Howl Down the Moon, page 26
The whine of the snowmobile was loud and fast, a little too fast. Rand squirmed, needing to turn so he could see what was going on, while Slade cursed and called Luka a fool, complaining that they didn’t need a second incident to add to the first one.
“What the hell does he think he’s….” Slade bellowed, letting go of Rand to turn and see Luka rocketing down the hill on the snowmobile with not one, but three bears hot on his heels. Luka streaked past them and across the ice, the bears in pursuit.
“That ain’t natural!” Slade snapped. “Normal bears would be hibernating. Those are fuckin’ shifters. No wonder we’re starting to see more of them.”
“Help him!” Rand demanded, remembering what Raine had looked like after a bear had ripped into him.
“How?” Slade growled. “He’s got better odds than either of us right now, so let’s go. This is going to suck, and it’s going to hurt, but you’re getting on my back, and we’re going up that hill.”
“Shit,” Rand moaned, allowing Slade to pull him out the door. Even with Slade kneeling, it was difficult for Rand to climb up, and when Slade wrapped his arm beneath Rand’s undamaged knee to keep him steady, he was barely able to stifle the urge to scream.
“As long as we can hear the engine, Luka’s okay,” Slade assured him. “Soon as I get you to the SUV, I’ll tell him to head this way. At some point, those damn bears will give up chasing him, and you best believe I’ll be organizing a hunting party to take out every last one of those fucks!”
Slade slid and floundered in a deep pocket of snow, jostling Rand’s leg in the process, and this time he couldn’t bite back a cry of pain.
“I’m sorry!” Slade snapped, frantic, scrambling, the angle coupled with the slickness of the snow making the climb treacherous and slow. Mother Nature decided to add to their misery in the form of icy rain drizzling from the heavens. Rand was relieved when the top came into view along with the SUV resting there. They’d almost crested it when the unmistakable crack of a rifle shot rang out. Slade froze, looking around frantically, but it was the whine of the snowmobile that changed.
“Luka,” Slade whispered. Pressed against his back the way he was, Rand could feel Slade’s heartrate pick up to a near-frantic beat.
Slade got the rest of the way up the hill and the back door to the SUV open before they heard the snowmobile again. It sounded like the throttle was wide open now and getting closer. Rand practically fell off Slade’s back into the back seat, neither being very careful with Rand’s leg as they got him loaded and the back door closed. A single headlight preceded the snowmobile popping over the lip of the gully several feet away.
Slade scrambled into the driver’s seat and whipped the SUV around so hard Rand was thrown sideways onto the seats. He heard, rather than saw the snowmobile race past them; then they were following at speeds in no way safe for the road.
Chapter Twenty-Five
DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!
Luka’s thoughts, frantic, still echoed in Slade’s mind as he followed the snowmobile down the road, wipers working full speed to keep up with the rain and the snow kicked up by the machine. Several times, the snowmobile wobbled and rocked, one set of skids coming up off the ground, and Slade was certain Luka was going to dump it, leaving him terrified he would hit their mate. He lost track of how many times he glanced in the rearview, able to breathe far easier when he didn’t see the bears after the first two times. He slowed down then, just enough so that he would have room to stop if Luka lost control of the machine. As it was, Slade was certain he saw a dark-red stain on the back of Luka’s snowsuit, but Luka was no longer communicating anything to either of them, and Slade wouldn’t push, as much as he wanted to, for fear of distracting him.
“This is all my fault,” Rand softly muttered from the back seat.
Slade had to bite back the desire to agree with him. It wouldn’t help any of them at the moment, and the last thing he needed to do was snap at another mate. Fumbling with the CB, he managed to raise Stuart down at the general store and inform him of everything that had taken place. He’d get the word out, and those bears wouldn’t get the drop on another wolf, the conniving bastards. They had their own territory and their own politics. Once the council of elders was informed, Slade knew they’d move to take steps to protect their borders.
Turning off the main road onto the gravel inlet that led to their cabin, Slade was exhausted, sick with fear, and stressed beyond anything he’d felt since Terry died. Wondering how Rand could be so reckless and headstrong just fed his anger, so he choked it down.
