Chapter 6
Konstantine
If Drake, my gamma, hadn’t called me to southwest sector of the territory when he had, she would already be dead.
As it was, I didn’t know if she was going to make it.
This human, this stranger, had wandered onto my lands, and her heart was beating at a pace that would only slow further, as told by the amount of red gleaming on the normally grey and colorless cliffside.
We had arrived just in time to stop Castor and Pollux from ripping out her throat, but not in time to stop her fall. I had smelled her fear from where I was, fear of the two wolves who’d cornered her, which had morphed into growing terror in the space where she’d lost her footing.
She had dropped at an incredible speed. I’d shifted as I ran, knowing my wolf, with his size and strength, was better equipped at navigating the treacherous terrain.
Faster, Apollo! I said to him, looking on as she bounced down the mountainside, her body helplessly taking blow after blow. Her cries were painful to hear, but at least they meant she was still alive.
Apollo exerted every bit of energy he had to make the climb.
There were no footholds, and his paws would slip on occasion, but my wolf often had a one-track mind that wasn’t easily swayed.
He was about to reach her when she smacked headfirst into the base of a large, dead tree trunk jutting out of the mountain.
It changed the direction of her descent, putting us at a higher elevation.
Ah, shit, Apollo said in frustration as we both realized her cries had ceased.
Using the downhill speed to his advantage, he ran toward her now-unconscious form at an angle and overtook her.
After giving himself an extra few meters, he twisted his body sharply to face uphill.
Apollo anchored himself as best he could, gripped the rocky slope with his paws, muscles tensed, and braced for impact as she hurtled toward us.
This is going to hurt, he warned, and a moment later the girl crashed into us.
The hit sent him skidding back, almost taking us out.
He bore down, his paws scraping roughly along the uneven surface.
We came to a halt after several feet, and her body rolled lazily against his.
I had no time to waste. He shifted us back, needing to be in my human form to carry her the rest of the way.
She was lying face down against the mountain, covered in so much blood, it was all I could smell.
It had soaked her clothes which were shredded, hanging off of her in torn strips.
Yet the scent of it was… off. I could tell the second it hit my nostrils; the familiar sanguine smell had another element.
It was sweet, pleasant, and earthy but also impossible to discern since it was overshadowed by copper and iron.
I rotated her onto her back as gently as I could. Her eyes were closed shut. She was alive but unconscious, likely due to the blood loss. It was oozing out of a deep gash on her abdomen. Her face was unrecognizable, swollen and horrendously bruised, along with the rest of her body.
Slipping my hands under her knees and back, I picked her up and held her close to me as I carefully trod down the mountain. A tattooed arm dangled lifelessly at her side. Her sweet scent hit me again, and Apollo grumbled nervously in my head.
Get a move on, will you? he muttered relentlessly.
I mindlinked the hospital and sprinted lightly, not wanting to shake her around too much. I was unusually calm, the rush long behind me.
My wolf’s nagging drove to me link Drake. “What happened?”
“Logan and Veronica were on patrol with the twins. They attacked Veronica. She’s injured but will be fine. However, they gave Logan the slip when he went to tend to her,” Drake replied, sounding aggravated.
Fresh wolves. How little patience I had for them.
“Have the twins been located?” I demanded.
“Yes, Cyrus is up there wrangling them,” he replied hesitantly. When silence filled the space, I knew there had to be more he wasn’t saying.
“Drake?”
“Is she okay?” he finally asked. Brunettes and Drake.
I sighed to myself and ignored him. “What was she doing there?” I asked, wondering who would be stupid enough to venture into such a dangerous place, especially alone.
“I had just gotten to this watchtower, but the guard on duty told me she was taking pictures or video or something before they got the jump on her.”
Pictures? Pictures of what, I wondered. To outsiders, meaning humans, there was nothing to see in this part of the mountains. It was extremely steep and narrow with no vegetation. Even if they got closer, the Fire’s powers always willed them back.
“Is she okay?” he asked again.
“I don’t know, Drake. I’m not a doctor, but it’s not looking good.”
“She was pretty… so pretty.” He was almost mewling.
“Focus, Gamma. You’re losing your touch,” I told him sternly. We needed to deal with the matter at hand.
“Fuck, man, you try putting up with these twin turds for weeks!” he exclaimed.
“Why didn’t you command them to stand down?”
“That’s the thing. I did,” Drake replied. “I told them to stop and back up. They wouldn’t listen or leave her alone. That’s why you needed to do it.” He took a breath. “I’m sorry for that, Alpha.”
It wasn’t his fault. Sometimes the beast was more powerful than its human. I was hopeful, however. I had faith in my officers, and Drake always liked a challenge, given what he’d overcome with his wolf.
When I arrived, two nurses were waiting in the main area of the hospital with a gurney. They came running to meet me. “Alpha, please set her on here! Oh, goddess!” One of them took a look at the girl and her eyes went wide in shock and immediately clouded over.
Dr. Distefano, who was the hospital director and one of the pack elders, appeared shortly thereafter. The nurse must have summoned him to see the damage for himself and do a quick examination.
“Straight to the OR,” he instructed. “She needs blood. Find her type and get a line going.”
The nurses nodded, and the two of them disappeared down the hall with the gurney in tow.
Dr. Distefano turned toward me. “I’ll keep you informed of her condition, Alpha, but I must go.”
I understood his hurry and waved him off to tend to his patient. She was out of my hands now. I stood there alone for a second longer, not quite ready to walk away. Apollo had not stopped trudging back and forth in my head. Something was setting him off.
“Alpha?” Another nurse came over and handed me a pair of sweatpants and a wet towel. I hadn’t noticed until then that my chest and stomach were smeared all over with red. I went to take a step and almost slipped, then realized I was standing in a shallow pool of blood. She had been bleeding out.
“Poor thing,” the nurse said, shaking her head sadly.
“Will she live?” I asked.
“It could go either way,” the nurse replied truthfully. “The fact that she’s currently breathing is a marvel in itself.”
I cleaned myself off, but my mind was somewhere else. With the girl’s blood still on me, the strange scent of it would not leave my senses. Even more strangely, I was not troubled by it.
Stan! Stan! Alpha! It was Cyrus who was trying to get my attention, calling to me through the link.
What? I replied, not caring for the interruption.
Where are you?
Hospital lobby, I said.
He ran in a few minutes later. His face was flushed and he was panting, a frown lining his forehead.
“Stan,” he practically barked between deep breaths. “The beacon didn’t go off.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The Fire shouldn’t have failed to warn us of danger or of a foreign presence on our lands. Yet it had.
For the second time.