Chapter 11
Caidrik reached the old bridge just in time to see Bulwark throw Nadia off the opposite ledge.
He bellowed her name as she dropped toward the violent river.
The sound ripped out of him, raw and useless, already swallowed by the roar of the churning water below.
There was no time to think. He leaped, shifting in the air, the change snapping through him so fast it hurt.
Bones burned and reset, skin stretched, and his wolf strength slammed into place.
He hit the water hard and went under. Pain spiked through his eyeballs.
He burst back up, fighting wildly.
The current took him immediately. It dragged him sideways, spun him, dunked his head under and yanked it back out.
Water blasted up his snout and down his throat.
He coughed out gallons, choking, his lungs screaming.
His head bobbed and ducked and bobbed again, and nothing filled his vision but white water and spray.
Trying to see was useless. Everything moved too fast.
“Nadia,” he tried to roar, but only a wolf’s growl came out, torn apart by the sound of the river. He shoved his head down, tried to swim under the top current, and smashed sideways into a sharp rock. Pain slashed across his rib cage, sharp enough to make him snarl as the water rolled him over it.
Damn it. He forced himself to the surface again.
Wait.
Her head broke the surface ahead of him, then disappeared again. They were in the middle of jagged rapids now with the water hammering stones, and he could see blood pooling around her. The red spread and thinned, foaming at the surface.
Something hit him beneath the current, a surge of energy that rolled through the water hard. She must have shifted. Good.
He paddled closer, then stopped fighting it and let the current take him, trusting that if he stayed with it, they’d end up in the same place.
Branches whipped past him. One cracked against his shoulder.
Another nearly took his head off. He slammed into another rock and pain flared down his leg, hot and deep, but he didn’t slow.
The sound changed. Deeper. Louder. A constant thunder that filled his ears.
The waterfall.
Not a little one. One where tourists drove for hours just to get a picture. It was beautiful and deadly. This one ended in razor sharp rocks and a landing that would kill them.
He had to get to her first.
Swimming hard as he could, he spotted her in flashes, twisting with the water until he whipped himself around a cluster of rocks and landed in front of her.
Her white fur matted around her wide eyes.
Too wide. She paddled furiously, but she was no match for the current.
Blood streaked her fur but he couldn’t tell how bad it was.
He dove and snagged the back of her neck in his jaw, careful not to hurt her. The taste of her fur filled his mouth. He kicked, shoved off a rock, and pushed them toward the shore with what strength he had left.
It would be easier to grab her in human form, but he didn’t have as much strength as a man, and he needed all of his power right now. A glance told him they were five feet from the flow pushing them right over. Five feet from a landing they wouldn’t survive.
He kicked harder. She tried to help, twisting and fighting, and he shook her hard. She went limp, trusting him.
Good.
He found another rock and used it. His feet slipped. He kicked anyway, muscles tearing as he shoved them sideways. The river fought him, then let go.
They hit the shoreline hard. Stone tore at skin. They rolled once, twice, and then the water was behind them, still reaching, still loud.
He let her go and shifted back, hands digging into frozen ground as his body reset. She shifted too. His heartbeat wouldn’t slow. It burned. His arms shook. The river kept roaring like it hadn’t noticed they were gone.
“Where are you hurt?” The words came out of him loud and fast.
Mist wrapped around them, wet and freezing. It coated his skin. Every breath hurt. His body ached everywhere with stinging cuts and already tightening bruises, but he didn’t check any of it. He didn’t care.
She was all that mattered.
“I’m not sure,” Nadia coughed out.
He ran his hands over her nude body with numb fingers.
She was cold. Not just chilled. Freezing in a way that scared him.
Her skin felt waxy and frozen. She shuddered violently, her teeth rattling hard enough he could hear the clatter.
He found two cuts on her right hip, and he leaned closer, squinting in the dim light reflecting off the snow and water.
The wounds were bleeding steadily but not pouring out dangerous amounts. Not yet, anyway.
“These need stitches,” he said.
She nodded, her head barely moving. “I might be able to heal them,” she gasped. Her lips were blue, and her breath hitched between shallow pulls of air.
“We need shelter.” He ducked and lifted her, forcing his legs to work through the weakness shaking them. They were definitely out of Slate Pack territory now, edging into human land, but still deep in nowhere.
They might be closer to Copper Pack territory.
There were no lights, no roads, no animals. He could only see snow, trees, and that damn river.
The female felt light in his arms. Very.
She curled against him immediately, shivering violently.
He pulled her tighter to his chest, trying to share heat, but the wind stole all warmth.
The chill cut through him and pummeled straight to his bones.
He turned left, then right, searching, his bare feet numb in the thick snow.
The powder reached almost to his waist, but he plodded on, trying to go faster.
“Where are we?” Her voice shook so badly he almost missed the words.
“In a safe area.” He hunched over her, trying to shield her body with his own. “Between Copper territory and Slate territory.” He angled toward the river. “I’ve scouted this area before. There’s a summer camp further down.”
