Page 18 of Entering a New World

“Yeah… and what good did it do?”

Gray placed both hands on my shoulders, shaking me. “You’re not a freaking god, okay? You’re not responsible for the fucking weather taking a turn for the worst, so get that through your thick head! Stop beating yourself up for what went wrong and focus on what’s important; you got your mate out. You brought him here, Jasper’s taking care of him, and I need you to focus because when Jasper is done with his examination, he’ll need you to take over. And you can’t do that if you don’t get it together. Now, put on some clothes and listen to what our good doctor here tells you.”

Nodding, I walked over to the closet and blindly reached for a shirt and sweatpants.

Get it together, I told myself, brushing a hand through my wet hair. You need to get it together. For your mate.

Easier said than done.

Chapter 6

Levi

Everything was toasty warm and incredibly soft. I couldn’t remember the damn sleeping bag being so comfortable, not to mention the wooden cabin floors; they definitely weren’t as soft as whatever was beneath me.

Had I died and gone to heaven? It certainly felt like I might be lying on a cloud… or was surrounded by one. The softness and warmth felt heavenly.

But why didn’t I feel good?

I groaned as more and more bodily awareness set in and brought the pain I hadn’t noticed in those first blissful moments. Fuck. Not heaven. Definitely not heaven. I felt like I’d been hit by a bus going full speed—and run over by multiple cars afterwards. Every single fibre of my body hurt so much I couldn’t decide which part hurt the most.

Maybe my throat. Fuck, it felt like I’d swallowed acid or sandpaper.

Or my head. My head was pounding like a construction worker was trying to cave in my skull with a sledgehammer—from the inside.

Or maybe my ankle. Wait… why was my ankle hurting?

I tried thinking back to what I’d done before going to bed. The memories were fuzzy, coming back sluggishly. The weather had been horrible. Rain pouring, wind howling, and it’d been freezing cold.

I remembered hiking to the small waterfall, filling up my water bottles. Then, on the hike back, I remembered getting lightheaded, stumbling a little, but in the end I’d… yeah, I’d definitely made it back to the cabins, where I’d tried—again—to get a fire going. Unsuccessfully.

At some point, the storm had picked up; the temperatures had dropped even more, there’d been thunder, lightning, and… Holy shit! A tree had crushed one of the other cabins!

And I… my heart sped up, reliving those moments, seeing the huge tree, the shattered cabin. My breathing sped up—and fuck, breathing hurt, too. I’d been certain I’d die. I’d even told Wolfie.

Wolfie!

A roaring sound filled my ears as a completely different memory started replaying in my head. Me, sitting on the ground, leaning against some kind of vehicle. Wolfie looking down at me, his eyes filled with concern, a low yowl leaving his throat, and then… there’d been a man. A naked man, crouching down right where Wolfie had been. A naked man that had the same warm eyes as Wolfie did..

A man that…

I opened my eyes at the same moment I started to scream. The last thing I remembered was him holding a fucking rope in his hands.

Rope!

Blinking against a blindingly bright light, I desperately tried to get a glimpse at my wrists and ankles.

No ropes.

Phew.

Also… I turned my head, trying to make sense of my surroundings. I was in a bedroom—or was it a hotel room? I wasn’t sure. It didn’t look like someone’s personal bedroom; it was way too generic for that, devoid of any personal items.

A queen-sized bed, matching bedside tables on both sides, topped with lamps. A small desk on the opposite side of the room. To my left, there was a window—and it didn’t have bars outside of it. Phew. I let out a relieved breath, then tried sitting up to catch a glimpse outside.

The next second, the door to the room was ripped open, and a man ran in, turning his head as if trying to make out some kind of threat.

But there was no threat; at least not apart from him. Because the man standing in my room? It was the guy from last night. My wolf.

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