Layla Nash - A Valentine's Chase (City Shifters: the Pride) (12 page)

R
afe charged
as soon as he saw the BadCreek wolves circling a small figure in green scrubs. He knew it was Meadow. She carried that damn cane from Smith and struggled to defend herself in the snow while wearing that cast. A pack hunted her down, cornered her at the second fence, and held her off from escaping. She was so close.

He barreled down the hill and across the field, not caring as the guards took pot-shots at him and even winged him. It slowed him down but he only saw Meadow, desperate and afraid. Cornered.

Ruby and the pack, accompanied by an enormous lion, attacked at the main gate as well as the rear, and more gunshots filled the night. Rafe concentrated on getting to the fence, reaching his mate. He grunted as another shot bit into his hip, but he kept running on three legs. Before he reached the fence, static filled the air and something crashed into the ground to his left like a fucking meteor. Green light filled the air and a freezing wind nearly knocked Rafe off his feet. He stumbled to a halt as Smith, towering over seven feet and wearing crazy long robes, raised his arms and shouted something that rolled through the air like thunder.

Small green sparks, little people with wings, broke away from Smith and raced into the compound, past the fences and toward the lights. Rafe hobbled forward, focused on Meadow as her cane glowed to match Smith, and the wolves hesitated. Smith's minions knocked out the lights and everything plunged into darkness. Rafe's wolf howled. More shouts rose, emergency generators kicked in, and yet darkness still reigned. Smith's voice reached him in a thread of sound, like the old man stood at his shoulder, "Get her. Free her.
Now
."

Rafe ignored the pain. It would heal. He charged the fence, throwing his shoulder against the door until it dented, but it remained locked. One of the glowing minions flitted through the air and dashed through the links until everything melted and the door fell off its hinges. Meadow lurched through, breathless and sweating in desperation, and she nearly fell across Rafe. She sobbed and gripped his fur. "I knew you'd come. I knew you'd find me."

He licked her hand, desperate to comfort her, but he still had the wolves to deal with. He nudged Meadow, tried to shove her behind him so he could face the threat alone, but she remained at his side, holding that cane. It glowed brighter as the wolves snarled and approached, pouring through the open door to surround them as men with guns lined up behind the fence and swatted at the minions who attacked them from above. Rafe blinked away the pain and the blood in his eyes, baring his teeth at the threat as he tried to back up. He just had to hold them off long enough for the lions to arrive. The lions and the bears and his pack, they would all be enough to save Meadow.

One of the BadCreek wolves darted forward, snapping at the air, and aimed at Meadow. Not at him. Rafe's control snapped and he charged. He didn't care whether he could actually fight with three legs and a bullet in his side. He killed the wolf who almost bit Meadow, its neck snapping in his teeth, and threw the carcass aside so he could find the next threat. Yelling rose in the distance and Meadow screamed. The green glow increased and Rafe looked up in time to see the man in the guard tower raise his rifle. A red dot cut through the night and bounced off the snow where Rafe's paws churned it into a mess. The red dot rose, flickered. Hovered on Meadow's chest.

Meadow.

Rafe roared and leapt, knocking her back. Taking her place.

The bullet tore through him in a blaze of agony, ripping through his guts until he felt hollow. Empty.

But Meadow still moved. She fought. She lifted that cane and screamed, her rage a reflection of his. Rafe felt so damn proud of her he almost forgot the strange sensation of blood draining from his body. He staggered to be next to her, wanting to feel her touch, and blinked as his vision swam. The wolf didn't mind. They felt so unbearably cold, but at least Meadow stood firm with her glowing staff.

Rafe's legs gave out and he sank into the snow, but he was content to just watch Meadow. She burned with a bright light, sending static and lightning in to the darkness, and Smith's glow approached in a blaze. Chaos erupted with lions and bears and more wolves swarming around them, jostling him, defending Meadow. He exhaled as Ruby's familiar wolf form raced up and leapt over him, pausing only to nudge him with her nose before going to check on Meadow. His eyes closed. Meadow was safe. Protected. Ruby would get Meadow to safety, just like she's sworn. His mate was safe.

