Page 84 of Protected Promise
I could clearly see a bite mark on her upper thigh. It was purple and blue, not yet healed.
“She was attacked while still in human form,” I whispered.
Five remaining she-wolves walked towards us and dropped to their knees before me. I knew there were seven. One lay dead on the ground where Kaitlyn had ended her life. I looked around for the missing one, fearing a blindsided attack, but saw the second corpse lying in a puddle of blood closer to the cabin.
“We only wanted a chance,” Mallory said.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Maria insisted.
“River just lost it. She attacked and killed Jasmin before turning on your mate,” Abby said.
“She was amazing, Alpha. Even injured she fought hard and won,” Clover added.
“No more challenges,” Cadence insisted while the other girls nodded in agreement. “I don’t want to go back though. I would be honored to call her my Pack Mother, if you’ll allow me to stay.”
I stared at her in shock. My head was still swimming, but my number one priority was getting Kaitlyn the help she needed.
“We’ll discuss that later. I must tend to my mate.”
“Of course, Alpha,” Cadence said.
I looked down and she was so vulnerable. Seeing Kaitlyn naked and hurt tore a hole in my heart. I gathered her in my arms as she moaned in pain. I shielded her against my body as I rose to my full height.
“Alpha, I can help,” Abby said. “I’m a trained nurse.”
“I-I can help too, Alpha,” Cadence said. “If you allow it.”
“Follow me,” I told them.
I carried Kaitlyn all the way back to the Lodge. Others offered their assistance, but I declined it. A few stayed back to assist with the cleanup and burial of the two dead wolves. There would be no ceremony or farewell for either of them. They disgraced the wolf code.
Later on, I would find out that Jasmin was not at fault in the way River was, but by then it was too late.
*****
Mallory and Maria left my territory quickly, fearing the repercussions of their actions. But true to their words, Abby and Cadence stayed to assist. They took turns around the clock tending to Kaitlyn and never leaving her unattended for even a moment.
Abby was a skilled nurse who knew exactly what to do to dress her wounds.
Still, Kaitlyn had shifted out of her fur before passing out in my arms. She’d lost a good deal of blood. In her wolf form her injuries would have healed quickly, but in her skin she was no better off than an average human. That’s where Cadence came in.
Of course, I’d read about witches and heard their tales, but I had never met one in person. Cadence was a healer. She couldn’t expedite the process as fast as Kaitlyn’s wolf could have, but certainly more than we would have otherwise seen.
On the second day, she still hadn’t awakened, and I was getting worried. She had started to become restless and was burning up with a fever.
Wolves rarely ran fevers such as that, but the wound to her leg had become infected and we could only assume her wolf was struggling to heal it, having been weakened in the battle. There were deep scratches across her back as well.
Clover showed up sometime that day and brought with her a wealth of herbal knowledge.
“Are you certain you aren’t a witch as well?” I asked her on several occasions.
She just laughed and went about her business, creating salves and teas from things she’d harvested in the woods to help heal Kaitlyn’s wounds.
Between the three of them we saw great improvement by the third day. Her fever had broken and her injuries seemed much better, but she still hadn’t awakened.
“Why isn’t she waking up?” I asked for the hundredth time as I paced the floor of the master suite in my quarters.
Tobi had needed something to do without driving me insane and apologizing for the millionth time, so I had asked her to clean up my parents’ old room. She’d organized a team and they had washed and scrubbed the place clean.
