The Wolf's Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel (19 page)

They all stopped short in a clearing as they
came upon the most shocking thing he’d ever seen. A man with
white-blonde hair stood just outside a circle of wolves where Karly
leaned against a tree holding her shoulder at an odd angle. These
were no werewolves, they were real wolves. And from the looks of
them, they were defending her!

An entire pack of over two dozen wolves
circled her tightly, their faces towards the man that Linus knew
was Phoenix. Growls seeped from their bared fangs that glistened
like daggers in the bare moonlight. Jaws snapped with short,
warning barks. More wolves came into the clearing, spilling out of
the woods like they were being called to this place, the anger from
the natural wolves as heavy on the air as Karly’s fear.

Linus looked at Karly. “Baby?”

She slowly turned her gaze to him and her
face was wet with tears and her eyes were glossy with pain. She
breathed his name and it hitched in the middle, “Li-nus”.

Phoenix spoke, “She’s mine. I’ll come back
for her and eventually I’ll get her and disappear forever where you
will never find us. You can’t protect her forever.” He took a step
back and something in his posture told Linus he was going to
shift.

“She is my mate,” Linus stepped forward
through the ring of natural wolves towards Phoenix. “She is mine
and I will not let you have her. This ends tonight.”

While they talked, the natural wolves had
split into two groups and were now surrounding Phoenix and
corralling him. They snapped at him like rabid beasts. His heart
was racing so fast that his fear was a tangible thing on the air.
His bravado slipped and fear shone through his features.

Behind the natural wolves, his pack mates who
had shifted were watching, ready to stop him from leaving, and the
rest of his pack in their human forms were standing by to help.
Pride and courage flittered through him as he took another step
forward. This was just one man. One pathetic excuse for a wolf that
kidnapped an innocent woman over a childhood crush.

Linus’ beast simmered under the surface. His
human side wanted to go to Karly immediately, but his wolf wanted
justice for its mate. He felt his eyes bleed to wolf amber as he
let the beast loose further. Phoenix’s eyes flashed as Linus lunged
at him. He swiveled to bolt, but Linus’ hands had gone to claws and
they wrapped around his throat and slammed him to the ground before
he could move or shift. Thick, black claws sprouted from Linus’
fingertips and dug into the sides of Phoenix’s neck. Blood welled
around his claws as his human and wolf sides grew together in
strength and rage. His fangs burst through his gums and his spine
tickled in the way it would before he shifted but it hovered there,
beast and man combined.

“She. Is. Mine!” He howled, picking Phoenix
up by the throat and slamming him back to the ground. Phoenix’s
hands clawed at his arms as his face turned from red to purple and
his claws dug further into his neck. His body thrashed underneath
Linus’, but merged with his beast as he was, Linus was too strong
for Phoenix to overpower.

His human side wanted to break every bone in
his body, one by one. His wolf wanted to spill his blood in the
most violent way. This was not about revenge but about justice. And
pack justice was swift and without suffering at the end. He would
make Karly safe with Phoenix gone from their lives forever.

He let his beast take over further and with a
forceful twist, he snapped Phoenix’s neck and ended the shadow he’d
cast on his mate.

He stood up slowly and raised his head to the
sky and howled for the kill. His packmates – human and wolf –
howled and the natural wolves joined in. Their chorus of a life
taken for justice echoed through the woods. Stepping over the dead
man’s body, Linus met Karly’s eyes. There was no fear there, no
reproach for the violence she’d just seen, just love that shone
brightly through her tears. He stumbled through the ring of wolves
protecting her.

His claws and fangs receded with his beast
and the knowledge that she was safe now. He knelt beside her,
smoothing her hair from her face. He scented over her and didn’t
smell blood, but from the way she was holding her shoulder, he
could tell it was dislocated. “We need to get you to a hospital,
baby. Do you think you can walk?”

She shook her head and made a gesture with
her free hand towards her foot. Lifting the edge of her dirty
jeans, he could see her ankle was swollen. “Okay, baby, I’m going
to pick you up as carefully as I can.”

