Page 62 of The Rabbit's Foot
Alp took in the room and saw what he needed lying beside the overturned table. He made a mad dash for it and snatched the gleaming knife from the floor. Fucking Hyde could not have Mal! Not now, not ever!
Alp stood and launched himself at Hyde, who stumbled back. There was fear in his eyes, and Alp relished it.
“You tortured me for six fucking years. You took my hand, and I’m going to have to live with that for the rest of my life. The worst thing? You’re trying to kill my mate.” He slashed at Hyde, barely missing him. Hyde crabwalked backward, but Alp wasn’t about to let him get away. Yeah, he wanted to go to Mal, but if Hyde escaped, he’d be taking shifter secrets with him, which would allow him to start this shit again in another location. Alp knew in his heart that Mal would want him to stop Hyde before anything else.
“Help!” Hyde screamed as he hit the wall behind him.
“Help? Do you know how many times I wanted to do that? To yell for someone to help me? To save me? And those so-called animals? Their screams were the same. They wanted, no, theyneededsomeone to come to their rescue.” Alp stalked toward Hyde, the surgical blade gleaming in the light. “And that’s the ones who could actually speak. The children? How could they understand what was happening to them? Or worse,whyit was happening.”
He stood over Hyde, who now had his hands drawn to his chest, tears sliding down his cheeks. Any other time, Alp might have had sympathy, but that died years ago. He raised the knife and slammed it down into Hyde’s shoulder, eliciting a scream that shot through Alp, causing him to let go of the knife and scurry back. This wasn’t him. He wasn’t a killer. Blood poured from Hyde’s wound, and he pushed a hand on it to staunch the bleeding.
It would be so simple to finish the job, but Mal needed him, and Alp couldn’t forget his mate. He turned to find Cece behind him, her gorgeous red fur matted with blood.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, stroking a hand over her face. “I can’t kill him. Oh, Maker, I want to. I really do.”
She morphed back to human and gripped Alp’s shoulder. “We all have a role in the Maker’s plan,” she said gently. “Yours isn’t to take a life.” She started to shift, her snout elongating, her fingers becoming claws. Still, she could speak, and that was incredible. “That’s my job,” she said with a deep snarl. She turned to Hyde. “I’ve seen what you’ve done. Found the bodies. The children you’ve murdered. I know I told Alp we weren’t monsters, but this time that’s totally what I plan on being.”
She was a wolf again, the remainder of the shift so fast, Alp barely realized it. Then she lunged at Hyde, sinking her fangs into his face, pinning him to the tiled floor. The wail that came from the man would haunt Alp’s dreams as Cece savaged him, with Hyde flailing as he tried to escape Cece’s wolf. She was huge and incredibly fast. Hyde never stood a chance against her. Blood spattered the floor and walls as she bit him repeatedly, viciously. Finally, blessedly, Hyde’s screams were silent. And though it hadn’t been him who killed the man, Alp still looked at his corpse and found the anger he’d carried for so long now sliding out of him.
“Malachi!” came the growl from behind them.
Alp turned and found Damon beside Mal, his hands on Mal’s chest, compressing it. A cold seeped into Alp. He knew Mal was dead. He’d dreamed it. And the blood he’d seen? That was Hyde’s. Everything was coming true.
“Alp, get the fuck over here,” Damon snapped.
“What can I do?” Cece asked, hurrying to stand beside her mate. Her face was coated in Hyde’s blood, giving her a macabre mask.
“Find Gwyneth and that woman vet,” he told her. “Tell them Mal needs help.”
Cece tore off naked down the hall, calling out for this Gwyneth person. Alp hustled to Mal’s side and burst into tears at the sight of him lying there, not breathing. His mate, his only one, was dead.
“Fucking get it together, Alp,” Damon snapped. “I need you to pinch his nose and blow into his mouth. You need to count for me. Every thirty, you give him two breaths. Do you understand?”
Alp nodded mutely.
“Goddamn it, Alp! Do you understand, or are you going to be fucking useless? If you can’t help me, then get the fuck out of my way.”
That snapped Alp out of his daze. Damon was trying to help Mal, and Alp needed to do whatever he could to assist. “No, I can do it,” he said.
“Good man,” Damon said softly as he pressed on Mal’s chest.
When he hit thirty, Alp pinched Mal’s nose and puffed air into his lungs. This went on for several long minutes, with no changes. Damon, however, wasn’t giving up. He was like a man possessed, and that helped keep Alp focused.
“Damon!” Cece called out, hurrying around the corner with another woman behind her. Where Cece was bigger and wider, the mate of a First wolf, more like an Amazon princess, Gwyneth was a slender woman, with golden hair who seemed to glow with an internal light. She held Lydia’s hand, guiding her to the room.
“What happened?” Lydia asked, dropping to her knees beside Alp.
Alp told them what Hyde had said about the toxin.
“The man is—” Gwyneth looked over at Hyde’s rapidly cooling corpse, not even flinching at the trauma. “Was an idiot.” She reached into her bag and drew out a hypodermic. After taking off the top, she told everyone to step back. When they did, she plunged the needle into Mal’s heart, and Alp screamed.
“Oh, hush, you baby. It’s adrenaline to help restart his heart,” she snapped, her brusque tone standing in stark contrast to her ethereal beauty. She gestured to Lydia. “I need you, the First, and his mate to help hold Malachi down.” She peered at Alp. “You need to come over here and put your head on his chest, right above his heart.”
“But—”
“Do as I say, damn it!”
Everyone scrambled to follow her directions. Cece and Lydia each took an arm, while Damon knelt on Mal’s legs. Alp whimpered as he lay his head where Gwyneth instructed, because there was no heartbeat. No sign of life. How would he explain to his mother that he’d allowed his mate to be killed? That he’d stood there, useless, as Mal took his last breaths. It would have been better if Alp had died, because then Mal would still be alive.
