Savage Moon: Wolf Shifter Romance (Wild Lake Wolves Book 4) (9 page)

Chapter
Twelve

I did as Alec asked me to. I ran. This time was
different. I felt like I was running toward something instead of away from it.
For the first time in six months, I felt hopeful. And I know hope is a
dangerous thing.

My heart hammered in my chest and I had to stop;
grabbing a tall birch, I doubled over to catch my breath. I couldn’t get
careless now. Alec had the pack on the run, but I couldn’t assume Kane wasn’t
out there listening for me.

A few days. I could manage a few more days. Then I
would leave with Alec. He was right. It sickened me to think of Jaxson as
Kane’s pawn. But he already was. I could do more good for him away from Kane
than with him now. And I wasn’t alone in this anymore.

I hoped there was still time to get through to my
father. The gash across Alec’s chest worried me. Deeply. But one crisis at a
time. Now was about getting away from Kane and convincing the other wolf packs
to do something about him. I prayed Alec was right.

I was one hundred yards from the ranger station when
I heard voices, low and threatening. I dropped to my knees.

“It’s now or never.” Wade’s voice.

“Why? I mean, are you sure?” Brandon’s voice.

I blew hard through my mouth to try and slow my
pulse. I needed to hear every word they said, and I couldn’t do anything to let
them know I was listening. The two of them walked behind Brandon’s cabin. But,
they were alone. I couldn’t sense Kane or anyone else. They had to have broken
off and gone after Alec.

“Yes. Don’t question me. Kane’s on his way back. He
needs us to take care of this once and for all. He can’t have Alec’s blood on
his hands. We have to take the risk for him.”

My heart stopped.

“Kane’s chased him off. He’s holed up in the weeds
near the sand bar. He’s not moving. We go now. While his scent is still thrown
from the hunt. Quick and deadly. No more discussion. I’ve been craving the
chance to rip his throat out since he rode up here with Bas earlier this year
poking their noses into our business. Without his pack around him, we’re never
gonna have a chance like this again. One by one, if we have to. Just like Kane
said. You wanna live under Wild Lake law forever? Or do you finally want to be
free of it like we’re supposed to be and take what should have been ours all
along?”

Oh, God. They were going after Alec. Now.

I looked up. There was still time before sunrise.
Not much. But I could head them off and warn him. Alec wasn’t anywhere near the
sand bar, but if they made it that far, they’d be able to pick up his scent.
Two against one with the element of surprise, and Alec could be in real
trouble.

“Shit. Shit!”

I took off back toward the water, cutting a zig zag
path. I had no hope of outrunning Brandon or Wade, but they were luckily headed
in the wrong direction. If Alec stayed where he told me, at least. God. Please
let him stay where he told me.

I made good progress, staying to the thickest part
of the woods and following the trail from a small stream. I came out near a rotted
tree that served as home to a muskrat and three mallard ducks. The ducks
quacked in protest and moved off toward the middle of the lake.

Alec’s white wolf stood in profile at the edge of
the water not far from the overturned kayak. My heart thundering in my chest, I
let out a sigh of relief. I’d done it. I’d gotten to him in time.

“Alec!” I whisper-shouted. He turned and his eyes
flashed. He shifted instantly, his sleek muscles rippling as the moonlight
bathed him in a silvery glow. The shock of white through his hair looked almost
luminescent as he bounded over a rotted log and got to me. He kissed me hard,
making my blood sing. I wanted nothing more than to sink into his touch and
make the world go away. But, the world was headed straight for us with snarling
fangs and flashing gold eyes.

“Brandon and Wade,” I gasped, trying to catch my
breath. “I heard them. They’re coming. You have to leave. Now. They’re going to
kill you. It sounds like Kane’s given them the implicit okay. At least that’s
what Wade’s telling Brandon.”

