Page 7 of What's Rogue Got To Do With It

My original plan for the day had been to work on repairing the back steps with some wood that I had split a couple weeks ago and was finally dry enough. But my fox didn’t give two shits about my plans. He wanted to go explore the woods. Oddly, he wasn’t pushing to hunt. He just wanted me out there.

I didn’t trust him enough to go out wandering in my fur, not when he was like this, but I compromised, and let him take the lead while I kept to my two feet.

As far as scrapping went, I didn’t have a ton of luck, but made a few trips back to the cabin with a small haul, once with a hubcap, another with some old roofing sheet. But no matter how much I found, my fox just kept getting antsier and antsier and pushed me to stay out. More than once, he tried to stop me from bringing my finds back home. This wasn’t at all like him, and I half feared that being without a den was the root cause.

I started towards the north and he pushed so hard I nearly lost the battle and ended up on all fours.

“Fine,” I grumbled to him. “Which way do you think we should be going?”

He liked that, pushing back enough to let me know I was in charge while leading me south, much to my chagrin. The area was one where I’d found a few bear traps. I’d snapped them closed and sold them as scrap, but just because they were gone didn’t mean I’d found them all. There were also some rabbit snares, which, well, human me wouldn’t be harmed by, but in my fur? Yeah, that wouldn’t end well and it was another case of me not knowing if they were all gone.

It was the lowliest, worst kind of hunting, if you ask me. My animal might be small, but he was fierce. And if we were going hunting, we were going hunting. No setting traps. No letting mechanical devices do the dirty work. We did it… unlike the human that laid these.

I tried to convince him to turn around, but my fox was determined. And about 45 minutes in, I scented why.

There was blood. A lot of it.

“Fuck.”

It didn’t take but a few minutes for me to find the source… a man passed out, his foot stuck in a bear trap.

Only the man wasn’t human. He was a wolf.

And as I got closer and tried to figure out a plan to get him loose without causing further injury, I scented the biggest problem of them all.

He was mine.

He was my mate.

This wolf, out here, struggling for life, bleeding out, was my mate. If I’d met him when I was still in my den, it would be the best day of my life. How could it not be? I dreamed of this... of finding the one for me. But that dream was shattered the day I was marked rogue.

I no longer could have a mate. It was law and not den law. It was shifter law. Rogues could not mate. Full stop. The penalty— death.

I pushed my fox back and tried to clear my mind as best I could. Focusing on what could never be wasn’t going to help my mate. I needed to make sure I got him out of here.

Over the past few months, I’d dealt with enough of the bear traps to be able to get it open and him out without making matters worse. But he was bleeding—bleeding so hard, his wolf wasn’t repairing him.

“Hey.” I put my hand on his cheek. “Hey, listen. I know you’re in there. I need you to really try and wake up. We need to get your wolf working on your leg.”

I took off my shirt and ripped it, covering his wounds the best that I could, tying it tight enough to slow the flow of blood, but not too tight that it would cause damage. Or at least that was my hope. My medical training was nonexistent and I was winging it.

“You’re safe with me. I promise.” I bent down and picked him up the best I could. He was limp, unable to help me by holding on, and the trek back was slow—so slow—only impeded by me stopping to make sure he was breathing.

I fought back tears. This was not the time for them.

I needed to be strong. I needed to get him to the cabin, to clean his wounds, to get him to wake up… or at least to get his wolf to wake up.

Most days, I didn’t mind not having any contact with anyone, being alone in the woods, not having a den to have my back.

But right now?

I’d do anything… anything, to have a healer I could call… one who could come and fix him up.

I might not be able to keep him, but he deserved to be on this earth. And knowing that he was here… that would be good enough.

It had to be. Because that was all that fate was giving me.

5

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