Page 42 of Cruel Revenge
I just started fixing things with her. They can’t do this to me. I’ve done too much for this forsaken world for them to do this to me.
“It nicked her lung, so she’s slowly drowning,” Olivia said, her words quick. “Multiple organs were hit, but the spikes are keeping the damage from truly wreaking havoc. Like leaving a weapon in stops the bleeding from becoming severe, that sort of thing. She’s still bleeding, though. She’s lost a lot of blood.”
“How long do you think it’s been?” Subira demanded.
“Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty,” Hasan answered for Olivia. “Based on how the blood hasn’t fully dried anywhere. This is fresh, love,” he explained, his words controlled and cool.
That was when his mate fully noticed his fracturing, his fragility, his planning, his need to kill everyone who touched his little girl and took his future granddaughter, and brought this into their lives. She looked back at him for only a second.
“Thank you,” she said, then turned back to Jacky and Olivia.
He felt her energy through the mate bond, tasting her emotions as well. She would save their daughter, and if she couldn’t, she was willing to let him wreak the havoc he wished for a time. She was so angry, she was willing to turn a blind eye until her conscience forced her to step in.
Perfect.
“I’ll move slow. If you need a boost in power?—”
“I don’t need power. I’m afraid I’m going to heal her with too much painful scar tissue,” Olivia said, her eyes opening as she looked up at Subira.
“Those things can be fixed. We need her stabilized so we can move her to her home or to mine if the humans won’t let her heal restfully here. Just that, Olivia. Then we can do more to help her. We’ll get someone from the Mygi Hospital to come to her in a safe place to fix any healing damage, the scar tissue. All of that.”
“You can do that?”
“I’m a member of the Tribunal. Of course, I can do that,” Hasan answered. “Dirk couldn’t. He made the right call finding you.”
“Oh.” Olivia nodded. “Then I’m ready. I’ll do what I can the right way, but if something wants to scar, I’ll let it, and we’ll manage. She’ll live. I promise. The blood loss will be more long term, though. I can’t force her to make more blood without draining her of all her precious energy that I need for everything else. She won’t come back to consciousness. She needs to sleep through that.”
“Thank you.” Subira grabbed a spike. Hasan finally stepped forward and did something he knew the werewolf couldn’t. While Jacky was unconscious now, there was no telling what sort of pain this was going to cause. That could easily wake her up, and she was a werecat. She could accidentally kill the witch and wolf. She could still hurt Subira, who was going to befocused on the spike and making sure it was pulled at the right speed.
He knelt next to her large head and grabbed it with the ability to control its movement. He had fifty-three hundred years of experience dealing with his own kind in their werecat forms. He fought more werecats early on in his life than he did werewolves, as he and his ‘brothers’ jostled for the best hunting grounds and to be the best warriors for their creator because whoever was deemed worthless was cut loose. That monster hadn’t been afraid to eat those he Changed. He used all that experience to teach his children. That was how he made sure, even in only a few short years, Jacky had been a good enough werecat to survive everything she had so far.
“Now, you must live through this. You must, Jacky. You are so important to me. To your mother. To your siblings. Your werewolves,” he whispered, his mouth on the top of Jacky’s head.
His sanity depended on it. He couldn’t do this again, not here, not like this.
“Think of little Carey. Hold her in your dreams as you let your mother and her apprentice help you. She’s out there. You were so close to saving her. I can see that here.”
He studied her head as Subira and Olivia worked behind him; he’d picked an angle where he didn’t have to see what was happening.
So close… Oh, Jacky…
He could smell it.
He opened Jacky’s mouth, inspecting all of it. There was a lot of blood—some of her own, some of strangers—but those weren’t the scents he was concerned with.
Carey’s blood was in Jacky’s mouth.
Subira’s shock rang in his mind in tune with his own.
Jacky bit Carey. Carey was either going to Change or die now.
We don’t even know where the girl is. We don’t know where Jacky and Heath’s daughter is.
“Teagan, call your Alpha,” Hasan ordered, his words rough. “Hold it out to me.”
“Okay.”
It rang as Subira and Olivia worked. The first spike was halfway out.