W
hen Rafe stood beside me
, I managed to be brave. I held off the wolves even though my hands shook and my knees knocked together and I lost all feeling in my legs and I still really, really needed to pee. But when the gunshot cracked through the night and Rafe grunted, when he fell... A blaze of panic cut through me and wiped everything away until only rage remained. They hurt him. They tried to kill me and instead maybe killed Rafe. My mate.

The cane turned into fire in my hands and my chest ached. I lifted it and screamed. Swung the cane at those wolves and took vicious pleasure in seeing them leap back, one too slow. It collapsed in the snow. But there were still too many of them, and bullets bit into the snowy muck around my feet. I needed help. I needed someone to help Rafe.

The strange light emanating from the cane billowed up and joined with a roman candle to my left. I knew it was Smith. He looked ten feet tall and freaking terrifying, waving his hands to direct a horde of the scariest things I'd ever seen in my life. They lurched and tumbled through the snow toward the compound, creatures with malformed bodies, extra limbs, covered with hair. Howling and racing forward, seeking blood and vengeance. I had no idea who or what they were, or whether these were the 'friends' Smith frequently referenced, but it didn't matter. They poured through and over the fence, swarming the guard tower, and I could have stood there, mesmerized by the magic sparking around them, as a surge of wild animals surrounded us from behind.

I jumped as another wolf nudged Rafe, then tried to push me back toward the trees, toward an SUV that tore over the fields without regard for the lack of roads. I shook my head, unwilling to release the cane, and bent to check Rafe. There was so much blood. So much blood, and his eyes remained closed even when I touched him. "I can't leave him."

The air crackled next to me and I turned, expecting more bullets or some of those minions, but instead Ruby had transformed back to her human self. Even naked, she didn't seem affected by the snow or cold or danger. Her eyes still glinted gold as she grabbed my arm. "We have to go, Meadow."

"I won't leave him."

"We're taking him," she said, and when I looked back, two naked humans helped lift Rafe's body onto the lion's back until he slumped over Carter's shoulder. The lion raced off and Ruby tried to drag me forward. "We don't have time. Let's go."

I looked over my shoulder at where Smith and his minions still fought, as more wolves and more humans appeared, as more guns discharged into the darkness, and I hesitated. I could still fight. Nick was somewhere in there, and he'd tried to help me. Maybe he needed help, too. "But —"

She growled, a wolf's frustration from a human throat, and gestured. I blinked and looked up as the biggest bear I'd ever seen in my life lumbered over. Ruby said, "She won't go, Kaiser. Get her to the truck," and then dropped back into her wolf form.

A scream caught in my throat as the bear, a dark blonde mix of polar and grizzly, scooped me up with one giant paw and tossed me onto his back. I gripped the thick fur at his shoulders and tried to slide free but then he was running, a long-legged lope that rolled and bounded over the field. I looked back as the eerie green lights brightened and Smith's voice boomed over the entire compound. "Be warned, wolves. Do not trespass where the fae have claimed jurisdiction."

More lights flared up and I forgot to be afraid. Parts of the compound burned. The fence crashed down in pieces. Men and wolves scattered, yelling and howling, and all the lights winked out at once. Even the glow faded, and no matter how hard I searched, I could find no trace of Smith or his people.

The bear lurched to a halt and I tumbled off, landing hard on my side with a grunt. The SUVs waited, engines running and armed men and women forming a protective barrier between us and what remained of BadCreek, and when I looked up, a burly naked man offered me a hand up. The dark beard concealed an almost mournful expression, though his eyes were kind. "Sorry about the rough landing, dear. You should get in the car where it's warm."

I could only stare at him. A few heartbeats earlier, we'd been under attack and dodging bullets. The abruptness of arriving at the safety of the SUVs felt like whiplash. I couldn't keep up. I didn't move, hands opening and closing as I stared around at all the people who'd risked their lives to help me. "Wh-where's Rafe?"

"In the truck," Ruby said, still a growl, as she stormed past and seized my arm. She was still naked as she crowded me into one of the SUVs. "The medic is treating him. But we have go. Now. Get in."

