Chapter 11
It was dark in the paddock, but Sera could see well enough to hunt thanks to the moonlight. She followed Caesar as he padded off in the direction the little bunny had scampered off to, but something was bothering her.
Something felt…off.
Nerves, maybe. This tradition was part of joining as a mate to sexy Caesar, and she didn’t want to mess it up. For the first time, their pride was going to have an alpha female, and that made her nervous as hell.
But this off-feeling wasn’t like nerves, it was like foreboding.
As Caesar picked up the pace, she hurried to catch up.
And that’s when she saw it: something glinting in the moonlight ahead of Caesar’s path.
She let out a yowl of warning and leaped for him.
Caesar snarled as Sera slammed into him from the side, her smaller body hitting him with enough force to throw them both off balance.
The momentum of her tackle spun her sideways, paws skidding across the grass.
She scrambled to recover but couldn’t find purchase with her claws in the grass and dirt. She slid away from Caesar.
She let out a frightened yowl as Caesar roared, when she saw a glint of metal shining in the moonlight in a different location than the one she’d knocked Caesar from. What the hell was it?
She twisted, trying to right herself as she slid dangerously close to whatever it was, when Caesar growled, protective and furious, and slammed into her with the full force of his massive lion form.
She went airborne, away from the metallic shining object, tumbling head over tail into a patch of tall grass.
She hit the ground hard and rolled, safely away from whatever she’d seen.
The snap of metal hitting flesh cracked in the air and Caesar let out a deep, bellowing roar of pain.
Shit!
She scrambled up and turned just in time to see him collapse in a heap, snarling, the scent of blood tinging the air.
She raced to him and saw a coiled, barbed wire wrapped around his back leg, the barbs embedded deep into the muscle.
He tried to move, but it made the wire coil tighter into his leg.
She let out the loudest, most piercing call for help she could, and then she forced herself back to her human shift even though she’d only been in her jaguar form for a little while.
Her vision blurred and her head swam as unconsciousness threatened to swamp her with the quick change back, but she forced herself to stay alert for her mate.
“Help! Help! Jupiter, Amadeus, Lucius! Someone help!!” She screamed for his family and pride as her hands shook, her fingers ghosting just over his bleeding leg, too scared to touch anything.
She said his name on a whispered, tearful cry and put her hand on his big head. “Stay with me, okay? Don’t move, you’ll make it worse.”
She’d tried to save him, and he’d saved her.
She heard footsteps running toward them and she called out an alert for the traps. Flashlights illuminated suddenly from phones, pointed downward to watch for what were clearly some kind of spring-loaded wire traps.
As the pride approached, she saw a flashlight sweep nearby and saw another trap in the grass. “Shit,” Jupiter said. “That’s a fucking coil wire trap. What the hell! How did this get here?”
Lucius dropped to his knees next to his dad and shone his flashlight on his leg.
Sera gasped, her hand flying to cover her mouth, as she saw the damage to Caesar’s leg. The barbed wire was wrapped from his ankle up to his hip, sharp barbs sunk deep into the flesh as blood flowed freely. Caesar’s toes curled and he snarled, his claws digging into the dirt.
Jupiter stood over them. “Don’t move, Dad. You’ll make it worse. Sera, are you okay?”
“I…yes. I’m okay. I saw the metal and I pushed him away, and then I tumbled toward another trap and he pushed me out of the way and got caught in it himself.” She lowered her head and pressed it to his. “You saved me.”
As she lifted her head, she saw his eyes flutter shut and he groaned.
Panic slammed through her. She knew Otto had done this, but it didn’t matter how right now. All that mattered was helping Caesar.
She put her hand on his chest to feel the thump of his heart.
Caesar let out a blood-curdling roar as the pride members tried to disengage the wire from around his leg, and then he shifted.
It was agonizingly slow as he shifted back to human.
“I can’t see,” Caesar said with a wheeze, grasping for her. “Baby, are you okay?”
She grabbed his hand and brought it to her lips. “I’m okay, Caesar, because you saved me.”
“You can’t see, Dad?” Lucius asked. “Someone get Doc Paula on the phone. We’ll bring him down to her clinic.”
“I’m already on it,” Amadeus said, his voice tight with stress. “They’re waiting for us.”
“I think there’s a bigger problem,” Caesar said. “This trap is coated in poison. I…” His voice cut off as he groaned in agony, his body shaking violently.
And then he went still, and for a heartbeat, no one moved or said anything.
Sera sobbed as worry shot through her like a bullet.
“Help him,” she begged. “Please.”