Alec’s eyes went wide and he looked over my
shoulder. “New plan. We both have to leave. Now. You’ll never make it back to
the compound before Kane. We’ll head to the Bonners. From there I’ll figure out
what to do.”

I nodded. Alec kissed my forehead and flipped the
kayak. “If I get us out fast enough, they won’t be able to follow the trail. We
should have enough of a head start. Get in.”

But we weren’t fast enough. From the corner of my
eye, I saw movement in the trees. I turned toward it. Alec had already shifted.
He darted in front of me, his tail up and his back arched. Growling, he stood
his ground as Brandon and Wade’s wolves advanced on them.

Oh, God. They looked so big. Saliva dripped from
Wade’s fangs and his snout curled back. Brandon flanked him, trying to move
around Alec. Make him choose. Decide who was the bigger threat. I knew it from
experience; Alec knew it on instinct. Wade would want the kill.

Alec turned his head quick and snapped his jaw at
me. He was beyond words, of course, but I understood him anyway. He wanted me
to get in the kayak and put distance between them. But, my feet seemed rooted
to the ground. They would kill him. Without control of them like an Alpha had,
Alec was outnumbered. And they would soon call to the rest of the pack.

Brandon struck first, but his lunge was clumsy. Alec
caught him by the neck and flipped him hard. Brandon cried out and Wade made
his move. He pounced on Alec’s back, driving him to the ground. His fangs cut
deep into Alec’s side, but somehow Alec managed to heave Wade off, using his
powerful hind legs. Blood poured out of the gash on Alec’s side, but it didn’t
seem to slow him down. He took two quick steps forward and clamped his jaw over
Wade’s ear. He shook his head hard, tearing through Wade’s flesh and driving
him to the ground. Brandon rallied and leaped on Alec’s back, driving his teeth
into the back of Alec’s neck.

I grabbed the kayak paddle. If I could distract one
of the wolves long enough, maybe Alec could get the upper hand again. I took two
steps forward and a sharp bark from Alec made me freeze in my tracks. I stayed
put. But I hated it. If I could do something, anything to help even the odds.
Alec was strong and big as any Alpha I’d ever seen. But, he was one wolf
against two, and they had come here with murder in their hearts.

Wade was on the ground, bleeding badly. The side of
his head was a mangled mess. Alec kicked backward, launching Brandon against a
large tree. The crack of bones cut through the air as he landed hard. They
weren’t dead. Brandon and Wade would rally. But Alec turned and ran toward me,
shifting from wolf to man mid-leap.

Sweat poured from him, his right side bled, but he
looked whole. “Get in the kayak,” he said. “I can’t hold them both off much
longer. They’re in a bloodlust. They’ll kill you if they get through me, and I
can’t take that chance. Let’s go.”

I tossed the paddle to him and stepped in the back
of the kayak. Alec shoved the boat so hard it felt like we’d made it halfway
across the lake before he even started to paddle. He jumped in behind me, and I
shifted my weight to help steady the boat. Then Alec carved the paddle through
the water, picking up even more speed.

“Are you all right?” I shouted.

“Been worse.” Alec’s voice was ragged and breathy.

“I’m so sorry. I should have done what you asked. We
should have left days ago.”

“Don’t worry now. Main thing is to just get you
safe.”

The effort of talking seemed to take something out
of Alec. I reached back and put a hand to his cheek. His skin was hot, but his
pulse was steady. My own flared to match his. But, I felt Kane back there too. As
soon as he got to the water line and joined Brandon and Wade, he’d know exactly
what happened.

God. He’d know what happened. I said a silent prayer
for Jaxson. Alec had to be right. Kane couldn’t risk taking anything out on my
brother if he didn’t have me as a bargaining chip anymore. I should have left
sooner. I should have listened to Alec from the beginning. But there was no
help for it now.

