Ezra
“Kat? —Shit, Shirley, take Angie!” I order, placing Angie on the ground. I grab Kat, her skin is so gray, it looks like life is draining out of her. She feels clammy and so cold as I hold her, and I see Mateo jump to his feet. Her wounds tear back open as I clutch her. Blood gushes from a gaping wound on her neck that I am positive wasn’t there before.
“I don’t feel too good.” I pick up the softest of mumbles. Her precious blood pours down my arms.
I hear a strong gasp behind us, like someone taking their first breath after nearly drowning, the noise is deafening in the quiet of the gym.
“Jasmine?” Shirley gasps.
I spin around to see Jasmine sit up, groaning.
She is alive? But, that can't be. Her death had happened. Her tether to the Pack had snapped.
She looks around, confused. Not a mark left on her. Her throat closed back up and she is very much alive, though Kat in my arms looks on the brink of death.
“I should be dead, I was dead,” Jasmine murmurs before staring at Kat.
“Kat!” she screams, getting to her feet. Mateo moves to help her up. Mateo's mate has stopped thrashing, she too is staring at Kat. She shifts out of her wolf.
I don't have time for this. I need to get Kat to a doctor before I lose her.
I take a single step towards the double doors and the rogue woman screams. She lunges for Kat. I step back, stumbling, still cradling her in my arms.
Mateo rushes over and grabs her, trying to calm the crazy bitch down. “Make her heal him, make the bitch fucking revive him,” she snarls, thrashing in Mateo’s arms before throwing her head back and breaking Mateo’s nose. She lunges at me, trying to grab Kat, when I see her head whip to the side before she collapses on the ground like a ragdoll at our feet.
I look up at Mateo. He stares at his hands, emotionless. He slowly drops his gaze to his mate, the woman whose neck he just snapped. His hands shake. I don't have time to comfort him when my mate is dying in my arms, I'll have to tend to his loss later.
I run, rushing toward the clinic in town. The trees zip past me in a blur of various shades of green as I clutch her to my chest. My entire body is drenched in her blood. Looking down, I see her neck is torn open, an injury matching that of what Jasmine had. My mind tries to conjure up a reasonable explanation, but I come up blank.
Through the link, Mateo's deadpan voice tells the doctors to be ready and listing the injuries Kat has. My mind is so consumed with fear I didn't even think to call ahead.
Yet, despite him just killing his mate, he still called ahead to help Kat.
The white brick building comes into view, I push myself harder and the doors are thrown open wide. A stretcher is rolled out and Jasmine’s father, Mathias, rushes out. I place Kat on the stretcher. Mathias screams orders for blood as they race her inside. I follow before being shoved aside by the nurses. They wheel her through some double doors but instead of letting me follow, one whirls and stops me in the middle of the hall.
“Alpha, wait here. What’s her name?” The nurse tries asking me, but I am frantic. Never in my life have I ever been so terrified. “Kat... Katya,” I stammer out. All I want to do is pick the nurse up and toss her to the side, run after my mate, hold her hand, and be there for her.
The knife in my heart twists at my thoughts. No, she will be okay. I pace in front of the nurse, searching for a way past.
“Alpha, you need to sit down while we work on your friend,” the nurse scolds, pushing on my chest.
Maddox presses beneath my skin, wanting to go to her. “She isn’t a friend; she is my mate,” I tell her, and she steps back before rushing back into the operating room, yelling to them it’s their Luna.
I clutch my hair and Maddox lurches forward, taking control, forcing the shift. We barrel through the doors, and he jumps on the stretcher. The nurses scream and jump back. Mathias grabs the stretcher to stop it rolling over before screaming at them for blood, not startled in the slightest by me. Maddox licks her neck and Doc works around us, hooking up blood bags to her, the frightened nurses kick into gear as they do what Doc orders.
“Flip her for him,” Mathias yells at a couple of nurses. They grip her shoulders, turning her over as Maddox continues trying to heal her wounds. She has already lost so much blood, he could heal her but not replace the blood loss.
Her wounds are slowly closing, but Maddox is becoming drained, and he forces himself off the stretcher, falling heavily as it exhausts him. We lift our heavy head and watch as the nurses flip her back. The wound on her neck is healed, but her skin is still deathly pale.
“You did good Alpha, you healed your mate, she just needs blood,” the doc says, hooking an IV up to her. I look at him, his eyes are trained on the task at hand. Her heart rate increases on the monitor and Maddox finally lets me have control, letting us shift back just as the surgery doors fly open. Jasmine runs in before I hear a nurse out in the hallway call out.
“We have another one,” she yells before people rush up the corridor, no doubt to help Angie.
“You can’t let her die Dad, she saved me,” Jasmine whispers to her father.
Mateo rushes in a few seconds later, stopping dead in his tracks as he looks down at Kat on the stretcher. He walks over to me, clasping his hand on my shoulder. I grasp his hand, giving it a squeeze and watch on helplessly. They give her blood and clean up the claw marks on her back we didn’t manage to heal.
Jasmine helps her father, passing him things as he works. The pair of them are perfectly in sync with each other. After a while, Kat gets color back in her. As Jasmine explains what happened, he asks more questions.
I end up walking out. I can’t handle seeing her lying limp on the table, though Doc reassures me multiple times she would be fine.
The entire clinic is overrun with injured Pack members. Nurses and Doctors race around everywhere trying to save those they can. This is the first time we have been attacked by rogues in six years, and I realize how totally unprepared we were for it.
We have grown complacent, and it nearly cost my mate her life.