Page 14 of His Secret Mate

The world around her blurred into a whirl of dark, churning chaos. Lara's vision dimmed, her body succumbing to exhaustion. She fell to her knees.

"Trudi," she whispered, her voice lost in the howling wind. "I'm sorry." Her last thought was of Orion. She knew in that moment before the darkness claimed her that he had been right. She was his fated mate.

The storm raged on, indifferent to her plight.

CHAPTER 6

ORION

“Lara,” he growled into the radio mic. “Lara. Damn it. Answer me.”

On the other end there was only silence and static, which only fed his concern for his mate. He could feel she was still alive, but the link seemed to be weakening. Orion's fingers were numb as he adjusted the radio for what seemed to be the hundredth time. Static continued to crackle, mocking his efforts, but he refused to give up.

"Come on, come on," he muttered, turning the dial, hoping for a miracle, hoping for some semblance of a response from the Sno-Cat.

Nothing. The radio remained silent, an ominous harbinger of the storm's wrath. His mind raced, each second amplifying the urgency gnawing at his core. Lara was out there, somewhere in the vast expanse of snow and ice, and he could feel her, a tenuous thread of connection pulling at his very soul. It was the bond of a fated mate, a bond he had once thought to be mere myth, but one that he now knew to be true.

With a growl of frustration, he tossed the microphone aside. There was no time to lose. The storm outside was unforgiving, a whiteout that could swallow anyone whole, and Lara's chances of survival diminished with each passing moment. His heart pounded with a primal instinct, urging him to act, to save her.

Knowing he had no other choice, he ran the length of the tunnel to the hangar, firing up the sauna and placing his clothes inside. Orion took a deep breath, centering himself. Closing his eyes, calling forth the ancient power within him. The swirling maelstrom encompassed him as his muscles tensed, bones shifting, elongating. The sensation was never painful, but rather powerful and liberating. The mist fell away to reveal his dire wolf form. The charcoal fur with silver tips now covered his skin, dense and designed to withstand the harshest elements. His senses sharpened, the world becoming a symphony of scents and sounds.

He opened his eyes, now a piercing blue, opened the hangar door and bounded out, stopping long enough to use the auto-close button, ensuring the door would close and lock securely behind him. He raised his muzzle to the sky and howled, hoping that somehow Lara would hear him and know he was coming. Around him, the storm raged on, tearing at him, but he pressed on, driven by the pull of his mate. Each step was a battle against the elements, the snow deep and unyielding. Yet his dire wolf form, massive and powerful, carved a path through the storm, galloping towards the hope that he could get to her in time.

The scent of gasoline and exhaust reached his nose, faint but unmistakable. The Sno-Cat. He followed the trail, his paws moving with urgency, each step bringing him closer. Time seemed to stretch and compress in the blizzard, every moment a precarious dance between hope and despair.

Finally, the orange silhouette of the Sno-Cat loomed through the snow, a beacon in the wilderness. Relief washed over him, but it was fleeting. She wasn’t inside. He circled the vehicle, nose to the ground, searching. The scent of Lara, faint but present, guided him. There! A few yards from the vehicle, a small mound in the snow betrayed her presence.

Orion dug frantically, his powerful paws scooping away the snow. His heart lurched as he uncovered her, her body pale and still, obscured by frost. She was barely alive, her breaths shallow and weak. The cold had taken its toll, but it had also protected her. The snow had insulated her and slowed her metabolic system. There was no time to lose.

He turned back to the Sno-Cat, using the automatic door release to gain entry to the cab where he broke open his emergency supplies, including warm blankets and extra clothing. Orion shifted back to his human form, the transition swift and practiced. Shivering, his hands fumbled with the emergency supplies stored in the cab, pulling out an extra set of clothes, snow gear, and warm blankets. With the wind howling outside, he knew every second counted.

Clad in warm layers, he grabbed a snow shovel and thermal blanket before returning to Lara. Locating her body, he used the snow shovel to dig her out, wrapping her tightly in the blanket, lifting her with care. Her body felt alarmingly light as if her soul had begun to abandon her. Her skin was cold to the touch. He could feel her faint heartbeat, her shallow breathing, both a tentative reminder of her struggle to hang onto her life.

He stumbled twice in the few yards between where Lara had fallen and the relative safety of the Sno-Cat. She had almost made it. Despite his ordering her not to, she had braved the elements and the odds and found the plant. From her body position, he assumed she’d accomplished her goal and had been headed back to the vehicle when she collapsed.

Back inside the cab of the Sno-Cat, Orion pulled the now soaked thermal blanket and all of her clothing from her body, using towels to dry her off, rubbed her skin roughly before getting her into warm clothing and two more warm, dry blankets. Her plant samples had fallen to the floor of the vehicle. He retrieved them and put them in a specimen box she had prepared and taken with her. He would protect those samples with every fiber of his being. If she believed they were worth risking her life for, then he could do no less.

Securing her in the passenger seat, Orion turned the heater on full blast, praying it would be enough to stave off the hypothermia. The vehicle roared to life, and he navigated back to Aurora Station through the storm, every muscle in his body taut with concentration.

The station was miles away, and the storm showed no signs of letting up. He drove through the blizzard, the Sno-Cat's treads gripping the snow with tenacity, its headlight providing meager light. The journey felt endless, the howling wind a constant reminder of the peril they faced. Finally, they arrived at Aurora Station. He pulled inside when the hangar door opened.

Once the hangar door lowered and the storm was trapped outside, he removed Lara from the Sno-Cat, moving her inside the sauna, administering warm fluids and exchanging thermal blankets, replacing them instead with heated ones. Orion held her in his arms, willing her to live. The minutes dragged on, each one an eternity as he waited for some sign that she had beaten the odds.

As he rocked her in his arms, crooning to her, he couldn’t help but admire her determination and grit. The powers that be had gifted him with a rare and beautiful mate. Lara was highly intelligent; she had known the odds of being able to retrieve the plant had been against her, and yet she had gone anyway.

After half an hour, he knew he needed to remove her from the sauna. She was generally healthy, but her exertion during her time outside had depleted her hydration and only aided the hypothermia. He couldn’t keep her in the sauna any longer than he had. Wrapping her tightly in the blankets and in his arms, he carried her back to the main building, bundling her down to his room.

He stoked up the fire and increased the temperature in the room. As he had been the only one at Aurora Station for the past several years, save a few visitors, he’d installed a separate thermostat and heat source within his rooms so he could stay comfortably warm without having to heat the entire space. He stripped down to just his jeans and socks and worked to make her comfortable in bed, tucking the covers around her and adding more blankets.

Orion watched her throughout the rest of the day and into the night. She wasn’t getting any better. In fact, she was slipping away.

“No,” he snarled. “You do not get to die on me. I have waited for you my whole life and you will live. I will see your belly rounded with our children and we will watch our grandchildren play while we rock on the porch in our old age. Only then will I allow you to die, and we will enter the great beyond together.”

But Lara was past hearing him. Putting his ear to her chest, he could barely hear her heartbeat. Like her breathing it was slowing as her life neared its end. He wasn’t going to let her go. He knew that what he was about to do went against every tenet of shifter society, but he didn’t care. They could banish him; she could shun him, but it didn’t matter if it meant she lived.

The belief that turning a human without consent was an idea that most shifters would never countenance except in emergencies. But Orion didn’t care; this was an emergency. He would turn her. He had no choice; if he didn’t act and act swiftly, she would die. He would be forcing her to give up her humanity, but she would live.

Hopefully.

---