In front of them, the garage door opened, and Luka guided the snowmobile into its spot. Slade followed suit with the SUV, then hit the button to close the door behind them. Home, safe, a sense of relief washed over him, and it was only then that he realized how tightly he was gripping the steering wheel, his fingers cramped and stiff. It took concentrated thought and effort to get them to move, and from the look of things, Luka was in a similar state, still gripping the handlebars, his head resting on them.
The red he’d thought he’d spotted on the back of Luka’s snowsuit had grown in size, spreading out from a hole that was clearly a bullet wound. That spurred Slade into action. He threw the door open and practically fell out in his haste to reach Luka’s side.
“Look at me,” Slade said, touching Luka’s shoulder. “How bad is it?”
“I’m fine,” Luka murmured, trembling. “Doesn’t hurt anymore; pretty sure it healed.”
Slade wanted to see his eyes, but Luka hadn’t raised his head yet, and he was still wearing his helmet. Behind him, Slade heard the door to the SUV open and glanced back to see Rand struggling to get out on his own.
“Stay still before you do any more damage to that leg,” Slade said, leaving Luka’s side to get him.
“They shot him,” Rand declared, trying to peer around Slade, who decided they didn’t have time for any of this and threw Rand over his shoulder, carrying him in and laying him on the bed in the spare room since it was closer to the closet with the medical supplies. He went back for Luka, to find him standing in the kitchen, wobbly, helmet still on. He was fumbling to turn off the light to the garage, finally managing it as Slade reached his side.
The wall was holding Luka up, a small puddle forming around his feet as water dripped off the snowsuit. There was blood on the front of his snowsuit, though not near as much as the back. For that, Slade gave thanks as he slid his hands beneath Luka’s chin and undid the helmet strap, lifting it off carefully to see his mate’s wide eyes and extremely pale skin. He touched the back of his hand to Luka’s face and felt how cold and sweaty he was. Luka’s pupils were dilated, and he was panting, the trembling growing worse. Slade worked the zipper of the suit open and peeled it off Luka as gently as he could, relieved when no fresh blood spilled from the wound in his upper back. All that remained was an angry red scar, a testament to Luka’s improved health and the growing strength of his wolf.
His skin beneath the suit was ice cold, and Slade was sure he’d had a T-shirt on when he’d left the house. Maybe they’d been moving too fast for him to pull one on; he couldn’t be positive, and it didn’t really matter at the moment. He needed to get Luka into the room with Rand so he could tend to both of them.
“I’m going to pick you up, okay?” Slade said, keeping his voice low as he reached for Luka, shocked when his mate flinched and curled tighter to the door.
“Noooo,” Luka moaned, drawing out the word and shaking his head back and forth against the doorframe.
“Luka, you need to let me help you.” Again he reached for Luka, this time able to turn him away from the door and pick him up. There was a shiny pink scar on his chest, and his mate was shaking in his arms. Slade had no way of knowing how much was from the cold and how much was from shock. There was something off with his breathing too. He’d suck in a ragged breath, hold it, whimper, and gulp in another lungful of air.
The moment he lay Luka on the bed, Rand reached for him, even as their mate curled on his side.
“The bullet wound is already closed,” Slade told Rand, sticking his fingers in the gashes in Rand’s jeans left by the door and ripping the material apart. Dark, angry bruises marred Rand’s skin, and Slade began probing as carefully as he could to see if the break had healed cleanly. Rand still hissed, tensed, and at one point cursed as Slade checked him over.
“I’m fine!” Rand snapped, grimacing when he tried to jerk his leg away.
“Doesn’t look that way to me,” Slade replied.
“I need a knee brace and a boot for the leg fracture so we can stabilize both,” Rand explained. “Please tell me you saw the bullet in his snowsuit when he undressed.”
“I undressed him, and I didn’t see a bullet, but I wasn’t watching for one either. He’s got two scars, though, so either he was hit twice or it went right through.”
