“WHERE ARE YOU?” I roared at Sebastian through the mindlink, already through the door of the conference room, leaving the madness behind me.
Nothing mattered beyond getting to him and Haven.
“The hospital,” he told me.
“FUCK,” I exclaimed out loud.
I picked up my pace, racing through the packhouse and out the back door. As soon as my feet hit the grass, my lycan took over, forcing me to shift. My suit tore into pieces as I switched forms, but it didn’t matter.
My lycan ran the very short distance to the pack clinic faster than he’d ever ran before. And the entire way there, I cursed myself for every decision I’d made since the day I showed him to her. And if my lycan could talk, I’m pretty sure he’d be cussing me out too.
I was so fucking stupid. I had fucked up so badly. I never should have agreed to the proposal from Alpha Pierce, and I should have waited by my phone for Haven to call me back.
Or I should have at least talked to her and explained everything going on. She was new to our world, but she was smart, and she would have understood.
I just had to hope I wasn’t too late. That she would be okay and she would forgive me.
I burst into the clinic and shifted, grabbing a pair of sweatpants from the nearby bin and throwing them on.
My brother paced in the lobby, muttering to himself and tugging at his hair, his shirt unbuttoned and covered in blood. Haven’s blood.
I stormed over to him, grabbing a handful of his shirt and pulling him into my body, my face in his.
“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?” I yelled, my voice edged with a growl.
His mouth moved, and words came out, but I didn’t hear them. My eyes moved down to his shirt and hands, to the blood covering him. I inhaled, exhaled, and inhaled again, then closed my eyes as everything washed over me.
“Plums,” I muttered. “Plums. It’s always been plums.”
My eyes snapped open, meeting Sebastian’s gaze. A flicker of something passed over his face as my words registered in his brain, but I didn’t have time to think about his reaction to what I said.
I dropped him and turned, following my nose, following the pull leading me where I needed to be. There was no reason to ask anyone where she was because I would always be able to find her.
I couldn’t see anything aside from what lay in front of me as I walked down the white clinic hall. I had a one-track mind.
Nolan’s rusty-furred wolf sat guard in front of the second door in the hall, a signal she was in that room. Not that I needed it. I could already sense she was there.
I paused for a moment as I gripped the doorknob, closing my eyes to steady myself. I did not know what I was about to see or what state I would find her in. All I knew was I had to open that door to confirm with my eyes what my soul and my heart already knew.
Nolan whimpered and nudged my leg with his paw, breaking me out of my thoughts and driving me forward, driving me to act.
The door opened inward, and everything hit me like a freight train.
Her scent filled my lungs as I breathed in—jasmine and plums—stronger and sweeter than I’d ever smelled it. She lay in the bed, her eyes closed tight, her face scrunched up in pain as they worked on a brutal wound on her neck and shoulder. Her skin was paler than its normal tone from her loss of blood, and she had minor scratches and deep, dark bruising on her throat and jawline. On the floor lay a scrap of black fabric and something sparkly, as well as some strappy heels, her club clothes now replaced by a hospital gown.
But even with all that, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Still my world, my heart, my everything. My—
“Mate,” I said with my exhale, my lycan howling in a mixture of happiness over finding his mate and sadness that someone had hurt her and we weren’t there for her.
Her eyes fluttered open when she heard my voice, big and blue and filled with fear and pain. But as soon as they locked onto mine, I could see the wave of relief that washed over her in my presence.
Her lip trembled, and fresh tears pooled in her eyes. Her uninjured hand reached out to me, shaking and weak, but there for me to take all the same.
The sight of her like that—injured and terrified and probably pissed at me, but still seeking me, seeking my touch and my presence—nearly killed me as the reality of her situation hit me.
I lunged forward into the room, crossing to her in long, purposeful strides, falling to my knees at the side of her bed, grabbing her hand with mine and pulling it to my chest. I wanted—needed—to pull her whole body to mine and hold her close and never let her go, to keep her safe at my side and in my arms.
But I couldn’t, because while I was trying to help my dad and my pack, I left her vulnerable, and I could have lost her.
“I’m here,” I murmured, kissing her hand, ignoring the feel of the mate bond on my skin. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere,” I told her.
She squeezed my hand and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths through her nose to calm herself. Her lip still trembled as she fought against her cries, and the urge to take her into my arms hit me again, strengthened by my lycan seeing her fighting to stay calm.
I rose higher on my knees and leaned forward to kiss her forehead and stroke her hair, but my eyes landed on the wound on her neck, and what I saw made my blood boil.
The growl I let out started all the way in my feet. It ripped through my body as I stood and stared at the open doorway, at Sebastian and Nolan in his wolf form.
My aura didn’t just leak out. No, it bubbled up and spilled over like a pot of boiling water, forcing every wolf in the room to bare their neck to me in submission. Even Sebastian lowered his eyes, though he didn’t have to.
“Why are there teeth marks from another lycan on MY MATE’S neck? On her MARKING SPOT?” I yelled.
“He had her in the alley,” Seb said quietly. “When we got to her, he was biting into her neck over and over. Like his lycan was trying to mark her.”
“How’d he get her in the alley? How’d you lose her?”
“Blackout,” he muttered. “It was chaos.”
I growled again, but not at him. Just in frustration with the situation. The weight of all that had happened settled on my heart, settled into my soul, and all I could think about was how I had once again failed her.
My mate.