He had hunted someone there once. Someone who deserved it.
The wind fought him as he ran for miles on bare feet with the ice slicing into his skin. Cuts along his hips and across his chest burned, then slowly started to close as he moved. He glanced down at her again. Blood still seeped from her hip, dark against her pale skin. “Can you heal that?”
“I’m trying,” she whispered, her long hair iced over.
She needed heat before anything else.
They broke into the summer camp at last. Snow coated the cabins, which sat in a small circle, their roofs sagging under the weight. The main lodge loomed behind them, dark and empty. He kicked open the nearest cabin door and slammed it shut behind him, sealing out the wind.
Inside was freezing. Still better than outside.
A fireplace crouched in the corner next to a small kitchenette. A large bed with a stripped mattress that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years had been pushed against the far wall.
He crossed the room and laid her down gently, forcing his hands to stay steady. He turned to the fireplace and his stomach sank. There wasn’t any wood near the hollow hearth. “Hold on. I’ll be back in a second.”
The cold hit him like a slap when he stepped outside.
His skin prickled instantly. It would be easier to move in the storm as a wolf, but he needed to swing an ax.
He ran to the tool shed by the main lodge and kicked the door open.
The padlock exploded, and a shard of metal sliced into his chin. Warm blood ran down his neck.
Inside, he found gardening supplies, an ax, and a scattering of tools.
He grabbed the ax and went back out, scanning through the snow for a downed tree.
It took longer than it should have. His hands shook.
His breath burned. When he finally found a stag, he chopped it into usable pieces and hauled them back, dumping them beside the fireplace in the cabin.
No matches.
He hadn’t seen any in the shed either.
Damn it. He turned slowly and looked at Nadia, still shivering on the bed, her skin pale and tight, her breath shallow and uneven.
She had curled onto her side and was just shaking on the bare mattress, small and tight, arms pulled in like she was trying to fold herself smaller.
“Hold on. We’re close,” he growled. He spun and ran back outside, the door slamming behind him. Snow blew sideways, stinging his face, and clumps of ice dropped from the trees to explode at his feet. The wind roared through the camp like it had its own soul.
He ran for the main lodge and kicked the door open.
Cold rushed out to meet him. The place was empty and dark, the air stale and sharp.
He sprinted into the kitchen, yanking open drawers one after another, hands clumsy with cold and shaking too hard to be precise.
Finally, he found one of those lighter things, the kind you had to push the button down hard to get it to spark.
He clicked it.
A flame bloomed, bright and steady.
“Yes,” he muttered.
The lodge was just a gathering place for meals, but maybe there was storage. He ran behind the kitchen and found a few cans of soup and grabbed them blindly, then tore into another storage area and halted for half a second.
Sleeping bags.
Hope careened through him, sharp enough to hurt. He grabbed three of them, and a first aid kit hanging crooked on the wall. He then ran back through the lodge and out into the snow. His feet and legs were numb now, all the way up to his thighs. He stumbled once and caught himself.
That wasn’t good. If he was this cold, he couldn’t imagine what Nadia felt like.
He burst back into the cabin and tossed the sleeping bags onto the bed, ripping them open as he crossed the room. He dropped to his knees at the fireplace and worked fast, stacking the logs he’d brought in. He struck the lighter.
Nothing.
The wood was soaked. Too wet. He snarled under his breath, turned, and grabbed one of the sleeping bags, tearing strips of material away with shaking hands.
He shoved the stuffing under the logs, slashed at it with sparks until the smell turned acrid and thick.
Smoke filled the room, burned his lungs, and finally the fire caught.
The logs began to burn.
Good.
He moved away from the fire and looked back at her.
She hadn’t twitched.
“Come on, Nadia,” he said quietly. He gently rolled her to check her hip. Blood had soaked into the mattress, dark and spreading. “All right. These aren’t healing and you’re losing too much blood.”
He grabbed the first aid kit and flipped it open. “I’m going to stitch these. It’s going to hurt. I need you to hold your breath.”
“It’s okay,” she said faintly. “I’m numb. I can’t feel much.”
She screamed anyway when the needle pierced her skin.
“Sorry,” he winced.
“It’s okay,” she gritted out, jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut. “You can finish,” she whispered.
His hands were sure despite the shaking, warming as he worked, every stitch careful, gentle, fast. Finally, he finished, and his body relaxed. That was tough. He glanced at the cuts on his chest, already healing, then at the blood-soaked mattress.
Slowly, he lifted her to her feet. She winced as her bare soles hit the frozen floor.
“Hold on,” he said.
He tore the remaining piece of the ripped sleeping bag flat and spread it over the mattress to cover the blood, then picked her up again and laid her back down. He unzipped the other two sleeping bags, climbed in beside her, and pulled them over both of them. “Come here.”
She whimpered something as the ice in her hair started to melt.
He dragged her against his chest. She hissed softly as his warmth hit her chilled shoulders, her body stiff and shaking against him as he wrapped himself around her and held on. “This is not how I pictured us naked for the first time,” he murmured against her hair.