My heart pounded inside my chest. Wild Lake wasn’t
huge. We should be able to make it across in less than an hour. But, what if
Kane figured out where we were headed? There weren’t that many options. Thank
God he didn’t have easy access to a boat to catch up with us. But, wherever we
were headed, he could meet us when we docked. They could fan out. Drive around
the lake for hours until they caught our scent. And I was beyond able to
control my emotions to shield myself from Kane. We couldn’t stay in the middle
of the lake forever. This seemed desperately hopeless.

“We’ve got to get to the Bonners,” Alec said as if
he could read my mind. “You see that silver silo in the distance? Red barn.
That’s where we’re headed.”

“I see it.” My heart leaped in my chest. It didn’t
seem so far away. Alec’s oar sliced through the water, and he propelled us
forward as if we had a motor.

“Good. If we’re lucky, Kane won’t figure out we’re
headed there before we get there. There’s a good chance he thinks I’m headed
back toward Bas and the rest of my pack. He still doesn’t know about you and me
as far as I can tell. He’s gotta think I’m trying to get reinforcements.”
Alec’s voice sounded sleepy almost.

Alec picked up the pace of his strokes. The kayak
tore through the water. Ten yards. Twenty. One hundred. With each stroke, I
felt my heart lift. We were going to do it. We were more than halfway there.
The trees whizzed by. Kane’s presence faded with each inch we put between us.

Freedom. Hope. A chance to right everything that had
gone wrong.

“How much farther. I can’t judge.”

“Not. Far.” Alec’s breath blew hot against my neck.
Kane’s mark throbbed. I wanted to reach back and claw through it if that’s what
it took to get rid of him. I knew it wasn’t that simple.

“Then what?”

Alec didn’t answer, but the shoreline loomed. An “L”-shaped
dock came into view and the silver silo loomed behind it. Sanctuary. We were
almost there.

“Pat and Harold will take care of you,” Alec said. I
felt his whole body clench.

“Me? Where the hell are you planning on going?”

Before he could answer me, I saw someone running
down the hill toward the dock. The first faint rays of morning sunlight stabbed
through the clouds. A woman. Plump. Short. But filled with what looked like
rage and purpose as she waved her arms. She yelled something, but we weren’t close
enough to hear.

“Pat,” Alec called out, but something was wrong. He
slumped forward and the oar slid into the water. I grabbed it before it floated
away and tried to turn. Alec leaned against me with his full weight, nearly
overbalancing the kayak.

“Alec!”

I turned just enough to see the ghostly pallor of
his skin. And the red blood running down the side of the kayak.

“Get him in!” Pat screamed. She’d made it to the end
of the dock.

I paddled for my life. For Alec’s life. I nearly
smashed into the side of the dock. Pat wore a yellow, fuzzy robe. I might have
laughed. She looked comical almost. Her wiry gray hair flew around her face and
her skin flushed with two red circles on her cheeks. But, she leaned down and
caught the tip of the kayak with an agile strength that belied her appearance
right before we crashed into the wood planks.

“Aw, hell, Alec.” Pat yelled.

I leaped from the kayak, landing in waist-deep water,
and grabbed the other end of it. Alec fell forward and his lifeless body slid
into the water.

“Oh, God!” The bottom of the kayak contained a river
of blood. Alec’s right side was opened up with an ugly gash torn through the
muscle. It hadn’t looked that bad on the other side of the lake. Adrenaline and
fear for my safety must have driven him. My heart sank as I realized a lesser
man would have died from this. And this man looked like he still might.

Pat straightened to her full height. Four ten if she
was lucky. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Well, I suppose
he’ll be easier to drag through the water anyway. I’ll grab one end of him, you
grab the other.”

Then she jumped in the shallow water, yellow robe
and all, and hooked her hands under Alec’s right arm.

Chapter
Thirteen

I don’t know how we got Alec out of the water and
across the yard. Pat was small but mighty as she helped me heave him forward.
Alec helped as much as he could, but blood poured down his side, soaking
through my own jeans. I tried to keep my heart steady and the panic at bay. If
it weren’t for Pat, I don’t think I would have managed. But, she was calm,
methodical, and strong as shit.

