That scream. He knew that scream. The exact pitch and tenor of the cry still haunted Grey’s nightmares.
Morgan.
He tore at a dead run through the back yard. The others trailed behind him naturally. Time dragged, and he pushed his legs in a burst that threw him in front of the porch. The stink of violence, blood, and fear drowned him. He skidded to a halt, horror making his hackles rise.
Alexis had found Morgan and was ripping into her leg. Morgan fought back, kicking, hitting her, but Alexis held on with single minded tenacity. The wolves froze behind him as Grey bolted forward and latched onto the back of Alexis’s exposed neck. He threw her into the side of the truck. Her limp body fell into a puddle of slick mud next to the vehicle. A deserving grave.
There was too much space between his body and Morgan’s, and the other wolves were too close. He bolted to Morgan, whose chest rose and fell so fast he was sure she’d pass out. Large gashes through the muscles had laid her leg wide open. Strips of jean material hung from her like bloody tendrils, pulling her to hell. Alexis had gone straight for the artery, cheating Morgan out of a clean death. She looked into his eyes, her pupils dilated with undiluted panic and shock. “Grey? Help me,” she gasped.
Blood everywhere, and the smell soaked into everything. The wolves inched forward, their attention riveted by her exposed leg. No matter how loudly Grey snarled his warning, the flowing, fresh blood dulled their human senses until they were nothing but bloodthirsty animals.
They inched closer, some on their bellies, others pacing nervously. He pulled his lips back. He’d kill them all.
Roaring, gnashing his teeth, he warned the wolves what was coming for them. A few scattered under his power-fueled rage and dove for the woods. Others stopped and cowered, but a couple, including Alexis, now recovered, were still coming for Morgan. Predators drawn instinctively to an unfinished kill. Grey stepped over her body and covered it with his. Mine, his posture said.
Alexis charged first, and he viciously fought her. Even through her high pitched whining, he still ripped into her. A dark gray and white wolf, Logan, went for Morgan’s leg. Grey swung his neck around, threw Alexis as far from Morgan as he could and attacked him. Logan was too close to her body and there was only time enough to clip his leg out from under him before he was on her. It slowed him down enough to give Grey a split second to lunge and drag the fight further away. He clamped down on his muzzle, ready to break it and suffocate him, but there wasn’t enough time before the others came for Morgan. None of the wolves were trained to fight something like Wolf. A true monster, created from a man-eating savage. Grey relinquished all control to his ebony rider.
Wolf had swiftness with breakneck accuracy, wielded brutal size with razor sharp teeth and jaw strength honed for snapping bones. He was fashioned after Beast and created to be Ripper. Another wolf rushed him and Alexis charged him again. Grey fought Logan and Brandon, and as Alexis jumped to land on Morgan, something hit her hard and she flew sideways. Dean stood there with a huge stick, defending Morgan’s form with a look of furious savagery.
“Get back!” Dean bellowed. The crack of power in his voice ricocheted off the trees. The wolves retreated, slunk away. “Go Change. Now!”
They skittered back into the woods under the command of their alpha.
Grey placed himself over her body again. Dean dropped the branch and held his hands out in surrender, but he didn’t care. Submissive gesture or not, no one would touch his mate without losing something vital.
“Grey, we need to take her in. We have to try to save her. We’ll do everything we can for her. Please,” Dean pleaded.
Morgan, Morgan, Morgan. His Morgan. Her life energy grew dimmer by the moment, like an ember that lacked oxygen. The thick iron scent of her blood tainted the air until it was all he could smell. She’d lost so much, and still he couldn’t drag himself from her.
In the window above, Lana whimpered and asked Marissa what was wrong. She was scared.
Think, Grey, think.
They had to try and save her. Everything good in his life depended on his ability to let them try. Slowly he retreated, closing his eyes against the burn of leaving her. Spinning, he ran for the inky shadows of the woods without looking back. He couldn’t look back—couldn’t see her limp body or empty eyes or the river of blood flowing across the porch. A whine crawled up the back of his throat, and he paced the outskirts of the yard. He needed Lana. Needed to hold her and cry with her, tell her everything was going to be okay and pretend it was true.
The wait for a Change was excruciating. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same results and roared in frustration, over and over until his voice turned into the agonized howls of a wolf who had lost its reason for existence. Three human voices rose, joined him from inside the house. He couldn’t tell who, nor did he care. His Morgan was gone, and he sang a wolf song to honor and mourn her.
