Page 1 of Saving Nevin
1
NEVIN
Please,let this madness end…
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see past the blood in my eyes. Panic shrieked through me like a whistle, keening higher and higher. I gasped in harsh lungfuls of air, my throat raw from screaming. My paws barely touched the earth as I ran blindly through the woods, my ears pinned and my tail tucked.
They were right behind me, breathing down my neck. I squealed and pinched my eyes shut when teeth snapped at my heels.Please, please, please! Leave me alone,I wanted to cry.Please, just let me go!
But I knew better than to think Rex Hagan would give up. That would never happen. His snarls were vicious things, promising pain. Promising death. I would eventually succumb to my fate.
I’d failed him. I’d failed them all, and they would get their pound of flesh. Born to a pack where an Omega’s only value was his ability to reproduce, I was useless. Unusable. Barren, the doctors had said. Unable to carry children in my mangled womb.
The moment I stumbled… The moment I grew too weak to keep running…
My sides heaved with each ragged breath. I swung my head from side to side, seeking an escape, but there was none. A sob choked me when I realized I was running straight towards a ledge. I would be trapped.
What did it matter? I was as good as dead anyways.
With a cry of remorse, I leapt off the edge. My claws flexed. My legs stretched. For one almost-peaceful moment, I careened through the air on invisible wings—and then those wings crumbled to dust and I hit the ground. Hard. I screamed as white-hot pain tore through me.
I tumbled head-over-heels, over and over, until I landed in a heap of agony and broken bones. Tears blurred my vision, but I could see the spike of jagged bone that punched out through my skin, my foreleg shattered. Blood soaked my white fur, but this was only the beginning of the end.
My assailants were on top of me in seconds. They ripped and tore at my flesh like this was one big bloodsport—and to them, it was. I thrashed beneath their deadly fangs, but I knew that no amount of begging or pleading would appease them. The delight glinting in their golden eyes was proof of that.
I collapsed there, hunkering beneath their abuse. The coppery taste of blood coated my tongue and dripped down into my eyes from my tattered ear. Nausea roiled in the pit of my stomach. I panted hard, but each breath hurt worse than the last.
Rain began to drizzle from the overcast sky, wet and cold. It chilled me to the bone. I slowly craned my neck around and begged them with my eyes. A whine escaped before petering into silence.Please. It isn’t my fault…
Rex snarled. The wolves backed away at their Alpha’s command. He towered over me and I did the only thing I could think to do: I whimpered and licked his chin in one last plea. His gaze was cold as ice. With a sharp huff of breath, he cracked his muzzle against mine hard enough that I saw stars.
I sank to the forest floor, shaking helplessly. With one last look in my direction, my Alpha and his followers turned tail and fled, and I knew why. Over the bitter tinge of blood, I could smell the sharp cedar of another Alpha. My heart sank.
They’d left me to suffer alone on another pack’s territory. I wasn’t even worth a quick death. They would let someone else clean up their mess, but oddly enough, I wasn’t afraid of that.
I wasn’t afraid of death.
It was dying alone that scared me the most.
Choking back a whimper, I began to half-crawl, half-drag my broken body towards where the scent was the strongest. Pain swamped me, my heart ringing out with an otherworldly ache. I wasn’t ready to die. I was only twenty-five, for Christ’s sake. Didn’t I deserve a better ending than this?
I heard a shout, and I collapsed on the ground once more. I was exhausted and so, so tired of fighting. Why did it have to hurt so badly?
A sweet woodsy scent filled my nose, then a man was kneeling on the hard earth beside me. I slowly lifted my head and found myself gazing up into the kindest hazel eyes I’d ever seen in my life. He could’ve been an angel.
This wasn’t fair.
His deep voice was a wordless murmur above me. With a soft cry of pain, I kicked myself close enough that I could drop my heavy head into the strange Alpha’s lap. Gentle fingers fondled my ears, and a wide palm stroked up the center of my forehead.
I was only marginally aware that this Alpha wasn’t by himself, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the fact that I wouldn’t have to die alone. I burrowed my muzzle into the man’s stomach. Between his kind touch and his low, soothing timbre, I closed my eyes and let the pain lead me into darkness.
2
KACE
The violent screamsand shrieks of a fight pumped adrenaline through my veins. It sounded downright vicious—and too close to Rubydawn for comfort. The closer we got, the thicker the stink of blood became. I knew it was bad, I just didn’t realizehowbad.
Despite the crimson soaking into his snow-white fur and the agony in his cries, the loner was the most beautiful wolf I’d ever seen in my life. Covered in blood and gore, he dragged himself closer with soft whimpers and gasped breaths. His blue eyes were glassy with pain and sorrow, but when I dropped to my knees beside him, he only sought comfort.