My thoughts formed too slowly to do anything but obey, and the naked bear courteously helped me into one of the SUVs before disappearing toward another. As soon as my door closed, the SUV moved, speeding across the field toward the trees and hopefully, a road. No one spoke. Harsh breathing and the clicks and pops of people checking weapons filled the silence, but I stared out the window and prayed no one followed.

It wasn't until I looked down at my cast, battered and cracked and utterly useless, that I remembered the cane, dropped somewhere back in the snow. My heart ached at its loss but I wouldn't suggest that they go back. Maybe Smith could retrieve it. Or his minions.

My hands and arms and legs and even my chest started to tremble. Sweat beaded between my shoulder-blades and I couldn't breathe. Tears burned my eyes and my throat and I sucked in air, trying to keep from crying. How unbelievably ungrateful. They rescued me, they saved me, and I was just going to sit there and cry. Rafe might have died to save me. Smith's friends might have died. I curled forward in the chair, trying to hide my face against my knees, to stifle the sob that tried to escape. I'd killed someone. The wolf who attacked Rafe died when I swung the cane, and I'd enjoyed it. Relished it when it fell boneless in the snow.

"Take a deep breath," Ruby said, quiet and calm. She gripped my shoulder, tried to pull me back up and away from the helpless puddle I'd become. "It's the adrenaline. You're safe, Meadow. We've got you."

My hands shook so violently I couldn't even manage to catch her hand. "Is he — is Rafe okay? Will he be okay?"

"The medics are working on him," she said, but she didn't meet my gaze. Her forehead creased with worry and grief, and my heart sank. Their pack would lose something because of me.

I shivered and squeezed my eyes shut as I drew my legs up to hug to my chest. He had to be okay. I wished my muse powers, whatever they were, would heal him. I concentrated on Rafe, in a different truck as we sped through the night, and wished with everything in me that he would heal and survive.

No one else spoke for the rest of the drive.

R
afe didn't expect
to ever open his eyes again. Not really. Through the blood and haze and flashes of pain, he dreamed. The wolf dreamed of running free through snowy woods under a full moon. They'd be okay. He missed Meadow and Ruby and the pack but he was content with the sacrifice he'd made. Their mate survived. She lived.

But something dragged him back to the cold and light and pain, and eventually Rafe forced his eyes open and found Ruby sitting in a chair next to the bed where he lay. He groaned as sensation rushed back and nearly overwhelmed him, fighting through some kind of pain killer or sedative to speak. "Meadow."

"She's fine." Ruby cleared her throat and eased to her feet to lean her hip on the bed. She checked the different sensors and patches and wires attached to him, not quite meeting his gaze. "How do you feel?"

"Fucking awful." Rafe groaned and tried to adjust how he lay, but everything hurt. His bones hurt. Breathing hurt. Trying to move his toes hurt. "Jesus Christ."

"Sounds about right," she said under her breath, then picked up a plastic trigger device. "This is morphine. Hit the button when you need to take the edge off."

She tucked it into Rafe's hand and he hit the button immediately. He wasn't trying to be a superhero. It took a few heartbeats but he eventually felt the morphine rushing through his veins, drifting up to his brain and down to his toes, wrapping him up and filing down the agony that threatened to drive him mad. When he could finally take a deep breath, Rafe managed to catch Ruby's hand and squeeze it. "Thank you."

Ruby eyed him, and her eyes were just a little red around the edges. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Don't do anything like that again, you shit-head. We almost lost you."

"I won't," he said.

"We almost bled the pack dry, trying to save you." Ruby cleared her throat and brushed quickly at her cheeks before sitting on the bed, shaking her head. "It took forever before the wounds started to close up, and you just kept bleeding. So you've got some bear blood and lion blood and leopard blood and God only knows what else."

Even his face hurt as he tried to smile, closing his eyes as the pillow dented under his head. "But they closed."

When she didn't speak, he forced an eye open. "Ruby?"

