The blond chuckled and started walking. His voice was a low rumble under her ear. “Been busy, have you, pretty wolf?”
His arms were like iron bands, holding her tightly to his huge chest. He radiated heat. And his scent, oh, his wild, masculine scent played havoc with her senses.
She bent her head to his forearm and gave him a little lick. Salty, sweaty, wonderful male. She licked him again.
Even as the dark one laughed, the blond strolled along beside the Cosantir. His deep rumbly voice was quiet and assured. “Calum, the little female licked me. I think that means she’s mine.”
The dark one chuckled. “Ours.”
“Bloody Canadians.” Calum huffed. “No.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Unclaimed territory - one night before the full moon
Something hurt. No, everything hurt, but something hurt worse than the rest.
The intense, aching pull in the center of Margery’s chest felt like someone had roped her heart to drag it through a too-narrow opening.
Fuzzily, she blinked. Why was she lying on the ground? In the dirt. When she moved her head, her skull felt shattered.
She whined. Had a grizzly bit her, trying to crack her head like a walnut?
Trying to check, she lifted her hand—no, her paw. That wouldn’t work. Panting, she trawsfurred to human.
Even shifting hurt.
Her hand shook as she gingerly touched the burning area above her right eyebrow. The flesh was all swollen around an incredibly painful furrow. Sticky, half-drying blood covered the side of her face.
What…? Flashes of memory strobed her brain.
Two mercenaries aiming at Vicki. She’d charged them. And, Gods, one of them shot her. That was a bullet furrow.
No wonder her head hurt.
As she pushed to a sitting position, nausea roiled in her belly.
Was Vicki all right? And wait, a reddish wolf had attacked the one who’d shot her. Was that Heather?
By the Gods, her memories were messed up worse than Breanne’s jigsaw puzzle.
What about the pain in her chest? Had she been shot there, too? She ran her hands over her sternum, breasts, and ribs. Aside from the long knife slash—and a lot of bruises—she was just bloody and dirty.
Carefully, she looked around, sucking in air against the stabbing in her head.
A clearing. Moonlight shone into the center. The tree-lined edges were in shadow. Bodies lay and sat everywhere.
Captives? Terror froze her until she sniffed and found only the wild scent of shifters, blood, and pain. No firearms or armor or humans.
She wasn’t a prisoner.
She was surrounded by the wounded.
If the injured were here, where was Donal? There was no healer moving around, no deep calming voice—or ranting.
The pain in her chest grew, inexorably dragging her attention to her right.
Tynan was kneeling next to…next to Donal who lay so very still.
No. No, no, no.
The ache in her chest was from him. Her bond to him strummed with agony. She tried to stand, failed, and shifted to wolf so she could stagger on four paws between the injured to get to Tynan. To Donal.
Tynan lifted his head before she reached him. “Meggie?” He stared at her in disbelief.
She collapsed next to Donal, whining her questions. Her fears.
“He did too much.” The grief in Tynan’s voice bit at her with sharp fangs. “I tried to give him power. So did Francesca who should have a bond with him. Nothing helps. His breathing is…” His voice went ragged. “Is slowing.”
No. No, he couldn’t die.
Fear shook her and the beginning of grief before Tynan’s words truly registered. Francesca had tried to give him power. A female he’d mated with.
Margery had mated with him…and there was love there. They had a bond. A bond big enough to hurt like fire right now.
Lying next to him, she rested her muzzle on his bare chest. His skin was cool. His ribcage barely moved with each breath.
Closing her eyes, she found her lake of calm, turned it into a river…and poured power into him.
Donal had fallen into a universe of cold darkness.
He woke to sunlit warmth.
He took a breath, then a deeper one, feeling as if his lungs were stretching, as if he’d been moved out from under a massive boulder.
Scents drifted to him. Tynan was close. There was the soft fragrance of flowers. Margery? Was that her weight? Her furry head lay on his shoulder, her paw on his chest.
No, he knew better. She was headed for Canada.
Yet he didn’t move. Right now, he’d prefer the fantasy to reality.
Then he realized the smell of blood that filled the clearing included the scent of her blood.
His eyes snapped open, and he sat up so quickly his head spun. “Are you hurt? Where are you bleeding?”
On his other side, Tynan gripped his shoulders and steadied him. “There you are. I wasn’t sure you’d come back to us.” Tears glinted in his eyes. “Don’t do that again, mo deartháir.”
Donal pulled in a breath as he heard the pain. “I’m sorry, brawd.”
Slowly, he looked down—and yes, she was there. Margery. Obviously dislodged when he moved, she gave a pained whine and shifted to human. Slowly, carefully, she sat up.
She really was there.
In fact… The realization came slowly. She was the reason he was alive at all. “You shared power with me.”
Her hand was on her forehead. Her face was bloody, and her brows were pulled into a pained frown. Yet her lips tilted upward into a smile. “You’re welcome.”
By the Gods, he loved her. Gently, he pulled her closer and chuckled. “That’s what I meant to say. Thank you. You saved my life, you know.”
Her curvy body stiffened. “I know.” She gave him a dark look. “Like Tynan said, don’t do that again.”
He wanted to talk with her, tell her how much he loved her. But this wasn’t the time. “We’ll talk later, cariad.” Donal rubbed his cheek against hers. “Just don’t leave us again. Aye?”
“Aye.”
She’d come back to them. His heart felt swollen with the knowledge.
Even as he grappled with the emotions, he frowned and moved her hand from her head. The long furrow was too clean to be from a branch. “By Herne’s holy prick, what is this? No, don’t bother to try to snow me with pixie dust; I know what that is. You put your brain-pan, you know, where your brains are, in front of a Gods-benighted, buggered-up bullet.”
Even as his mouth kept moving, he laid his hand over the wound and healed the bruised, bleeding tissues inside her brain, the cracked skull, then the furrow.
“There are others who are worse off,” she protested.
As if he’d ever let her be in pain if he could help it.
But she wouldn’t accept that answer, so he gave her the other truth, the harder one. “I need you able to move. To help.” Frowning, he healed the knife wound over her ribs.
“Oh. Of course. What do you need?”
And he could only smile because the response was simply…Margery. If she could help, that’s where she’d be.
Tynan chuckled and kissed her hair. “I’ll find you some clothes, then go back to search and rescue. You okay now, cat?”