Page 68 of Fated to the Warrior Wolf

“The baby is okay. The wound didn’t nick anything in the reproductive tract. Her wolf should be able to heal it quicklyenough to not cause a problem, so long as we…” she mumbled, eyes flickering open for a second before she crumpled to the ground.

“Shit!” I tried to catch her, but only succeeded in stopping her head from hitting the ground.

“Bri!” Leigh hissed with pain as she tried to sit up, turning toward her friend.

“You stay there! We’ve got her,” I ordered, alpha command lacing my tone. She bristled, eyes narrowing unhappily, but stayed on the couch as she watched me and Olivia settle Bri on the plush rug.

Kane moved so fast, he nearly blurred as he ran to her side, shifting to human form in the next blink. I looked away as he stripped off her shirt and lay down beside her to press their skin together.

Then a thought hit me. “Where’s Shay?” I asked, looking around the bunker. There were other female castle employees down here, but no sign of Dirge, Shay, or Cristian, I realized as I took a quick head count.

“Dirge got attacked three on one. She went up to help him after we twisted Cristian’s arm to let her out. Last we saw on the screen, they were in the Alpha’s rooms still. Although… those are empty now.” She craned her neck to look around me at the big screen, which showed nothing but security footage of an empty room, bodies cooling on the floor.

Shit.

“Alpha, one of us needs to go find the rest of the pack and resecure this bunker.”

Kane looked up at me, his limp mate in his arms, and I knew. He wasn’t leaving her side. I cast a tormented look at Leigh, whose color had already come back and was muscling her way to a sitting position while Olivia was too distracted to stop her.

I dropped to my knees next to her, taking her hand in mine. “Someone needs to go check on your friend and make sure all the stragglers have been cleared out of the castle. I don’t want to leave you, but?—”

Leigh placed a fingertip over my lips, and I resisted the urge to suck it into my mouth, let it feel the bite of my teeth. She must have seen the heat in my gaze, though, because she pulled it back quickly, a blush creeping into her cheeks.

“I understand. I’m okay, really. My wolf is working fast on healing me. Look, it’s not even bleeding anymore.” She lifted the hem of her shirt, and sure enough, the injury had been reduced to thin pink lines of healing flesh, the wound no longer open.

“Promise me you’ll rest. Promise me you won’t try to fight anyone else. Sergei and Kane are here. They won’t leave you unprotected.”

“One, you’re sweet, but I was never unprotected.” She tapped her chest, and her eyes glowed with her wolf.

She wasn’t a trained fighter, no, but she was right that her wolf was certainly not defenseless. She was the most dominant female I’d met besides my sister, Galyna, and she was away training to become an elite warrior.

“Two, I’m fine. You heard Bri.” She cast an anxious glance at her prone friend. “The baby is fine too. We’re okay. And if it will make you feel better, I can hole up on one of the bunks until you come back and get me, deal?”

She proffered her pinky finger, mouth twisted into an expectant grin. It warmed my heart that she wasn’t fighting me. She knew that I cared, and she was workingwithme. To protect herself and our child.

“Deal,” I murmured, locking my pinky with hers.

“Perfect. Besides, that’ll give me time to ponder your new nickname. After seeing how you took that sucker out, I’m thinking WW—short for warrior wolf. Ooh! Maybe WBD, you know, warrior baby?—”

I cut her off with a kiss, sealing my lips to hers with heat and promise of more later. She leaned into the touch, letting her fingers twine into my hair as she held me close.

When we finally separated, she looked a bit dazed, and my wolf preened at the effect we had on our mate.

“I’ll be back soon,” I promised. “And when I’m done with this mess, I’m going to carry you straight to my bed.”

With one last soft kiss to her forehead, I forced myself to turn my back on her and the glorious scent of her arousal.

THIRTY-FOUR

Leigh

Within ten minutes, I felt fine. Even the little pink lines of neat scar tissue had disappeared, melting away into nothing but smooth, tanned skin. But I didn’t leave my post on the couch because Bri was still down, pale against Kane’s olive-toned chest. Olivia had confirmed that her pulse was steady and she was stable, just… out. She’d drained herself.

It was as terrifying as it was guilt inducing that she was helping me and hurting herself in the process. On the one hand, I wanted to tell her to stop using her power, but on the other… I wanted my baby to be okay. It just sucked that a curse was stopping her from tapping her Goddess-given gifts. And I was stuck in the middle, halfway to relief at having her help, halfway to purgatory with watching my friend suffer the consequences of helping me have a safe pregnancy.

But as I watched the rise and fall of her chest with the intensity of a grade-A creeper, I vowed not to let her use it anymore on anything that wasn’t life or death. I could handle the nausea, I could handle anything normal for a pregnancy.

Getting her to agree to that would be a little more difficult, but after this, I was pretty sure I’d have Kane’s backing.

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