"The gorgon gave you blood," she said after a long pause. "Nothing we gave you worked, so we had to use the medusa's blood. It worked, but slowly. Owen said the bullets they shot you with contained some chemicals similar to wolfsbane. They're getting more powerful, so BadCreek is refining their process. If we hadn't gotten you to the hospital when we did, you'd've died. We wouldn't have been able to save you, even with the medusa's blood and its magic healing. It was close."

Rafe inhaled despite the pull of scabs and scars across his chest, hidden by yellow-spotted bandages and a thin sheet, and tried to find her hand to squeeze. "I'm sorry, Ruby, but I couldn't let them shoot Meadow."

"I know." Ruby cleared her throat again, a couple of times, and finally used her sleeve to dab under her eyes. "I get it. Doesn't mean I like it, brother. If I lost you, that's half my heart gone. That's it. Watching the docs try to save you... That's the only time I've ever been really afraid in my life, Rafe. Don't ever fucking do that to me again."

"I won't." He squeezed her hand, even though his knuckles popped and he thought his fingers would break. His voice went rusty with emotion, fearing what his life would have been without his sister. "I'm sorry, Ruby Leigh. I am."

"We're even." She took a deep breath and poked his side with a dark look. "And now we've got to talk about Meadow."

Panic surged and the beeping monitors grew frantic. "What's wrong? Where is she?"

"She's fine," Ruby said, and pinned his shoulder to the bed to keep him from launching up. It was a testament to his weakness that she managed it with one hand and not much effort, but she also punched the morphine trigger again and Rafe's muscles relaxed. Ruby lowered her voice as she went on. "She's with Smith, doing some sort of repayment thing. Apparently those glowing fuckers that turned off the lights and sucked the souls out of the BadCreek bastards come with a hefty price tag."

"Not hers to pay. I'll pay." Rafe wheezed, trying to breathe through the painkillers and the pain, the fear of what Smith would make Meadow do. "Call him. I'll go."

"Shut up," Ruby said. She flipped the sheet back to check the bandages on his chest, frowning as she studied the mess. "She summoned them, apparently. She saw you get shot and flipped her shit and managed to summon some crazy fucking demons. Smith controlled them, so he went with her to pay the price. It's fine. He won't let anything happen to her."

Rafe couldn't breathe. Meadow. She'd found her power and called up some crazy magic in order to save him. He wanted to smile, to celebrate, to crush her to him and hold her forever. He concentrated on breathing, building his strength. "When will she be back? When can I see her?"

"Soon." Ruby checked her phone, then put it away and forced him to meet her gaze. "Smith's going to call when they're on their way back here. She didn't want to leave you. But here's the thing, brother. BadCreek mind-fucked her. They did a number on her. I need you to listen to this and keep yourself in check. Got it?"

The rage boiled up in his chest and his fists clenched, the wolf struggling to get out. But he gritted his teeth and focused on Ruby's brown-gold eyes. He needed to know what BadCreek did to Meadow. If Ruby said he needed to hear it, he needed to hear it. "Go on."

Ruby's mouth quirked in a hint of a smile, but her expression quickly turned grave again. "They tried to convince her she was back in a mental hospital, that she'd hallucinated everything. That you didn't exist and Smith didn't exist and shifters were just a product of her imagination. They said she was crazy and her roommate had her committed."

A growl escaped past his clenched jaws and he wanted to break something. Needed to break something. A high keening noise followed the growl as he remembered what Meadow had said about her first time in a mental institution. She felt part of her die. The best part of herself disappeared. She didn't trust her memory and mind anyway, and for BadCreek to exploit her history... He hated them even more, though he'd imagined that impossible.

"Listen." Ruby gripped his chin and dragged Rafe's attention back to her, baring her teeth to make sure the wolf listened, too. "She doesn't trust herself just yet, Rafe. She mostly does but there's still a bit of doubt. She said she wonders when she's going to wake up and be back there. So you need to be extra fucking careful, do you hear me? Pump your brakes. I know you want to smother the fear right out of her, but she needs to rebuild herself before that can happen."

