Page 162 of Pack Rivals: Part Two
“Come on, baby,” Hardy says, “we need to go before backup arrives.”
He drags me to my feet. I can’t tell if I’m still screaming or if it’s Dr. Hannah, but I wrench free of Hardy’s grip and race to the water, crashing through the waves. Silver and Connor have an arm hooked under Axel’s shoulders, Angel has his hands pressed to his brother’s chest. There’s blood everywhere.
“Axel!” I scream. “Axel!”
I try to reach him but before I can, Hardy bundles me up into his arms again and races through the water, throwing me into the speed boat and jumping in after me. Nate’s already at the wheel, revving the engine and Hardy helps lift Axel into the boat as the others climb in.
I peer back at the beach. The Snakebite pack don’t even seem to have noticed us gone, they’re too distraught at the loss of their pack leader. But then I hear shouting, and I know there are more people coming. People with guns.
“Nate!” Silver shouts, and Nate swings the boat around and heads for the horizon.
I clamber over to Axel. His shirt’s red with blood, his brother’s hand still attempting to stem the bleeding.
His eyes find mine, those beautiful gray eyes that started this whole change in my life. They’re bright as ever but his eyelids are drooping, he’s struggling to keep them open.
I reach for his hand, squeezing it tight between mine.
“Don’t leave me, Alpha!” I beg. “Please don’t leave me!”
36
Angel
I don’t leavemy brother’s side. Not in the boat as Silver delivers first aid, not in the ambulance when we make it to dry land, and not at the hospital.
I only just got my brother back. Goddamn it, I’m not losing him now. I’m making damn sure the doctors do everything they can.Every.Thing.
They try to usher me out of the way, nurses asking me nicely in soothing voices and when that fails, doctors marching up to me with stern orders. I tell them all the same thing.
“I’m not leaving him.”
Because, to my shame, that’s what I did the night of the accident. The night of his fall. I thought I’d killed him. I thought I’d killed the brother I loved more than I loved myself. And what did I do? Did I stay to help? No, I fled like a fucking coward. It wasn’t the consequences or the punishment. It was the fear of seeing my brother, always so alive and full of life, cold and soulless.
Like that alpha on the beach.
This time I’ll be here. Here with him.
My brother is not going to die. Not on my watch. Not when he took that Goddamn bullet for me. A bullet that should have been mine.
When they wheel him through for surgery, I bark at the medical staff until someone hands me a gown and helps me scrub up.
I stand in that clinical operating theater and watch as they cut him open, as they slice a sharp scalpel through his skin, as they sink tweezers into the bloody wound, as they remove that bullet, as they toss it into a tray. It’s the same color as our eyes. Gray.
I stare at it for several minutes, wanting to crush the useless thing in my hand, then turn back to watch as they stitch him back up.
“What are his chances?” I ask gruffly, my voice seeming to come from somewhere other than my own mouth. He’s lost a lot of blood, although by some miracle of the gods, that bullet missed his heart and his lungs.
“He’s going to be all right,” the doctor says, as he strips off his rubber gloves, leaving his junior to finish the stitching. “He’s an alpha after all. It takes a lot to kill you.” A knife to the head will do it. “Your brother will be on the mend soon enough. We’re going to transfer him to recovery now. Why don’t you go grab a coffee?” he says, patting my shoulder as he passes me.
I shake my head.
I ought to check in with the rest of my pack. They are somewhere in the hospital too. Silver insisted they get Bea checked out. I know they’ll be desperate for an update on Axel, but I can’t leave him, not yet.
They wheel him out to the recovery bays, where other patients lie lined up, their faces obscured by oxygen masks, various machines beeping and blinking around them.
I take a seat by his side, and like Bea did earlier in the boat, I take his hand in my own.
Even our hands are alike. Same thick long fingers. On his middle finger he wears my dad’s ring. Plain gold. He liked fine things, our dad, but he was never flashy. I trace my fingers over the metal, smooth to the touch.