Exhausted and lost, he began the agonizing Change. The pain was welcome. Anything to escape the bottomless anguish for even a moment.
He pulled jeans on at the truck and pulled his shirt over his head as he walked through the front door. Rachel rushed to him with tear filled eyes.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Grey, you’re bleeding badly. We need to have Wade look at that after he’s done with Morgan—”
He roared, “Does she live?”
Rachel crouched to the floor in terror. “I don’t know, but I think not.”
Despair washed over him. Morgan. He needed to find her. To hold her body until they dragged him away.
No! He’d held his mother a long time after she’d died and it hadn’t brought her back. Now her cold body was the most vivid memory he had left of her. It couldn’t be that way with Morgan.
He spun away from the door. Hoarsely, he said, “Where’s my kid?”
“She’s upstairs with Marissa, getting a bath. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. Grey?” Rachel paused, still crouched on the floor. “Do you need anything?”
“I just want my kid,” he said, voice cracking. “Which bedroom?”
“The second one on the left has a big enough bed for both of you,” she murmured.
Brandon threw Grey a first aid kit as he headed for the stairs. He needed to find a bathroom to clean himself up before he fainted. The lightheadedness told him of injuries he didn’t care to look at.
He’d never been on the second floor before because he’d never had a reason to stay the night. He tried three doors before he found the bathroom. Lana sat in a bubble filled bathtub while Marissa sat on the ledge reading from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Marissa looked up with frightened, wide eyes. She slammed the book closed and stood.
He was about to back out of the room when she said, “I’m sorry about Morgan, Mr. Grey. I hope she’ll be all right.” Never had she talked to him before without him dragging the words out of her.
“Thank you, Marissa.” Gesturing to Lana, he asked, “How’s she holding up?”
“She doesn’t know what’s happening. She’s scared and confused but okay.” Her voice held less of a tremor and she looked him boldly in the eye.
He probably didn’t appear very threatening at the moment. Passing out right here on the tile floor was becoming a legitimate possibility, and Wolf had holed up deep inside, mourning. His eyes were probably bluer than she’d ever seen them.
“Mr. Grey? You’re bleeding. Do you need help?” she asked. He pitched forward unsteadily, and she reached out, but didn’t touch him. Grey leaned onto the cold marble sink and the pit pat of liquid against the hard floor became quick and almost constant. The foot long gash across his ribcage was probably the culprit. When had that happened, and who’d done it? The small first aid kit he held was completely inadequate for such an injury.
“Do you want me to go get Wade?” she asked. “He’s the pack doctor, and he’s good with this kind of stuff.”
Grey shook his head weakly. Wade was a dominant and Grey didn’t want him around when he was injured. Not like that. Marissa stood there for a moment, shifting her weight from side to side. She let out the tiniest growl, like a frustrated kitten, pulled wads of gauze from the first aid kit and pushed it onto his side. The pain made him wince and inhale sharply through clenched teeth.
“Hold that there, tightly,” she told him, then left the room.
She returned a few minutes later holding an armload of what looked like medical supplies. Grey leaned heavily against the wall.
“Rachel!” she called. “Can you help us with Lana?”
Rachel’s footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“You don’t mind crooked stitches, do you, Mr. Grey?” Marissa asked.
“Are you going to be the one doing the stitching?”
“Yes, sir, if it’s okay. You can’t stay open like that, and I don’t mind blood.” Her last words sounded haunted and quiet.
He grunted and lifted his arm so she could get a better angle at the seeping wound. Sure as hell, he couldn’t stitch it on his own with one left hand, so why not?
She flushed it out with a saline solution, and had trouble holding his slick, blood soaked skin together. So she stuck butterfly bandages in place every couple inches and stitched toward them, removing the tape as she reached each one. The stitches weren’t pretty or professional, but she told Grey she’d seen Wade stitch up enough wolves over the past couple years, she at least had an idea how to do it. He wasn’t vain, so it worked well enough.
Rachel dressed Lana in one of Marissa’s smallest t-shirts, and took her downstairs for a drink of milk and to watch television. Probably best, until he was more presentable and less gory.
“When I was down getting supplies from Wade, I saw Morgan,” Marissa whispered. She finished bandaging him and backed into the corner of the bathroom.
Wolf stirred at the sound of his mate’s name. “I don’t understand. Is she alive?”
“When I was there, yes. It looked like her body was already trying to heal itself. She’ll always be scarred, but the bleeding stopped and she was thrashing around pretty good.”