I had failed her so many times. Failed her with my very first letter to her, failed her when I didn’t realize soon enough that something was wrong, failed her when she was adopted by those horrible people. And failed her when I agreed to be someone’s fake fiancé.
She could have died, and it would have been all my fault. Because I failed to protect her.
I wanted to tear through the room, wanted to throw the furniture and punch through the walls. I wanted to shift into my lycan and let him take over and find this asshole, find the male who dared touch what was ours.
But the small, soft, warm hand in mine kept me anchored in the present, reminding me that while that was what I wanted, what I needed was to be with my mate. My Sugar Plum.
The bond between us was already strong. She could already pull me out of a blind rage, and she didn’t even know she was doing that. My mind drifted to all the times over the weeks since she’d appeared in Crescent Lake that she’d calmed me with just her touch, and I rubbed my forehead with my fingertips.
Stupid. I was so stupid. It was her. It had always been her, and I was just too dense to realize it.
“Who was he?” I asked, and Sebastian shrugged.
“Lennox,” Haven said from behind me, her voice small and hoarse.
I whipped my head around to her, just as she swallowed and winced against the pain in her throat. I leaned over her, stroking her hair as I’d meant to before I saw her injury, keeping my hand away from where Dr. Russo and the nurses worked on cleaning and stitching up her wound.
“Who?” I asked her, my thumb rubbing her knuckles where I still held her hand.
She swallowed a few more times, her eyes closing with each one as she worked through the pain in her throat. I wouldn’t force her to talk anymore after this because she needed to rest and heal, but I knew she wanted to give me an answer.
“My ex,” she said, her voice almost inaudible.
Red flashed across my vision, and I growled again, low and deep, my hand gripping hers tightly. She squeezed it back. “Wes—”
“Don’t,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Don’t talk, Sugar Plum. You’ll just hurt your voice more. It’s okay. I’m okay,” I said.
Even though I was far from it. I was livid. Beyond livid. Not only was her ex a shifter, too, but he was a lycan. Which meant he had alpha blood.
“Find him,” I ordered Sebastian with a quick glance.
“Yes, Alpha,” he replied, nodding at me, using the title that wasn’t mine yet to show his respect.
But then he pressed his lips together as his eyes slid to Haven, pointing at her. “Sparkles, you have to get better so you can keep my brother in line.”
I looked at him again with a glare, but he just winked at me and scurried out of the room before I could growl at him again.
When I turned back to Haven, she had the glint of a laugh in her eyes. Her hand pulled away from mine, and she rubbed her thumb over the frown between my eyebrows. Then her hand moved down my face and my neck to my chest, her eyes tracking the movements, her own frown now marring her features.
She pulled her hand away, then put it back, right over my heart. “What is—”
A grimace of pain cut her words off as the doctor placed stitches on the gash closest to her neck. I snarled at him, my lycan pushing forward at our mate’s pain.
“I’m sorry, Alpha, but I have to stitch her up. We gave her a local anesthetic, but it might not have kicked in fully yet,” Dr. Russo said, apologizing as he continued stitching her wounds.
I looked back at my mate, at the determined set of her jaw. She was so brave, so brave and so strong, trying to hold in her pain and her tears.
“Here, Alpha,” a nurse said, pushing a chair close to the bed for me.
I sat in it and held Haven’s hand, pushing warmth and love to her through the bond. I wasn’t sure how much of it she could feel since she was human, but I did it anyway.
With a gentle squeeze of her hand, I apologized. “I’m so sorry, Sugar Plum. I should have been there with you. I should have protected you.”
I brought her hand back up to my mouth, pressing a kiss to it and holding it there. My eyes squeezed shut as tears tried to force their way out, but I wouldn’t let them fall. Not until the nurses were gone, at least.
Her eyes drooped, her breathing evened out, and soon she was asleep, and the nurses placed the last of the bandages on her now healing wound.
“The gashes ran deep, but the slices were clean, and by some miracle, her artery hadn’t been hit,” Dr. Russo told me as he removed his gloves. “It seems Selene was watching out for your mate tonight.”
“It does look that way,” I agreed, keeping my eyes on her finally peaceful face.
“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, but you should stay with her. The bond should help her heal. It already is,” he added. “She will probably have some scarring since she’s human, but the bond is a powerful force. The closer you can be to her, the better, but be mindful of her injury.”
I nodded and scooted the chair closer to the bed, taking her hand into both of mine instead of just the one and leaning my elbows onto the mattress.
“And you should try to sleep too, Alpha,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder.
He opened the door, and a smile appeared on his face as his eyes scanned the hallway.
“The future luna is already well-loved,” he said to me over his shoulder.
I rose to my feet and moved to the doorway as he stepped out, and my eyes watered at what I saw.
Nolan sat in wolf form next to the door, proud and tall and ready to defend his luna. Rachel sat next to him, her hand on his back as she stroked his fur absentmindedly. My dad and mom held hands as they sat on two chairs across from the door. Reid leaned against the wall with his arms around a crying Maddie, and Maya sat on the floor, biting her nails.
Even Nicole and her new mate Alton were there, standing a few paces away from my pack members. I gave them a nod to thank them for their support, then turned to go back into Haven’s hospital room.
I knew I would need to talk to my dad and find out what happened with Pierce after I ran out of the packhouse, but that could wait until later. Because my priority at the moment was my mate.
I leaned over her and kissed her forehead, letting my lips linger as I breathed in her jasmine and plum scent. Then I settled back into my chair, taking her hand again as I readied myself for a long night.