He heard the sound of a truck coming near and
knew that one of the wolves had gone back to get a vehicle so he
didn’t have to carry her far. She nodded and squeezed her eyes
tightly shut when he slid his arms around her. As he stood, she
whimpered through clenched teeth.

“We can burn him, like we did for the male
that hurt Cades.” Jason offered, as he turned around. They never
said the name of that bastard that had kidnapped their alpha
female. Phoenix’s name would soon be remembered in the same way. A
male that had hurt Linus' mate and died for it.

Michael walked over to them and made a
gesture towards the body. “I don’t think that will be
necessary,”

The natural wolves gathered around the body
and with a coordinated snarl, began to rip him apart. His beast
rumbled a growl of approval. That’s what you do with crazy wolves
who kidnap women. “Don’t look, baby,” he whispered, and walked past
the sight.

Bo was waiting with his pick up. Jason and
Michael walked on either side of him. He’d never felt more blessed
in his life then at that moment. His sweetheart was safe and his
pack had supported him to the very end.

Michael said, “I’ll drive your bike back to
your house and pick up your truck and drive it to the hospital so
you can use it if you need it.”

“Thanks, Michael.”

“I’ll call your mom and grandparents, too.
And let the rest of the pack know.” Michael turned and jogged away.
Jason opened the truck door for him.

“Brenda.” Karly said with a rough voice,
barely above a whisper.

“What about her?” Linus asked in surprise as
he sat down in the truck and carefully positioned his mate on his
lap.

“She’s…she’s in the cabin.”

“What?” Jason asked in shock. “Brenda. You’re
ex-wife Brenda?”

Karly only nodded and took in a quiet slow
breath and seemed to hover at the edge of unconsciousness.

“I’ll handle it. You get your mate to the
hospital and I’ll check in with you later.”

“Jason.” Linus said. He turned back. “Thank
you.”

Jason nodded. “She’s your mate, Linus. That
means she’s part of the pack and under the protection of all of us.
I told you that one day I’d thank you for standing by me with
Cades. It was my honor to help you bring her home.”

Linus pulled the door carefully shut and
Jason slapped the hood and walked towards the cabin, barking orders
for a few others to join him. Bo used his GPS to find the nearest
hospital which was in Newport, twenty-five minutes away and texted
the address to the pack so they could let his family know where
they were going.

Karly was conscious but quiet, making little
gasps of pain she tried to hide every time Bo pressed on the brakes
or turned a corner or a bump appeared in the road. He wanted to ask
her a thousand questions but he kept them to himself and simply
held her and whispered comforting things. That he loved her and was
so sorry he had let her down.

It was nearly midnight when they got to the
hospital. Karly had been away from him for over twelve hours.
Frantic to know what had happened to her but afraid to push her too
fast, he put her on a gurney in the emergency room that was set
between other beds in a long line. No one was on either side of
her, but the large emergency room was not empty by any stretch.

A handful of doctors and nurses came to check
Karly over. She hadn’t said a word since she mentioned Brenda so
Linus answered what questions he could. He told the story to the
best of his ability while emitting a few truths. She’d been
kidnapped by her deranged ex who had also kidnapped Brenda. Karly
managed to escape and got injured. And the largest nod to the lie
to keep them all safe was that when they found her, wolves had
attacked her ex and killed him. The doctors asked why wolves would
attack and his suggestion was that it was some kind of protective
instinct for them or that her ex had done something threatening to
them.

With a rip of the curtain to cover the small
area around the bed, Linus watched from the side as two nurses cut
off her clothes and put her good arm through a gown to cover her,
placing a light blanket across her legs. Her ankle was purple and
swollen. She was taken to x-ray and he took the opportunity to go
out to make a call and found Jason in the waiting room.

When Jason told him that they had found
Brenda severely beaten and chained up to a bed, Linus couldn’t have
been more shocked. Nearly hysterical with relief, she had babbled
the entire trip to the hospital about how sorry she was and what
had happened.