“Wait, what does that mean? She’s healing? I felt her dying. There is no way she could have survived losing so much blood.”
“She can if she is a wolf, sir. Hopefully she can Change—”
He’d jumped up before Marissa had finished and bolted from the bathroom. “Where is she?” he asked, sticking his head back into the doorway.
“The cages,” she responded.
“Where?”
She tossed the blood soaked gauze into a small trashcan. “Down underneath the barn.”
He ran, invigorated with the idea he might be able to hold his Morgan again. Please, please, please let her be alive.
She screamed loud enough to be heard from outside the barn. The cage’s soundproofing really needed improvement.
He stuck his head inside the drafty wooden walls and scanned the outbuilding for a secret entrance, sniffed the air. A trail frequented by members of the pack wound to a wall but dead-ended. It had to be some sort of panel because the scent ended there.
Poking, pushing, he searched for any kind of latch or release mechanism. Nothing. He stood back and studied the edges. There, at the bottom, a hole wide enough to get a foot or hand under. It looked like a rat hole, but worth a try. He put the toe of his shoe into it, hoping no rodent was home, and pushed down. Nothing happened. He pulled up with his shoe and a latch on the inside clicked. The wall rotated at an angle, far enough for him to see a narrow stairway. Crafty.
A short sprint down the stairs brought him face to face with Dean headed in the opposite direction at the bottom. He looked up, apparently startled to see anyone rocketing down the stairs and barreling toward him.
One look at Grey’s face, and he reassured him, “Your mate, she lives.”
Grey let out a long, shaky breath. “Where is she?”
“She is in the first cage. You can see her, but you can’t go in there right now.”
Wade squatted outside the bars of Morgan’s cage.
“What’s happened? Why aren’t you in there taking care of her?” Grey demanded.
Drenched in sweat, she lay on a bare, blood-soaked mattress. He shook the lock, but the cage was secured. Her face was turned toward them, but she jerked it way and back again as if she were having a terrible nightmare.
Another ear piercing scream ripped from her throat. Grey threw his hands up, covered his oversensitive ears. “What’s wrong with her? Can’t you do anything?”
Wade rubbed a hand over his scarred face. “There’s nothing we can do now. We have to wait.” He watched Morgan thrash with a slight frown. “You don’t remember your first Change?”
“She’s Changing? But mine happened over days. Is it normal for it to happen so fast? What if she is dying, not Changing?” he yelled, desperate. “We should be in there trying to save her!”
A bone chilling growl, long and low rippled through the air. It had come from Morgan’s drawn back lips.
Wade arched his eyebrows. “Yep, she’s definitely Changing. She’s the fastest one I’ve ever seen. She all but took my hand off before I realized what was happening, and I had to hightail it out of there and lock the door. We’d better go, boys,” he said, standing.
“I’m not leaving her here alone,” Grey bit out.
Wade sighed impatiently. “It’s not for her. It’s for you. Anyone she sees during this time, she isn’t going to associate with good memories after she comes to. Go take care of Lana. There’s nothing you can do for her, other than that. We’ll check on her in the morning.”
Morgan groaned, a tortured sound, as she clenched into herself and spasmed. Before he could change his mind, Grey took the stairs two at a time. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone observing his first Changes. The best he could do was give her privacy from prying eyes.
Lana had fallen asleep in Marissa’s arms by the time he walked back through the front door. She followed him to an upstairs bedroom, carrying the sleeping child. The room boasted a king sized bed and plenty of space for them to sleep comfortably. He took a sleepily smiling Lana from Marissa and tucked her in.
“Thanks,” he said, “for everything tonight. You’re a tough kid.”
Marissa nodded shyly and left him, likely to try and find sleep.
Lana opened her eyes just enough to ask about Morgan.
“She’ll be away for a little while, but I’ll take care of you until she gets back,” he told her.
Lana sniffled a while and fell asleep facing him, her cheek resting against her tiny hands. Big Bad Wolf indeed. If that baby girl asked him to jump, he’d ask how high.
He woke to the sound of muffled footsteps and the bedroom door creaking open. Wade peeked his head in, put a finger to his mouth, and motioned for him to follow him. Grey slid out of bed as gently as he could and met Wade in the hall. Lana didn’t stir.
“Is she all right?” he whispered. “What’s happened?”
“I’m not sure, and we figured you should know about any changes. Follow me. There’s something you need to see.”