Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 114(@200wpm)___ 91(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 114(@200wpm)___ 91(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
I gently touch his face, running my palm down his cheek to his swollen jaw. Tears start seeping from my eyes and dropping onto his chest as I continue running my hand down his neck.
“You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay,” I whisper to him over and over again. I’m not sure if the reassuring words are for him or for me.
Geez… What has gotten into you?
I’ve never reacted to a patient like this before.
My eyes roam down his body to his left hand. Relief floods through me when I see no ring on his finger.
He’s connected to a heart monitor and I can clearly see the reading on the screen, but I want to hear it beating. I want to know the sound it makes. I want to hear it echoing through me.
And to be honest, it’s also an excuse to touch his big chest.
I grab my stethoscope and put the ear-tips in as I lean over him. His massive chest is slowly moving up and down with every breath.
I slide the drum under his shirt and drag the side of my hand over his warm skin. He’s all hard abs down there and my body reacts strongly. I’m lightheaded with a fluttering in my chest as I slide the stethoscope over his heart.
The sound of his breathing gets louder and I notice that he’s sucking in long deep breaths. His lips twitch and a tremble shakes through his body as he inhales like he’s smelling something really good.
I press the drum to his warm skin and gasp when I hear his heart. It’s pounding.
My body is filled with warmth as I remove the stethoscope and replace it with my palm. I can feel his heart wildly thumping away…
…just like mine is.
Chapter Three
Rylan
The pain is excruciating.
Every cell in my body is on fire. My skin is searing. My insides are smouldering red-hot.
The pain is so bad that I can’t think of anything except it until her image comes jutting back into my brain.
I’ve found her.
The blonde goddess.
My mate.
My everything.
I try to open my eyes, but they’re glued shut. I can’t move my arms. They’re broken. Everything is broken.
The pain is blinding. Every movement I try to make sends me teetering toward the edge of blackness again.
I should let myself fall into the black bliss of unconsciousness again. I can’t feel this intense all-consuming pain when I’m out cold.
But I fight the darkness. I need to stay awake.
I’ve found my mate. She’s in this world.
And I have to do everything I can to get to her.
My bear is whimpering inside me. He can feel the pain too.
He’s scared. He’s shaken. But he feels the urgency as well.
He fights off the whimpers and steels himself.
Get up, he demands.
Claim her.
Mark her.
Breed her.
Make her ours.
My bear can’t form words, but his intentions are clear. I can understand exactly what he wants.
I want the same thing.
“Open your eyes,” I whisper to myself. It’s the first thing I have to do.
They flood with tears as I force them open. They’re swollen beyond belief and throbbing with pain. I’m still not sure what happened to me.
My mind is fuzzy in most places and where it’s sharp, it’s entirely focused on her. The blue car. The blonde hair. The hands gripping the steering wheel that looked so smooth and delicate.
The truck.
Right.
Shit.
Now I remember. It came out of nowhere.
I saw the grill and then I saw nothing. It must have clocked me good.
It takes some time, but I finally get my eyes open and my hands moving.
Every movement is pain, but I have to find her.
I’ve waited twenty-eight years for this moment and now that it’s here, nothing is going to stop me from getting to her.
I still don’t know her name. I don’t know what she looks like. I don’t know where she is. Who she’s with…
My heart starts pounding as panic builds within me. She can be anywhere. With anyone. Another man…
Christ…
The thought of her with another man sends my adrenaline spiking. It causes my bear to drop his whimpering and start growling instead.
“I have to… get to… her.”
It’s dark in the hospital room. I have a window and it looks like it’s after midnight by the height of the moon in the sky.
Even if I can crawl my way out of this bed, there’s nothing I can do.
Yes there is, my bear howls. Get up and do it.
I fight through the pain and swing my legs off the bed and sit up.
“Fuck,” I hiss through gritted teeth.
It feels like there’s lava flowing through my veins. My bones are broken. How many I don’t know, but there’s a lot of them.
I know that Blake and the boys would have fixed me up before they dropped me off here. Broken bones have to be set quickly or my shifter healing would have sealed them back together all wrong. It probably took all four of them to realign my limbs before they put me on the stretcher.