The wolf snarled, furious. Meadow hurt, she feared. She doubted herself. When all he could remember and see was Meadow, glowing and fierce, as she battled wolves and men to protect him. Strong and capable and perfect. Rafe shook his head, pain surging in his chest as his heart ached for her. Meadow.

Ruby growled back. "Do you hear me, Rafe? She still thinks she might be hallucinating you. She fought her way free from the physical prison, but the mental bars are still there."

"I know," he said, and covered his face. Those BadCreek bastards. The unbelievable cruelty. "It's not fair. Not fair to her."

"It isn't. But that's what they did. Now you've got to rebuild. Just — be careful with her." Ruby took a deep breath and studied her hands. "I had Carter's realtor start looking for apartments for her in secure buildings, with security and monitored garages and front desks, the works. So she'll have a safe place to stay when she's ready. She's been staying with Smith for the time being, but we're all waiting for when BadCreek will take a run at him. He pretty much dared them to fuck around with the fae, and I don't see the BadCreek alpha learning his lesson permanently, even with the monsters your mate summoned."

Rafe pinched the bridge of his nose. "Thank you. I'll talk to Smith, see if there's anything he knows that we can do to the apartment to keep her safe. And we can talk about those minions he's got watching everyone. Maybe Meadow needs a bodyguard."

"She's got that fucking cane." Ruby snorted and gave him a sideways look. "It just appears places. Disappears, reappears, moves across the room. Spooky as shit. She doesn't even notice it, but it freaks the bears out something awful. I thought Malcolm was going to climb up the closest tree he could find the first time it blinked into the room next to him."

"Great." Rafe took a deep breath as the morphine kicked in and the room grew hazy. "Just what we need. Jumpy bears."

"You need to rest." Ruby eased to her feet and patted his chest. "Just sleep. They're on their way back. I'll wake you up when she's here."

"Sure." Rafe yawned and meant to thank his sister again, but he drifted away.

It felt like he only blinked when he looked up and found Meadow standing next to him. Ruby had disappeared and the lights were dim. He smiled, couldn't hold it back, when he saw Meadow. He reached for her, desperate to touch her and know she was real. "Hey."

"I was so worried about you," she whispered, and gripped his hand until his bones bent. "You looked really bad."

"Thanks." Rafe smiled more as she flushed, and he managed to lift himself over in the bed to make room so she could sit, though he grimaced as the bandages pulled across his chest. It didn't matter at all. Meadow sat on the bed and collapsed forward against him, trying to hug him and bury her face against his neck. Rafe linked his arms around her and exhaled worry for the first time since he learned she'd been kidnapped. Safe. Finally, she was safe. He kissed her cheek and held her tighter. "I was worried about you, too."

She sat up, patting at her cheeks, and tried to pull away. "I'm sorry, I'm crushing you. I don't want to hurt —"

"Not a chance," he said, and hugged her close again. "Nothing hurts when you're here, Meadow. How's your leg?"

She laughed and managed to untangle herself enough to lift her cast into view. "I had to get a new one. The old one got destroyed in the snow. And I managed to re-break some of the bones. Owen said I'll probably need surgery to fix some of the small bones, but I wanted to wait until you were okay."

Rafe grumbled and caught her arm, tried to pull her close again. "Lay next to me, Meadow. I can't stand you being so far away."

And he breathed easier as she shoved off her one shoe and tossed it to the floor, snuggling under the sheet next to him as Rafe put his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder and he inhaled from her hair, his gratitude almost overwhelming. He closed his eyes, his arms tightening around her without thinking. "If you want to talk about anything, I'm willing. But if you don't want to, that's fine by me, too. I'm still in glacier mode, babe."

He felt her smile against him. "Thank you."

Rafe kissed her forehead and settled in for a nice long nap. His eyes popped open when her hand rested low on his stomach, gentle and warm, and he lifted his head enough to peer at her. "Meadow?"

She looked up at him and her hazel eyes flashed. "I missed you. A lot."

He couldn't wipe the stupid smile off his face. "I missed you, too."

His hand tightened on her ass and pulled her closer, and he wondered if she wouldn't be the death of him after all.