His sons lifted him and walked toward the maintenance shed. “Here’s your clothes,” Sidney said. “Let’s hurry.”
Sera dressed quickly, hands trembling, and watched as pride members moved in front of the small group to light the way, pointing out traps.
Otto, that asshole!
“We’ll do a grid search when the sun’s up,” Devlin said as he joined them. “Let’s get over to the doc’s so she can help our alpha.”
He shone the flashlight from his phone ahead of them as they hurried toward the shed, pride members surrounding them and looking for danger. Sidney held Sera’s hand tightly, murmuring words of hope, but Sera didn’t really hear them.
The worry for her mate was too loud.
She’d just gotten Caesar, she didn’t want to lose him. Not now, not like this.
Please, don’t let him be taken from me.
* * *
The next few minutes were a blur as Sera followed the pride down to the private living area, out into the hall, and then inside the wolves’ private area.
Theirs had homes that were covered with rocks to resemble dens, with dark walls and flooring that made her feel entirely claustrophobic.
Or maybe it was the nerves singing in her veins because Caesar was unconscious and it looked like purple lines were streaking up his leg from the wound.
“Right in here,” a female called from a home’s doorway. She was wearing scrub bottoms and a white T-shirt, her graying hair pulled back in a messy bun.
“Just Caesar and his mate in the room,” she said with authority. “The boys can wait outside, but the rest of the pride needs to disperse—my house isn’t that big.”
They laid Caesar on a hospital bed in a sterile-looking room.
Jupiter put his hand on Sera’s shoulder. “I’m going to head up to security. We need to figure out how traps like that got into the paddock in the first place.”
She swallowed hard, her mouth dry. “It has to be Otto.”
“I’m sure it was, but it still doesn’t change that we have so much security in place it shouldn’t have happened. We’ll figure it out, okay?” He stared down at her, his eyes glowing with his lion, and then he strode out of the room.
“I’m going with him,” Amadeus said. “Dad will be fine. He’s the strongest male I know, and he just found you finally after waiting for so long. He’s not going anywhere.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“I’ll stand guard in the outer room,” Lucius said. “And keep in touch with everyone so you don’t have to.”
She nodded, tears stinging her eyes at their sweet words. When she was alone with the wolf pack doctor and Caesar, she inhaled deeply and pushed off the worry. Caesar had saved her life. He was going to be okay, she knew it.
He had to be.
Paula was leaning over Caesar’s leg and mumbling to herself. She turned to a tray with tools and lifted what looked like wire cutters from it. She met Sera’s gaze. “I’m Paula. I’m really sorry to meet you like this.”
“I’m Sera.”
She nodded, then said, “I think they put something on the wire. I’m picking up some kind of strange smell I can’t place. Hold his shoulders in case this hurts him and wakes him up, okay?”
Sera nodded and moved to the head of the bed, leaning over her mate and pressing her hands to his shoulders.
His skin was gray and his breathing was shallow.
She turned her head to watch Paula work, cutting each section of wire away and gingerly pulling the barbs free.
The wounds gushed with blood. The more wire she took off, the more blood covered his skin and the bed.
“Oh crap, I know that smell,” Sera said.
“What is it?”
“Jimsonweed. Our prowl used it to poison traps.”
Paula leaned in and sniffed one of the barbs, holding it gently between her gloved finger and thumb. “You’re right. I knew it smelled familiar. Do you know how to treat it?”
“Yeah, one of our males fell and tripped a trap, and he fell unconscious right away. Our healer applied a poultice of parsley and charcoal mixed with honey to his wounds, which pulled the toxin out. He woke up a few hours later and was able to shift and heal.”
Paula told her where to get the parsley from her spice cabinet, the honey from the kitchen table, and the charcoal from her pharmacy cabinet. In no time, the wire was off, his leg was clean, and Paula was smearing the thick paste over his wounds, then wrapping his leg with sterile cloth.
“You said a few hours?” Paula asked as she cleaned up the area.
“Yeah.”
She pulled over a chair and patted the back of it. “Have a seat, honey. It’s going to be a long night for you. But the good news is that it’s only been ten minutes and already he’s looking better and his vitals have improved. Your knowledge saved the day, saved your mate.”
Sera blew out a breath.
“I’ll be back to check on him in a few.”
Sera sat heavily in the chair and reached for Caesar’s hand, wrapping hers around it. She brought it to her lips and kissed his knuckles.
“You can wake up anytime, Caesar. Because I want to tell you how much I’m falling for you, but I don’t want to do it while you’re unconscious.”
She sighed and held tight to his hand.
Come back to me.