Page 187 of Cursed Bonds: An Alpha's Destiny

Stuttering, he told me they were in a car wreck. Kirsten’s second in the last week. Before I could think, I was in my truck and speeding to the hospital.

“Kirsten!”

A woman appeared from a back room. I knew her—I knew everyone in my pack—but in the moment, I had no mind to acknowledge her.

“Jace? Hank said you’d be coming,” the nurse said. “Follow me.”

My hands were shaking as I followed her to the triage area. When she pulled a curtain aside, I nearly fell to my knees in relief. Kirsten was sitting up in the bed, drinking from a plastic cup.

Kirsten put the cup aside when she saw me. “Jace, calm down. I’m all right.”

I didn’t believe her. I rushed to her side, running my hands up and down her legs and arms, checking for bruises and cuts.

“Where are you hurt?”

“My head,” she said.

She pulled her hair back, revealing a rather deep cut just beneath her hairline. The jagged black lines of stitches were almost obscured by her dark hair, but they were still faintly visible. I counted ten of them.

“Holy shit,” I muttered, touching the area near the wound as gently as possible.

“It’s not that big a deal. Seriously,” she said, letting her hair fall back over the injury.

“The hell it’s not,” I said through gritted teeth. Turning, I bellowed, “Tank, get over here!”

The big man hustled over from a different curtained area. His forearm sported a bandage, but other than that, he looked fine.

“I’m here,” he said.

“What the fuck happened here?”

“It was the brakes on my truck, Jace. They went out.”

I leaned forward, desperate for information. “What do you mean they ‘went out’?”

Tank flushed and launched into his story. “We came out of the store and got going down Main Street to head back. As we got to the town square, I tried to slow down for the traffic light. The brakes felt spongy as all hell, and we weren’t stopping. There were people everywhere. I was gonna crash because I had no brakes.” He nodded to Kirsten. “She saved us. Put some kind of force field around me and Harley and then threw a sort of magic wall in front of the truck, saving everybody.”

I turned to Kirsten, eyebrow raised. “You put a force field around them, but forgot yourself?” I asked incredulously.

She shrugged helplessly. “It happened really fast. All I could think about was Tank, Harley, and the innocent people. I couldn’t let any of them get hurt. I wasn’t thinking about myself.”

“Obviously,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “So, the brakes were fine on the way to the store?”

“Yup,” Tank said. “It was only on the way home that they failed.” He lowered his voice. “I checked the brake lines while we waited for the ambulance. They’d been tampered with, brake fluid fully drained out. It was sabotage, Jace.”

“In the middle of fucking town?” I asked. “It was barely even dark out. Who the fuck has those kinds of balls?”

“No clue,” Tank said.

Suddenly, I realized only two of the three passengers were here, and another jolt of fear hit me. I turned back to Kirsten. “Where’s Harley? Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” Tank said. “She should be back any second. She twisted her ankle in the crash, so Reese wanted to get an X-ray to be sure it wasn’t broken.”

I sighed in relief and took Kirsten’s hand in mine. “You’re positive you’re okay?”

“I am,” she said, squeezing my hand. “I’ve got a hell of a headache, but I’ll be fine. As long as I don’t get into any more car wrecks, that is.”

“Who do you think did it?” I asked, looking at Tank.

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