everything he had, trying to get me downstairs to check on the fucking mage we had in custody, but I held firm against it. The mage could wait. The two injured wolves couldn’t.
I watched Jasper washing away the blood on his gloved hands before discarding the gloves altogether.
The wolf he’d worked on, the one who’d been shot, was lying in a plush bed, his chest all wrapped up with gauze.
He was still unconscious, but then again, Jasper had given him something to make him sleepy.
Not full-on anesthesia, but something to make him sleep through Jasper patching him up and sewing him together.
“The mage did a good job,” he quietly commented, turning his head to me.
I huffed.
The mage was an intruder. Someone who’d been hiding in my territory.
No! my wolf raged again. He’s our mage.
But he wasn’t. He wasn’t part of the pack. Hell, if he’d asked, I’d have welcomed him with open arms. That was what this pack was about. To accept members the way they were. So what if he wasn’t a shifter? If he was a paranormal in need of a home, he’d have been welcomed.
But he hadn’t asked.
He’d somehow managed to get into our territory without being detected and had hidden from us.
“I mean it, Gray. This one would have been dead without him.”
A chill ran down my body while my wolf preened in my chest, irritably proud that our mage had done such a good job.
“He’s still an intruder. An unknown variable.”
I didn’t know much about mages. Truthfully, I barely knew anything about them at all. I knew they were a class of magic users. There were witches, wizards, and mages. That was it. My ancestors didn’t have much to do with them as they tended to keep to themselves.
“Yet from what I’ve heard, he risked his life to help these two young wolves.” Jasper gestured to the unconscious man lying in his bed, then to the wall behind which the second wolf was resting in his own room.
My wolf kept showing off, puffing out his chest, his happiness with the mage’s actions so fucking agitating. What was going on with him? Had the mage cast a spell to bewitch me? To soften me up so I wouldn’t be mad that he’d intruded into our territory?
It didn’t work on me. My wolf might be fooled, but I wasn’t.
Not fooled, my wolf insisted, his hackles rising.
I chose to ignore him for now.
“So, what’s his prognosis?”
Jasper smiled, carefully placing a comforter over the wolf’s body.
“It’s good. The mage managed to heal the internal wounds.
From what I could see, the bullet hit this one’s lung on the way through.
He would’ve drowned in his own blood if the mage hadn’t healed him so quickly.
The only thing left to do was for me to clean the wound and sew him up.
He should be able to jump back quickly. You know the drill: let him rest and sleep it off, then, once he’s up for it, let him shift so he can heal completely.
I’ll swing by at noon to check up on our patients. ”
I nodded. “Thank you, Jasper.”
“No problem.” He smiled at me. “And Gray?”
“Yes?”
“Be gentle with them. They’re really young. I think probably about eighteen. Definitely not older than twenty.”
I nodded, pressing my lips into a thin line as I thought about the grown-ass shifters hunting them down with guns. They’d been adults in their thirties and forties hunting teenagers.
My anger rose.
Our mage saved them.
He isn’t our mage.
He was an intruder.
My wolf huffed and turned his back on me as if he were pouting. At me. For not abandoning two potential new pack members when they were severely injured and probably scared shitless.
“Do you want me to check up on the mage too? Angelo said he collapsed when he was healing this one.”
The petty part of my brain wanted to decline the offer. The mage wasn’t our problem.
My wolf growled lowly in my head, his anger rising at my stubbornness.
Jesus. He was out of line. Tomorrow, we’d need to go on a good long run or maybe spar with Rhett to let off a bit of steam.
“Yes, please. I’ll go with you.”
In the end, I wasn’t petty enough to deny anyone medical attention.
Especially if he’d sustained injuries while trying to help two prospective pack members.
Part of me, the rational part, the one not consumed by rage upon finding out that someone was hiding right under my nose, was aware of the fact that the mage had put himself in danger to help.
Mages weren’t immune to gunshots, were they?
He’d been there, helping when we’d arrived.
He hadn’t stopped, hadn’t stayed back until the threat was eliminated.
He’d been kneeling right there in the snow, his black cloak such a stark contrast to his white surroundings; he’d been a prime target.
“If you don’t mind my asking, Gray. Do you know where he came from?”
I let out a humourless laugh as we walked down the hall and down the stairs.
“No. That’s one of the questions I need to ask him.”
There were more.