Rand sighed heavily, trying to pull the covers around a shivering Luka, so Slade did it for him. “Okay, I need you to look, and if you don’t find one, we may have a problem.”
“Why?”
“Because if it’s still in the wound, it could be lodged in a bone, or it could have fragmented and lacerated something,” Rand explained. “He could be bleeding internally. Check for holes, too, so we know for certain how many times he was hit.”
“Shit,” Slade growled, the situation seeming like an endless spiral of bad to worse. He hurried from the room, going to check the snowsuit first, trying to figure out what the fuck they were going to do if Luka was hurt that bad while their doc was injured too. Did Rand even have the supplies they’d need to get bullets or their fragments out if they were still lodged in there?
Slade’s hands were shaking as he rifled through the fabric of the snowsuit, jumping when something metallic clattered onto the floor. Peering down, he saw the bullet, covered in Luka’s blood and drying bits of tissue and skin. Pressing his hand to his mouth, all he could do was stare down at it and weep, thinking about the damage that could have been done if it had severed his spine or pierced his heart.
A soft whimper drew his gaze to the doorway, where Luka lay in wolf form, belly down and slowly crawling toward him. Swiping at his cheeks, Slade tried to wipe the tears away and failed, especially when Luka crawled the rest of the way across the floor, still trembling, to slide into Slade’s lap and lick the tears away. Slade crushed him in a tight hug, kissing the top of his head, his snout, and all over his furry face until his tail wagged a little, and he stopped shaking as badly as he had been.
Slade’s stomach clenched, and he wanted to be sick when the thought entered his mind that his mate might be terrified of him at the moment and unable to calm down because he feared Slade would yell at him again.
“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Luka. I didn’t mean to scare you. I swear. I was just freaked out over what could have happened, and I couldn’t hug him and get you to stop crying at the same time, and you sounded so devastated it was stressing me out more. I know you were scared too. Rand told me you had to put his knee back in place and that he didn’t do the best job of muffling his screams. They triggered you, didn’t they? And I made it that much worse by hollering at you when you were already so scared.”
His mate whined, pressing his cheek against Slade’s, the fur warm and soft against his skin.
You were right to do that, Luka sent back to him, the brush of his thoughts holding the same shy, self-conscious hesitation they had when they’d first met.
To feel that from him and know that Luka still believed that he deserved any mistreatment he received from the two people who were supposed to love him most devastated him. All he could do was hold Luka tight and cry into his fur, ashamed of himself. If he’d lost him, if that bullet had killed him, the last moment, the last memory he’d have had of them together, was him harshly hollering down at his already terrified mate. His tears fell heavier now, even as he tried to swallow them back and control himself.
Gulping, holding his breath, he tried to settle himself, understanding now that was what Luka had been doing when Slade had been carrying him. Fighting back tears, struggling not to panic now that the adrenaline had worn off.
Stroking Luka’s fur, Slade whispered against it, knowing Luka would hear him anyway. “I swear I’ll do better. How could I blame you for freaking out? All I can think about right now is the damage that bullet could have done, and I want to scream and hold the both of you in my arms and never let either one of you step one claw out the door. Please forgive me. The last thing in the world I would ever want is for you to be afraid of me.”
Luka licked his face again, nuzzling. Slade couldn’t feel what he was feeling though. There were still the occasional tremors, and the way Luka’s weight settled against his suggested exhaustion, but he couldn’t feel those things from him, and he was left wondering how long it was going to take to get Luka to open back up again.
“We need to get some braces for Rand, okay?”
Luka whined and nodded his head, licked Slade’s face one more time, and slid from his lap. His legs were still trembling, so much so that rather than walk back to the bedroom, he staggered a few feet and crawled the rest of the way on his belly. Without their link, he couldn’t tell if something was physically hurting him or if this was the result of blood loss, fear, cold, or a combination of the day’s events.
Slade was grateful for Rand’s organizational skills because the braces were easy to locate. Returning with them to the bedroom, with Luka shambling behind him, he saw Rand seated on the end of the bed, struggling to untie the wrap from his knee.