“She’s the one that contacted Phoenix. She
apparently told him how to find Karly so that she could, you know,
get her out of the way and get back with you.” Jason said.

His jaw dropped to the floor. “Are you
fucking kidding me?”

Shaking his head, Jason pulled him out of the
hospital and to the side of the building. “Michael asked her what
she meant, and she told him that she wanted to get back together
with you and so she used her friend at the police department to
look Karly up. She saw her license plate on her little sports car.
She knew there was a restraining order on Phoenix but she sent him
a letter anyway, saying that Karly was about to get married to a
werewolf and wouldn’t he like to come to town and put a stop to it.
However the letter got to him from his last known address I don’t
know, but she told him where my house was and that Karly would be
there on the full moon without much protection.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

They stood in silence for several minutes. “I
should, ah, go see if Karly’s back from x-ray yet.”

“She going to be okay?”

“Yeah. Her shoulder is dislocated and
something is wrong with her ankle. Nothing permanent.”

“Good. I’ll give your mom a call. They’re on
the way up here and your bags are still in your truck, too. Do you
have her parents’ number? I can call them, too and give them an
update.”

“Thanks, man. For everything.” He read off
the number from his cell for her mother’s phone, glad Jason was so
on top of things.

Walking back to the where her bed had been,
Linus waited in the empty area and thought over the shocking news.
What had possessed Brenda to do something so dangerous and foolish?
Had she so little concern for the life of another that she would
willingly send an innocent woman back into the arms of her
attacker? Even as he was glad that she hadn’t gotten off scot-free,
he was sorry that she’d been hurt.

The rhythmic creak of wheels echoed just
before they brought her back into the room. The curtain was closed
and one doctor and one intern examined her shoulder. Linus was
going to say her name and try to get a reaction out of her because
she looked so lost and broken, but the doctor said, “This is going
to hurt,” and with the intern holding her, the doctor jerked her
arm back into joint. She screamed in pain and passed out, and the
young intern laid her gently back on the bed. Linus had to bite his
cheek to keep from flashing his fangs and slaughtering the two men.
It was hard to tell his beast that she’d needed to be hurt to be
healed. He didn’t much care for it himself.

Looking at him as the intern went to get a
nurse, the doctor said, “That happens sometimes. She’s going to be
fine.” The nurse came in with a sling and Linus hovered while she
put the gown on right and then they attached the sling across her
neck and positioned her arm in it and then went about putting an IV
in the top of her free hand.

“We’re going to get some fluids into her.
She’s a little dehydrated, but we’re also going to feed in some low
dose pain medication and let her rest for the night. The ankle is
bruised badly but not sprained or broken. They’ll keep ice on her
shoulder and ankle and we’ll give her a check in the morning and
you should be able to take her home before lunch.

“She’ll need to wear the sling for a while
and do stretching exercises and we’ll keep her on anti-inflammatory
and pain meds for a week or so. She may be back to normal in three
or four weeks, but it could take up to three months before she’s
okay. I don’t foresee any permanent damage or need for surgery, but
she’ll have a few follow up appointments with whoever her regular
doctor is.”

“Thanks.” Linus extended his hand and the
doctor shook it. They moved her to a smaller room that had four
beds in it, all of them blissfully empty. He took the current quiet
to let his emotions go free and he wept quietly by his mate’s still
form. He took little comfort in knowing she was safe forever now.
The fact that she’d been so clearly traumatized and that he’d
failed to keep her safe in the first place ate at him. After
scrubbing his face with cold water in the small bathroom and
getting his rolling emotions under control, he went to find his
family.

His mother, grandmother, Tina, and Cadence
cried when they saw her and hovered around her bed like the
protective she-wolves they were. That Cadence had shown up
surprised him in some ways but also spoke to the strength of her
character and how much Karly had touched all of them in such a
short amount of time. Cadence considered her a friend and wolves
looked out for their friends. Peter pulled them away from the women
to the other side of the room and looked solemn.