Tons of them.
How long had he been staying here? Why was he hiding in our territory?
We reached the main floor, where a couple of people were standing around the door leading to the basement.
“Everything okay?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in question.
“Yeah,” Susie said. “It’s just… there was a commotion a couple of minutes ago, and I guess we’re all…”
“Curious,” Linda said, a wry smile on her lips.
“Nervous,” Lucas chimed in, a visible shiver running through him. “We haven’t used the cells for anyone in years.”
“It’s just a precaution,” I said, gripping Lucas’s shoulder to calm him down.
“Yeah,” someone else said. “Also, Rhett’s mate knows the mage. Apparently, they’re friends, so he can’t be that bad, right?”
Wait… what?
Levi knew that guy?
My wolf perked up at that information, giving me a meaningful look filled with judgment.
I sighed internally and made my way through the small crowd.
“I promise you’re all safe. Jasper and I are on our way downstairs to talk to the mage. Once we know more, we’ll talk to you, okay? If you want to stay, go to the dining room. I believe there are midnight snacks available for everyone.”
Of course, it was way past midnight.
A few wolves grumbled, while others seemed relieved.
And me? I was starting to feel like an idiot for having placed someone in our cells.
I’d been so fucking angry to find out that he’d come from within our pack lands that I… yeah, I’d kinda wanted to teach him a lesson. Maybe even scare him a little.
But by being petty, I’d scared my own pack when there was no reason to. I could just as well have put him in a room and placed a guard on his door.
I sighed as we headed down the stairs, the lingering scent of fear wafting over to me, making the hair on the back of my neck rise.
First and most pronounced was Rhett’s fear. Older. He was calmer now.
But the further down I got, the more intense a new scent got. Fear. Complete and utter terror wrapped itself around me, bitter and sour, but still oh so tempting, laced with the smell of rain, tinged with notes of a thunderstorm. Crackling electricity, lightning about to hit.
My steps quickened, my pulse speeding up, stomach churning, the desperation in the air making me want to puke.
I turned to my right, hurrying to the heavy metal door that divided the rest of the basement from our makeshift prison.
Inside, the scent hit me like a punch to the gut, almost making me keel over.
The cool freshness of rain, crackling electricity, and so much fear.
My eyes widened as I laid eyes on the figure cowering on the bench, pressed into the farthest corner of the cell, hiding his face behind his knees.
The sight of him was like a bucket of ice water emptied over my head and made me stop dead in my tracks as awareness slammed into me.
My mate.
He was my mate.
Our mage, my wolf confirmed, all smugness gone as he took in the shivering form on the other side of the bars. Comfort him.
I took a deep breath, the stench of fear and despair turning my stomach as I looked at my packmates who were waiting in the small hallway alongside which sat the three cells our pack had built centuries ago.
They were seldom used, bare stone, without any amenities.
Just a bare wooden bench mounted to the wall of each cell.
“Could you give us some room, please?” I asked. The five pack members waiting here had all been assigned to patrol duty tonight and had apparently taken over guard duty when we’d brought in the newcomer.
They all muttered varying affirmatives before leaving, until the only people left behind were Paul and Jasper next to me outside the cell, and Rhett and Levi inside the cell, with Rhett hovering close to the door and Levi sitting on the bench next to my mate.
I couldn’t see much of him. He kept hiding most of his body behind his lower legs, but I did see his silvery-white hair and the way his clothes hung from his body, as if they were several sizes too big, his slender frame trembling and shivering constantly.
My stomach plummeted, my heart dropping.
He didn’t belong in a cell.
I needed to get him out of here. Up into one of the guest rooms. Tucked into bed so the thick blankets could warm him.
Yes, my wolf agreed, anger welling up in me that clearly belonged to him. Our mage.
I hadn’t listened to him, too consumed by the rage burning inside me upon finding another thing that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. And my rage had landed my mate in a cell when he’d been trying to help.
Jasper’s words came back to my mind. He’d really just been helping, hadn’t he?
Hell. Rhett had been the first to question me when he’d quietly told me that the mage didn’t feel like an intruder. I hadn’t listened then either.
My feet started walking all on their own, carrying me closer to my mate, but with every step I took, he flinched, and his fear kept spiking, stinking up the whole room.
“Stop,” Levi said, looking straight at me, not a shred of insecurity on his face.