Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 129756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“Just keep looking at me, GQ, okay? Keep looking at me.”
He coughed, and a little blood splattered onto his lips and chin.
The fear encasing her heart swelled and filled her chest to bursting. Fuck. “Someone will come. They’ll heal you.”
She heard an agonized cry of pain—something that came from the gut. And she saw Joel flat on his back with an extremist hovering over him, a jagged blade in his hand. They were close. So close. She could help. And a very small part of her that was purely base instinct urged her to save Joel. But the rest of her rebelled against it, because it would mean moving her hands from Dominic’s wounds. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—do that.
Instead, she called out, “Vinnie! Help Joel!”
Busy gnawing on a fallen human’s face, the Alpha cat whirled around and barreled into Joel’s attacker. Thank fuck for—
Mila stilled as Dominic went limp beneath her. Her heart slamming against her ribs, she shook him. “Hey, wake up.” He didn’t. “No, no, no, no.” Her chest went so tight with fear, she was surprised she could breathe. “No, GQ, you can’t sleep, you have to look at me. Seriously, you have to look at me. Right at me.” But he just didn’t. Worse, his sluggish heartbeat stuttered yet again. “FUCK!”
Footsteps rushed her way and a hand landed on her shoulder. Mila knew that scent.
She glared at the healer. “Helena, you’d better do something. If you let him die, I’ll slit your damn throat.”
“I’ll help him, baby, I will,” said Helena, unfazed by Mila’s threat. “You just keep your hands where they are, because he’s in a bad way.”
Like Mila didn’t already know that. She kept pressure on his wounds, feeling an echo of Helena’s healing energy buzz through him. With hope flickering in her stomach, Mila listened as his pulse quickened and his heartbeat steadied. Watched as his many, many wounds began to close over. Felt the bleeding beneath her hands come to a stop.
Mila reluctantly moved her shaking hands just as his eyelids opened. She bit back a sob of sheer relief and gave Helena a nod of thanks—it was all she could manage while emotion clogged her throat. The healer gave her a gentle smile, and then a brief spurt of Helena’s healing energy jolted through Mila and caused her wounds to knit partially together.
“Too tired to heal you both fully, I’m afraid,” Helena apologized before weakly standing. “Have to help the others.”
Dominic slowly sat upright, chest squeezing at the unshed tears in his mate’s eyes. “Come here, baby.” He pulled her onto his lap and held her tight while his wolf strained against Dominic’s skin so that he could rub up against her. Greedily sucking in her scent, Dominic kissed her hair. “You okay?”
“Been better,” she choked out. Her throat thick, she let out a shuddering breath. “Don’t ever put me through that again.”
“Right back at ya.” Gently rocking her from side to side, Dominic looked around. Although the air was hazy with smoke, he could see that they weren’t the only people taking a moment to give or take comfort. Many were cuddling or, like Adele and Joel, were helping to clean each other’s wounds. Trey was forcing Taryn to sip water, berating her for overexerting herself. Sadly, there were also some people who were holding limp bodies, their faces creased with grief.
The battle was officially over, and the ground was covered with bodies, bullet shells, weapons, and puddles of blood. Although thick plumes of dark smoke still wafted from the building, it also looked as though the fire was no longer out of control.
“Hey,” said Dante as he came toward them, a bunch of clothes in his hands. “Got your stuff. You two all right?”
“Yeah.” Dominic took the clothes gratefully. “The rest of the pack?”
Dante’s brows lowered as his expression turned grim. “They’re fine, but there were a lot of casualties on both sides of the fight. Luckily, none were from the Mercury Pack or Mila’s pride. Ryan came about an inch from death, though, so Makenna’s gonna give him hell.”
Dominic and Mila quickly dressed, wincing as each movement pulled at their barely healed wounds.
“Given how well armed they were,” began Dante, “I think the extremists figured that some of us would get out, but not all. They were counting on smoke inhalation to do most of the job for them. If we weren’t shifters and tougher than humans, it might have.”
Taking in the sight of the charred building, Mila swallowed hard. “Harley must be devastated.” The place had been special to Mila, but it had meant so much more to the margay shifter.
“She is,” confirmed a new voice as a powerful figure approached. Nick. “But we’ll fix it up,” the Mercury Alpha added, a grim twist to his mouth. “It’ll take time, but we won’t let the extremists shut us down.”