No one spoke, and I was glad. My mind whirred with possibilities, filling with guilt. Eldrick had asked me to help him. He’d asked me to take over for him. I’d seen the shadows in his eyes, and I’d ignored them.
There were traitors in his midst, we’d known that. I should have helped. I should have stepped up and maybe he’d be okay.
Please, please don’t let him die.
Please.
Dean cut down a side street, through an abandoned parking lot and onto the edge of Rising pack territory—a residential area on the poorer track. The houses here were all three-story affairs, squished together on the narrow street. Dean pulled up outside a house with a blue door and brass knocker in the shape of a wolf head. Nice touch.
I hopped out first and was already at the door when the guys and Petra joined me.
Knock four times, Bobby had said.
I did just that and waited.
Long seconds passed and then the door swung open to reveal a disheveled Hunter. His cream T was covered in patches of both dried and fresh blood.
“Come in.” He walked off, leaving us to enter. “He’s through here. I can’t stop the bleeding.”
Copper hit my nostrils as we hurried in. I moved aside to let Petra go first with the first aid box.
The drapes were drawn in the lounge, which was dimly lit by a free-standing lamp. Eldrick was on the sofa, his face a pale oval in the gloom. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing erratically. My gaze dropped to his chest and my heart stalled. It was red. A mass of red.
Torn flesh.
Blood.
Oh god.
Petra let out a string of curses and hurried to his side. She fell to her knees and set to work, yanking bandages and gauze from the first aid box.
“Hot water and towels now!” she ordered.
Dean and Grayson left the room.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the gaping, lethal wound.
“Will he be okay?” My voice was a whisper, and I was surprised Petra heard me when she replied.
“I don’t know. I don’t—” She broke off to press more gauze to Eldrick’s chest. “Towels now!”
Oh shit. The gauze was soaked in seconds. He wasn’t healing fast enough. He was dying. He was… No! I wouldn’t allow it.
I fell to my knees beside Petra. “What can I do to help?”
“Keep pressure. Keep packing. I need to prepare the herbs.”
Her face was pinched with anxiety, lips pressed so tightly together they were bloodless. She grabbed her bag and turned away to work at the coffee table.
He wasn’t healing, why wasn’t he…I caught a metallic and familiar scent. Grayson had reeked of it when the vamps had bitten him in the museum.
“Silver.” I looked across the room at Hunter, standing in the shadows his expression a mask of supressed rage. “What happened?”
“Not now,” he snapped. “Stabilize him, then we talk.”
I wanted to snap back at him, but he was right. We needed to save Eldrick first and then the people who’d done this to him would pay.
Grayson and Dean returned with hot water and towels.
“Use the towels to staunch the blood,” Petra said to me. “I need to draw out the silver.”
I worked fast, but he was bleeding too quickly, his face bloodless now, his body limp. The only indication he was alive was the fact he kept bleeding.
I choked back a sob as I worked. I couldn’t lose him. I’d only just found him.
Petra began to slather on the herbs, lifting the towels here and there to do it. They acted like a tourniquet and the bleeding began to slow. An acrid smell filled the room.
“It’s working,” she said finally.
Long minutes passed as we worked in silence with the guys watching from the shadows.
“Good,” Petra said finally. “You did good, Fee.”
“Is he…Is he going to make it?” I couldn’t tear my attention from his ashen face. “Petra?”
“We’ve done all we can,” she said. “Go wash up. I’ll sit with him.”
Grayson cupped my shoulders and drew me away from the couch. He led me to the hallway then to the small washroom under the stairs.
The blood ran off my hands in rivulets, painting the white, porcelain basin pink, and it took a nail brush to get it out from under my nails. Grayson rinsed the sink, but the pink hue remained.
“I’ll get some bleach,” Dean said softly.
I followed Grayson into the kitchen to find Hunter making tea as if this was an ordinary day and we’d popped over for a chinwag and cake.
I walked up to him and grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at me. “Fuck the tea. Tell me what happened?”
He glared at me, his jaw ticking. “Get your hands off me.”
Grayson made a low rumbling sound in his chest, a warning for Hunter to back off, but in that moment, my senses were totally focused on Hunter as my empathy kicked in.
I’d been so consumed by my own confusion and anxiety I’d failed to sense his impotent rage. It beat off him in waves, and I didn’t need to drop my shields to sense how furious he was. But his fury was directed at himself.
“Get away from me,” Hunter said, low and lethal.
Grayson took a step toward us, his body coiled and ready to attack.
I kept my attention on Hunter. “Grayson, babe, can we have a minute please.”
I sensed his hesitation, but then he backed up and left the room. He wouldn’t go far though.
Hunter’s eyes narrowed and flicked over my head to the doorway then back again. He was surprised, but I wasn’t sure if he was more surprised that I’d asked Grayson to leave or that Grayson had complied.
I released him but didn’t move away. “Hunter.” I softened my tone. “Please tell me what happened.”
He took a deep breath. “It was an ambush. They waited until I left the building then they attacked him.”
“Then how—”
“I forgot my jacket.” He snorted derisively. “I fucking forgot my jacket, so I went back. They were on him like a pack of dogs.” He swallowed hard, chest heaving. “I think I might have killed two, and I maimed the others enough to get him out. I have a skeleton key to the back exits. The alpha exits. Eldrick was conscious enough to give me the coordinates to this place.” He turned away and gripped the counter, leaning against it as if for support. “I should have sensed something. I should never have left him alone. I just can’t believe… Ulrich was my man.”
“Ulrich did this?”
“He wants the Rising pack. He must have been working with Larson and now
they’ve taken it. With Eldrick down, Larson dead, and me in exile, Ulrich is next in line.”
Ulrich was the traitor. The one Eldrick had been trying to find. The trusted extra hand. The one Hunter had brought in and trained.
Oh shit. No wonder Hunter was pissed.
He blamed himself.
I grabbed his arm and yanked him around to face me. “This is not your fault.”
His eyes flinched, and he wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“Look at me.”
He deliberately returned his attention back to my face.
I locked gazes with him and reached up to touch his cheek on impulse. “This is not your fault.”