“Don’t you worry, honey,” she said as we dumped him onto
the flatbed she had hitched to a four-wheeler at the bottom of the hill. He
growled in protest, then passed out. All color drained from his face and his
breaths came out stiff and ragged. “Hop on. We need to get him inside.”

I climbed on the flatbed and tried to pull Alec’s
legs up so they wouldn’t dangle over the side. But, the effort of that seemed
to hurt him. Pat revved the engine and warned me to hang on as she hit the gas.
We rocketed up the hill. She went fast and hard, and I don’t know how I managed
to keep Alec from falling off the back. But, I did. She drove us up past the
barn. Three large, black horses stomped and whinnied, announcing our arrival.

The Bonner house was a huge, Victorian-style yellow
farmhouse with a wrap-around porch and more windows than I could count.

“Harold!” she yelled. Then, she stood up; keeping
one hand on the throttle, she put two fingers in her mouth and gave a shrill,
sharp whistle that made my hair stand on end.

Harold burst through the front storm door, shouting
obscenities more shrill than Pat’s whistle. But, he didn’t look in our
direction, and I realized why immediately. Harold couldn’t look in any
direction. He fingered the porch railing and took a tentative step down toward
the sound of Pat’s engine. She cut it just as he reached us. His pale,
sightless eyes stared at a spot just to the left of us.

“Who’s hurt, Patsy? I smell blood,” Harold said. I
smoothed back Alec’s hair. His skin felt cold to the touch, and that alarmed me
more than anything.

“He’s lost so much blood,” I pleaded. “He needs a
doctor.”

Harold turned his head in my direction. He had
tanned, leathery skin, but something kind about his face. And that seemed
incongruous, as he had an old scar cutting across one temple to the top of the
opposite cheek. Three jagged gashes, straight across his sightless eyes. My
heart went cold for an instant. Had a bear done that? They were so like the
wounds on Alec’s chest. But, as soon as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t true.
They were claw marks all right, but smaller than a bear’s. They belonged to a
wolf. I swallowed hard.

Pat came around to the back of the flatbed and put a
hand on Alec’s chest. She pursed her lips and nodded. “He’s gonna be all right,
honey. He just needs a warm bed and the chance to heal. You been around men
like him a lot?”

I opened my mouth to answer then clamped it shut. I
didn’t know exactly what to say. I let out a sigh and nodded. “Enough. Yes.”

“Harold. Lend us a hand. I think with the three of
us we can get him into the front room. You in there enough to help out, Alec?”
She leaned down and yelled straight into his left ear. Alec let out a wincing
cough that seemed to tear through him. But, he nodded. My heart lifted. He
hadn’t left me. Not yet.

So, Pat draped Alec’s left arm around her shoulder.
I grabbed him from the right. Harold grabbed his feet.

“On three,” I said, gritting my teeth. This was
going to hurt. The gash on Alec’s right side still oozed, but even I could see
the blood flow had lessened.

I counted. We heaved. Alec let out a guttural growl
that tore through me. He wasn’t Kane. We weren’t connected in the same way. Not
yet, but Alec was mine. His pain was my pain.

“Stay with us,” Pat said, and I knew she wasn’t
talking to Alec. She locked her wide, green eyes with mine and gave me a quick
nod. I nodded back, and we moved Alec off the flatbed and up the porch steps.

Harold couldn’t see, but he knew exactly where he
was going, even backward. When we got to the top of the steps, he kicked the
screen door open with his foot. We entered a long hallway with rich, dark, wood
floors and arched ceilings. Harold gestured with his chin toward a doorway on
the left. We brought Alec into a small bedroom with white curtains fluttering
against the window frames.

We laid Alec down on the bed as carefully as we
could, but we still ended up plopping him hard enough that he bounced a little.