“I’ll get that,” Slade told him, pausing a moment to lift Luka and lay him back on the bed beside Rand. “The bullet was intact in his snowsuit.”
“Thank the gods,” Rand said, placing a hand on Luka’s back.
“Are you able to get a read off him?” Slade asked as he undid what he quickly came to realize was Luka’s T-shirt. No wonder he’d been bare beneath the snowsuit. Selfless, that’s what their mate was. Luka’s eyes were closed as Rand stroked his neck, but Slade could still see the trembling of his fur and wished he knew how to help him.
“I got a momentary flash of pain, which I’m pretty sure was when he got hit,” Rand admitted. “Afterward, nothing. He isn’t talking in my head; he isn’t letting me know what he needs. I need you to help me with these braces so I can take care of him.”
Nodding, Slade helped Rand apply the knee brace first, and Rand gritted his teeth, trying not to cry out as they tightened it.
“Is that going to heal okay?” Slade asked. “Do you think we need to get the new doc out here, or Doc Washington, or someone to make sure you’re going to be fine?”
“I’m a doctor, and I’m telling you it is back in place. I can bend it, though I don’t really want to right now, and it will be as good as new in a day or two,” Rand insisted. “I was so damn stupid. I should have made damn sure the vehicle wasn’t going to shift any farther before I opened the door and tried to get out.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get dragged underneath.”
“I am aware,” Rand growled. “I was just tired of being made to feel like I was helpless when I’d been on my own for years. I get it now; that wasn’t your intent. Just telling you how I was feeling when I crept out this morning.”
“In the future, why don’t you discuss how you’re feeling with me like you are forever demanding I do before I make a unilateral decision,” Slade replied.
Rand threw up his hands and huffed. “Point taken. I should have.”
“Thank you. Now, how do I get this boot on you?”
“Undo the straps, slide it on, make sure it’s positioned correctly to cradle the foot and support the lower leg,” Rand said. “The heel needs to be all the way to the back of the boot. Then you can wrap the soft fabric around the foot. Make sure it covers the skin completely. Otherwise, the front piece will rub, and that will start to hurt.”
As carefully as he could, Slade worked on getting the foot in the boot, glancing up every now and again to get confirmation from Rand that he was doing it right, but the whole time, the other wolf had eyes only for their mate. He was stroking Luka’s fur and caressing his ears, and it did appear as if the shaking was growing less intense. A low growl from Rand clued Slade in to the fact that he’d done something wrong, and he glanced up from tightening the boot to see Rand grimacing down at him. His shoulders looked tight, and the hand that wasn’t on Luka was clenched into a fist.
“Circulation is still a necessity,” Rand bit out.
“Sorry,” Slade replied, hurrying to loosen the straps, feeling Rand relax considerably once he’d done so.
“You want them snug; you don’t want them so tight I lose feeling in the foot.”
Taking a deep breath, Slade focused on relaxing and being gentle as he tightened the straps the second time, his trembling fingers making him fumble with them a few times before he got them right.
“How’s that?” Slade asked, brushing sweat from his eyes. His skin felt prickly and a little too tight.
“Perfect,” Rand replied, his free hand stretched out to Slade, who grasped it like a lifeline. “Come up here with us. I can feel how anxious you are. Lay on the other side of Luka and hold him while I see if I can’t get him to relax and open up.”
Rand didn’t have to tell him twice; he scrambled up on the bed beside their mate and gently took Luka into his arms.
“Luka,” Rand said, keeping his voice low and gentle as he scooted closer, one hand on Luka’s shoulder. “We’re all safe now. I’m okay. You’re okay. Slade was able to pass the word about the bears on the way back, so they’ll be dealt with soon. That was so crazy brave of you to lead them away like that.”
When Luka didn’t respond to them, Rand kissed the back of Luka’s neck and stayed pressed against him, softly beginning to sing to him. He kept on stroking Luka while Slade did the same, and gradually Luka began to relax, the ball he was curled up in getting looser and looser until he was stretched out between them. Now if only he’d communicate.
