Page 105 of Primal Bonds

“That must hurt like a bitch,” Adric heard her say.

“They’ve got my sister,” Kyler returned.

Marjani expelled a breath. “We’ll get her back. I promise.”

Horace was unconscious, his face ashen, his body covered with multiple bite wounds and scratches. But what made Adric’s stomach lurch was the wadded-up pillowcase Zuri had pressed to Horace’s inside thigh over the femoral artery.

Zuri met Adric’s eyes and shook his head.

“It’s bad?”

“He’s bleeding out.”

Adric briefly closed his eyes. Not Horace, the guy who always had a smile, even in the worst of the Darktime. He hesitated, torn. The longer he waited to go after Jace and Evie, the harder it would be to track them, but he couldn’t just leave Horace to die.

“They sliced him with a fucking iron knife,” Zuri said grimly. “I can scent it.”

A muscle jumped in Adric’s jaw. “Salt water,” he barked. “And hurry. I’ll take over here.”

He pressed the heel of his hand to the pillowcase over the wound, bearing down hard. When Zuri returned, he stopped the pressure so Zuri could thoroughly rinse the wound. The artery was spurting blood, but if they didn’t neutralize the iron, Horace was going to die anyway.

When Zuri was done, Adric sent a pulse of energy into the wound to try and stop the bleeding, but the wound was too deep for him to heal. Suha was Horace’s only hope. Thank the gods she lived close by.

Zuri was waiting with a clean pillowcase. He pressed it to Horace’s thigh above the artery.

A minute ticked past, then another. Adric washed the blood off his hands and checked on Sam. When the burly redhead heard how bad Horace was injured, he tried to get out of bed.

“Stay.” Adric pressed him back to the mattress. “There’s nothing you can do, and we need you to focus on your own healing.”

Sam muttered but subsided.

Adric left him to return to Horace’s room. The cougar was still unconscious. His scent had taken on a distinctive iron scent, more like a human’s than a fada. Adric sent another pulse of healing into him, but the iron resisted his attempts to close the wound.

Zuri ground his teeth. “Where in Hades is Suha?”

“It’s only been five minutes,” Adric said. But he was beginning to wonder, too. He scraped a hand over his hair. “I’ve got to go. You and Marjani hold down the fort.”

“No fucking way. That’s just what they want. I’ll go.”

“Then I’ll have to outthink them.” Because Adric was the best tracker in the clan and they both knew it.

But as he turned to leave, he heard Suha’s low voice accompanied by Beau’s deep rumble. A moment later the healer’s light steps came rapidly down the hall, followed by Beau’s heavier tread.

“What happened?” she asked as she removed her quartz from her neck.

“Iron poisoning,” Adric replied. “The bastards made sure to hit an artery, too.” The iron would spread through Horace’s blood even faster. Even now, it might be reaching his heart and brain.

“You cleaned it out?”

“Yes, but it had at least fifteen minutes to spread through his bloodstream before we got here—maybe more.”

Suha muttered something dark and held her quartz over Horace’s thigh.

“I have to go,” Adric said. “They have Evie and Jace.”

“Okay,” she said without taking her eyes from her patient. “I’ve got this.”

Adric squeezed her shoulder. “I’m counting on you.”

---