“Fuck,” he shouted, and it lifted my heart. If he
was with it enough to swear, he was getting better.

“Sit with him, honey,” Pat said. “I’ll get some
clean towels, bandages, and iodine. He’s going to be fine.”

I smoothed Alec’s hair away from his forehead,
trailing my fingers through the white patch. Leaning down, I whispered against
his temple. “You hear that? You’re going to be fine. At least, you better be,
or I’m going to kill you myself.”

The bed shook as Alec tried to laugh. He brought a
hand up and cupped my face. “Sorry,” he said, coughing from the effort. “Didn’t
realize they’d winged me that bad.”

Pat had a cane chair against the wall. I pulled it
next to Alec’s side and sat down. I leaned down to kiss him, aiming for his forehead.
But, he pulled me closer and brought my lips down to his. Heat flooded through
me. I threaded my fingers through his hair and felt his skin warm. Even in his
weakened state, Alec’s eyes flashed with lust and wild heat. It sent an echoing
warmth through me, making me shudder.

“We did it,” he whispered. “You’re going to be safe
now, Olivia. I promise.”

Tears sprang into my eyes. “Shh. I don’t care about
that right now. I swear to God I don’t. I just want you better. You scared the
shit out of me, Alec. Don’t ever do that again.”

He smiled wide, and a devilish twinkle came into his
eyes. “What, this? Nothing but a little scratch, baby.”

I wanted to slap the smirk off of his face. “Joke
all you want, but there’s more blood in that kayak than there is left in you.
Why didn’t you say something?”

Alec tried to sit up, but the effort of it made the
color drain from his face again. He settled back down against the pillow. “I’m
going to be fine. You were raised by bears. You’ve gotta know by now it takes a
hell of lot more than something like this to do real damage. Plus, it doesn’t
matter. The only thing that matters is getting you away from Kane. And we did.
You’re never going back there. Not while there’s breath left in my body.”

All mischief left his eyes. Alec took my hand and
brought it to his lips. His look grew tender, full of an emotion I was too
afraid to name. Not yet. I felt it too, coursing through my veins and making my
heart beat faster. His words drowned out every fear or doubt I’d had in the
last few days. As I sat beside Alec, under Pat’s roof, with Kane far away for
now, my head felt clearer than it had in months. And my heart beat strong with
the truth.

Alec. My Alec. He was mine and I was his. I didn’t
know what it meant or what battles we’d have to fight because of it. But right
now it didn’t matter. It only mattered that we were together and he would live.

He slid his hand over the nape of my neck, covering
Kane’s mark. It throbbed faintly, but didn’t pull me toward something I feared.
Now, the pull came from my heart and brought me right to Alec. I kissed him and
he kissed back. Alec’s heart beat stronger. My fingers trailed over his chest.
The wounds my father gave him had all but healed. The torn flesh at his side
seemed to knit right before my eyes. As he kissed me deep, he seemed to draw
strength from it.

Two halves of a whole. Stronger together than we
were apart.

I wanted so many things in that moment. Alec’s body.
His soul. His love. But, those were moments we could save for another day. For
now, the kiss was enough. And it took something out of Alec, too. By the time
we broke, he’d settled back on the bed. His chest heaved with his thunderous
snores.

I smiled and smoothed the hair back from his
forehead again. “You sure you aren’t part bear, my love?”

Movement startled me from the corner of my eye. I
sat up. Pat leaned against the doorframe and shot me a wry smile. “Well, I
guess that answers one of my questions. Probably best to let him sleep it off. Come
on. Let’s get you settled into a room of your own. Looks like you could use
some rest yourself. I’ll leave you alone to do that. After that, honey, you’ve
got a lot of things to explain.”

I tucked a dark hair behind my ear and nodded. I
turned back to Alec and kissed him one last time. Pat Bonner would give me sanctuary,
but from the look on her face and the set of her shoulders, I knew it wouldn’t
come for free.