Page 58 of Warlander Beast Cat

“Landon?” she whispered.

“I won’t let him.”

“Landon,” she repeated again, softer.

He rounded on her. “Do what I say. Stop the bleeding on that claw mark! And when you stop it, I’ll tell you what to do next! Stop fucking talking! Just do! You aren’t losing him. I won’t let it happen. Don’t hinder me, Cadence. Help, or fuck off. There’s your options.”

And that’s what she needed. Like a slap to a panic attack, she reared back and settled her mind, and she heard his words. Everything slowed and became clearer.

They weren’t losing him.

Okay.

He was cutting. He was doing surgery and she couldn’t watch, so she focused on what Landon had told her to do. She looked at Kru’s slack face time and time again. He was pale as a ghost. “I’m not losing you,” she gritted out. “You fight. You said I get what I want? I want you to fight.”

She didn’t know how much time passed until Lucia was there, listening to direction from Landon, working on setting his injured leg. She was leaning over Kru, putting all her weight on the claw marks to apply pressure, and then she looked over and Lucia was there with a somber set to her mouth, working on Kru. And then Lucas was there, grabbing towels from the bathroom. Grabbing anything Landon asked him to retrieve. Jenna was there next, but she didn’t seem to know what to do, and Landon wasn’t taking the time to train her. Jenna’s eyes were full of tears.

“He’s still breathing,” she said in a voice she didn’t recognize. His chest was moving. He was breathing. He had a heartbeat. She could hear it. It was strong, just like Kru.

“Stop crying,” she gritted out.

Jenna ducked her gaze and made her way to the kitchen, but Cadence could still hear her. She was sniffling. It made her angry for some reason she couldn’t understand. She felt like Jenna was giving up on Kru.

“Can we move him to the bed?” she asked Landon as he sank back against the wall beside Lucia.

“No. Let his animal have him. We’ve done what we can. No moving him.”

Cadence became obsessed with the rise and fall of his chest, with the sound of his strong heartbeat.

Jenna and Lucas sat beside each other at the table, watching Kru with haunted eyes.

Cadence couldn’t sit and do nothing. She had too much pent-up energy from the stress, so she got up and made Kru food for when he woke up. She was stubborn and believed he would wake up.

He’d said his mom used to make the meal he’d made her last night. It was comfort food. Mac and cheese, cream of mushroom soup, tuna. It only took her half an hour to make, and she left the pot of it steaming on the counter. Kru wasn’t moving.

She was trying not to cry. Cadence made her way to her bedroom and got a pillow, her comforter, and one of her shirts from the dirty laundry. She didn’t know why she did that last part. Just felt right.

She placed the pillow gently under his head, settled the comforter over him, and sat for a while just watching him until she became restless again.

“I think I need a minute,” she said to the others, who had remained completely silent the entire time, just watching Kru.

“Want me to come with you?” Jenna offered.

“I think I need a minute alone.” To have a meltdown somewhere no one can see me.

She made her way out of the house, sank down on the bottom stair of her porch, and buried her face in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” a voice murmured. When she looked up, Gunner was sitting in the middle of her weed-riddled yard, arms draped over his knees like he’d been sitting there all along. Hell, perhaps he had been. She hadn’t been paying attention.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why am I sorry?” He sounded gutted, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, she could see actual emotion in Gunner’s bi-colored eyes. He dropped his gaze to the grass in front of him. “I don’t mean to do these things.”

She didn’t know how to respond, so she didn’t. Just because he didn’t mean to do them, just because his animal was broken, it didn’t make it okay.

“You love him.”

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

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