Page 9 of Pack Witch
No. No, this can’t be the end.I couldn’t wait my entire life, find my true mate in an instant, and lose her just as fast.
I heard Ida shouting at the boys as I shifted faster than I ever had before and wrapped my hand over the pulsing wound. Her face was tanned, possibly from hours spent in the sun, but was growing paler as I watched.
“Mate,” I muttered, my voice a croak. Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t rouse. The corners of her lips turned up slightly, though, as if she wasn’t afraid.
Mate! Claim!my wolf insisted.
I was horrified. Claiming her might save her, though if she was too far gone, it might also take me along with her. The idea didn’t stop me from pushing the blood-soaked fabric of her dress away from her neck and shoulder. We would run with the moon side by side, if we both died. We would be together as we were meant to be.
But first, I would try to save her life. I’d claim her, even though doing it without her permission was almost a crime. Without moving my hand from her wound, I lifted the woman’s narrow frame to my face. Kneeling with her draped over my arm, I set my lips on her neck and whispered, “Forgive me.”
The bear, whom I hadn’t forgotten, gave a rumble of disapproval.
The boys loosed matching, alarmed whines.
“Absolutely not.” Ida’s sharp voice cut in, as she grabbed me by one shoulder and pulled the woman away, though I kept my hand on her wound, unwilling to let up on the pressure. “Julian, stop growling. You can’t claim her, not unless she accepts you.”
She barked a few more orders at Bo, who was shivering on his feet in human form, muttering, “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to hurt her, Sergeant.”
I wanted to reassure him that I knew, but my tongue was frozen in my mouth. I couldn’t even move my head to look at him.
Ida murmured, “We all know that, sweetheart. Go on and get the kit; it’s just inside the door, on the pine table.”
Bo repeated the apology, then wheeled and ran into the nearby cabin, emerging with a basket a few seconds later. He handed it to Ida and moved back to stand beside his friend. Leroy was still in wolf form, facing the bear, who was obviously not a threat. The thing was… crying? I had never known a bearcould weep, but this one’s shoulders were rounded as it made whimpering sounds of grief.
Ida kneeled at my side. “Julian, give her to me.”
I snarled at her. “She’s my mate.”
“And she may still be your mate if you let me help her. Give me space to try.”
“I can claim her—” I began, but she was already gently pulling the woman away, moving her own hand to cover the wound. If I didn’t have the utmost respect for Ida, I would’ve fought her. But I owed her my respect, and my life, so I resisted my wolf’s impulse.
Ida pulled a mass of something—cobwebs?—out of the basket with her free hand, then pressed them to the wound. The bleeding appeared to stop, or at least slow significantly, though that may have been because she’d already bled too much.
My mate was a mess, covered with dirt and blood. Her hair was a tangled mass of dark waves with silver threads throughout, her limbs almost too slender, and her skin far too pale. One whole side of her torso was blood-slicked, her pale green cotton dress twisted around her legs and torn from her shoulder to wrist. She looked to be a few years younger than me, though it was hard to tell.
“Let’s hope this works,” Ida murmured.
“If she dies…” I snarled, ashamed of the threat I couldn’t keep out of my voice.
Ida ignored me, still holding the cobwebs on the wound as she barked at Bo to get something else out of the basket. Herbs of some kind? Bo handed them to Ida, who glanced up at me, a stern gleam in her eyes. “Chew these for her.”
I blinked, but obeyed, the foul-tasting herbs leaving my tongue numb. I handed back the masticated lump, and she took it, pressing it between the woman’s lips.
Thewoman.I didn’t even know her name.
“Who is she? What is her name?” I asked as Ida worked, instructing me to hold the cobwebs in place, while she pulled more things out of the basket. I sniffed and realized everything inside it reeked of strong magic. No. Not strong magic.Deepmagic. As if small spells had been laid over everything inside, one at a time for years. Decades, perhaps.
“This is the one I was bringing you to meet,” she said. “Her name is Zinnia.”
Zinnia.I had called her a crone in my thoughts. She was nothing of the sort.
I drank her in as she lay almost motionless, only her chest rising and falling unsteadily, as if the act of breathing might cease at any moment. “She’s a witch.” I had almost no power over my own magic now, but since the first scar that had blotted out the tattoo on my upper arm, I’d been able to sense it again.
Like the medicines in her basket, this woman’s magic was potent. Concentrated, as if it had been increasing in strength for a very long time. But I couldn’t pick up a trace of wolf in her.
My own wolf snarled his denial of the thought, but not even he could locate a connection to her shifter side, if she had one. My magic, though, roiled under my skin more violently than it ever had before. I ignored the sensation, the pain that had become even sharper after she’d touched me.
