Page 40 of Owning His Mate

He stares at me for a moment, his thick brows coming together. “What?”

I slip off the table, but my legs buckle as they hit the tile. “Whoa,” I murmur, gripping the edge of the gurney as Kye holds me up. “I don’t know what she gave me, but everything is spinning.”

Concern pulses through the bond. “Can you walk out of here?” I can see the cogs turning in his mind, trying to figure out if he has the strength to carry me, but he’s barely standing himself.

“Oh, I’m walking. I’m not staying here,” I mutter.

One way or another, we are leaving this fucking place. I try to focus, but everything still feels hazy. I don’t think that bitchmanaged to get a lot of the drug she was giving me into my system before Kye interrupted her, but it’s enough to make my legs uncooperative and my tongue thick in my mouth. I fumble for the wheelchair, motioning for Kye to sit in it.

He stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “I’m not sitting in that thing.”

I lean toward him, glaring. “Now is not the time to go all macho on me,” I hiss. “We have to get out of here, and out of the two of us, you’re worse off, so sit in the damn chair.”

“You can barely stand. How are you going to push me out of here, Apryle?”

It’s a fair point, but time is ticking as we stand here bickering about it. “I’m not the one who was shot multiple times.”

His hand moves to the gauze covering his chest. “They patched me up.” Yeah, they did, which makes me wonder how long we were out for. “Get in the chair, Apryle.”

Stubborn wolf. I try to ignore the dizziness and not make it obvious how much I’m leaning on the edge of the gurney. “You first.”

“They’re going to come,” Savannah interrupts our argument.

A renewed sense of purpose fills me. I promised her I was getting her out of here, and I plan on keeping that promise. I hold out my hand toward Savannah, and she slips her palm into mine. I can feel her trembling, so I squeeze her, letting her know we’re with her.

“Both of us are in bad shape,” I say to Kye, “and I know it goes against every instinct you have to let me take care of you when you feel like you should be taking care of me, but we don’t have time to have this argument. We need it to get out of here before anyone discovers we’re free. Please,pleasejust get in the wheelchair.”

He glares at me, and I can feel his dissatisfaction through the mating bond, but he moves over to the chair and slowly lowershimself into it. The way he winces tells me this decision was the right one, even though my movements are sluggish, and my eyes are so heavy it’s a task to keep them open.

Grabbing the sheet off the gurney, I wrap it around Kye’s naked form, ignoring the blood splattered all over his body. Taking a life isn’t a good feeling, but it was them or us, and I’m not going to cry about the fact that we’re still here and they’re not.

“Savannah, stay close, okay?”

She presses against my side as I wheel Kye toward the door, all my weight on the handles. My legs are half asleep and I’m stumbling more than walking, but I’m all we have right now, and that forces me to fight against the drug in my system.

“Wait,” Kye says. “He hit me with something, so he had a weapon. Get it. We may need it.”

Good point. I stumble over to the bodies. Using the tips of my fingers, I grab the end of the cattle prod thing the guy dropped and pull it out of the pool of crimson spreading around his body.

Savannah lets out a shudder. “Ew.”

I hand it to Kye and he takes it, gripping it between his fingers, not giving even a single shit about the blood on it.

“Stay alert,” he says to both of us.

As we step out into the corridor, I hold my breath, but it’s empty. Relief doesn’t come, but I do breathe just a little easier.

This place is a maze, and I try to follow the room numbers as I did before, hoping they count down toward the exit. My legs feel jellied, and my vision rolls as my body tries to fight off the drugs that bitch gave me. Luckily, wolves have fast metabolisms, but the small amount she injected before Kye stopped her is enough to slow me down. This is worse than being drunk.

“Savannah?” I glance over my shoulder, sensing the little girl is no longer at my back.

She’s barely on her feet, dragging her little body behind me. She’s too thin, too vulnerable; we’re never going to make it like this, and I’m terrified I’m going to pass out before we find the exit. I stop pushing, and Kye turns to look at me, a question on his face.

“This isn’t going to work. She’s barely standing.”

“You’re not doing any better,” he says. “Swap with me.”

He’s crazy if he thinks that’s a solution. Stubborn ass.

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