True Alpha (29 page)

Jack leapt over the dead hunter in one long jump, his heart in his throat as he rushed through the open doorway, heedless of his injury as his paws skidded over the packed-dirt floor.

Oh, God. It was obvious why Mandy hadn’t exited the cabin, why she’d remained inside while her captor had stumbled over the threshold. She may have fought him, but she certainly hadn’t come away unscathed. She sat slumped against the back wall, wrapped in a familiar bathrobe, a semi-automatic rifle resting uselessly in her lap. The robe had once been blue, but was stained crimson with her blood. Damn, where had it come from – where was the wound?

“Mandy!” Jack shifted into his human form and rushed to her side, desperate to embrace her but not daring, since he didn’t know the nature or extent of her injuries yet. He settled for stroking her cheek with his good arm, then pressing a couple fingers below her jaw to feel for a pulse as he raked his gaze over her battered body.

She’d been shot in the shoulder – thank God. There was no reason she couldn’t survive a shoulder wound that hadn’t penetrated any major blood vessels, if he could just keep her from losing too much blood. He pulled aside the neck of her robe and pressed the heel of his palm against the entry wound, applying firm pressure as he visually examined the lower half of her body.

One of her knees had been badly damaged. It was a swollen, purple mass, smeared with blood. Probably broken. He made a mental note not to jostle it as he used his injured arm, slowly and painfully, to lift the skirt of her robe, steeling himself as he prayed that none of the blood that soaked the dirt floor had come from between her legs.

Her belly, thighs and hips were clean, nothing but creamy white flesh smeared with a little dirt. He released a shaky breath as he covered her again.

He found where the rest of the blood had come from when he reached for one of her hands. All of her fingertips were raw and stained red. There was no time to wonder how it might have happened; he had to get her out of the shack and off the damn mountain. But first, he had to remove the thick leather collar that circled her neck. A livid purple bruise peeked out from beneath the collar – had she tried to shift forms while wearing it? It was tight enough that it would choke her in her wolf form. The damn thing was secured with a little padlock.

Fearing that she’d slip into her wolf form while unconscious and be strangled to death, he forced himself to let go of her hand and hurried out of the shack. In his human form, he could walk normally – the bullet had pierced his forearm. Kneeling by the first dead hunter’s body, he searched the man’s pockets for any sign of a key as quickly as he could. It was frustratingly slow work to perform one-handed, and he found nothing in the first man’s half a dozen or so pockets. His throat grew tight and urgency mounted inside him as he scrambled to the next man’s body.

His fingertips encountered something small and hard in one of the man’s pockets – a key. Breathing a long sigh, he hurried back into the shack, trying not to focus on the lupine bodies strewn around the makeshift battleground. Had any of the others been killed – Daniel or Michael? Damn it, he didn’t know, and he was only one person – he could only focus on making sure his mate didn’t slip away for want of care. He could only assume that Clarissa and Violet were with Daniel, over by the trees. At least they hadn’t been hit.

The key fit the lock, and it popped open with a minute
click
. He tore the collar from her neck and tossed it aside, revealing the ring of purple bruises that circled her neck. Something inside him wavered and snapped at the sight. What had they done to her? He wouldn’t know until she woke, until she was in condition to speak. Night was still hours away; he had to keep her alive until then.

“Jack?”

Ronnie stood in the doorway, gripping his rifle, his dark eyes silently asking the obvious question – was she alive? His t-shirt was damp with sweat – he must’ve run all the way across the valley and up the hill in his human form.

“She’s been shot,” Jack said. “Her shoulder. Wound needs taken care of.”

Ronnie nodded. “I saw that several of the others were hit, but I came here in case there was trouble with the baby.”

“There’s not that I know of.” Another thing he had to be grateful for in the midst of this disaster.

“What about you – your face is covered in blood, and so is your arm.”

“Broken nose, and I got hit in the forearm. I’m fine.” His injuries were nothing compared to some of the others’. His stomach shrunk into a hard ball at the thought of Daniel lying still on the ground. Daniel – his packmate, his family – one of the only two flesh-and-blood relatives he had. “We have to get them all off this mountain.”

“I’ve gotta give basic treatment to everyone’s wounds first – I’ve got some first aid supplies in my pockets. Can you handle her here for a little while? I need to treat Daniel and Michael first.”

Jack nodded. “I’ll take care of her while you treat the most critical injuries.” She wasn’t bleeding as much now that he’d applied pressure to her wound. “Daniel and Michael – let me know as soon as you can if they’re alive.”

“I will.” Ronnie pulled his shirt over his head and began tearing it into ragged strips. He walked away, his makeshift bandages in hand.

Jack slipped an arm around Mandy’s shoulders and lifted her into his lap, cradling her as he kept his palm pressed tightly over her wound. Something slick and warm met his bicep – blood. There was an exit wound. At least that meant the bullet wasn’t lodged inside her. He let the exit wound rest against his bicep as he held her, counting down the seconds as Ronnie treated the others, binding up their wounds and hopefully sealing enough blood inside to keep them alive until night fell and the moon shone.

A breeze rushed by, carrying the scent of blood on the wind. Will’s deep voice boomed as he called out to Ronnie and helped to administer basic medical care. A distressed female voice had to belong to Kimberly – she must’ve heard the gunfire die down and climbed the hill. The battle was over; now all they had to do was keep the badly wounded alive and somehow get them off the mountain and back to the cabin without losing them.

Night couldn’t come fast enough.

****

A sense of
déjà vu assailed Mandy as she rested her head on Jack’s shoulder, sitting stiffly on the front porch steps, trying not to move for the sake of her bandages. Ronnie had already had to change them once after she’d moved too quickly and they’d become soaked with blood.

“You sure you don’t wanna lie down?” Jack asked, his unhurt arm wrapped snugly around her waist.

“I’m sure.” No way did she want to move – her knee was a throbbing mess of agony, bruised, bloodied and surely broken. Since she needed to be outdoors in order to soak up the moonlight, she’d asked Jack and Ronnie to lift her out of bed and carry her out onto the porch, where she could sit with her leg extended, determined not to move her knee until it had bathed in moonlight for long enough to heal.

Jack nodded and continued to hold her, saying nothing.

She leaned against him silently – what was there left to say? She’d told him all about her abduction and period of captivity when she’d regained consciousness, thrilled and relieved to wake up in her own bed. And he’d told her about the rescue – the desperate search, the sacrifices – everything. Now, they had little choice but to wait on pins and needles together.

She rested her head against his shoulder, cringing inwardly as she remembered the moment when she’d first laid eyes on his face. His nose was purple and swollen, and despite the fact that he’d scrubbed the blood away, the injury looked brutal. It had been crooked at first; Ronnie had set it for him so it wouldn’t heal that way. Mandy had nearly passed out when she’d heard the crunch of cartilage and Jack’s curse. He’d said that letting Ronnie straighten his nose had been worse than the original injury and his gunshot wound combined.

But everyone was still alive; Ronnie, Will, Jack, Violet and Clarissa had managed to carry the injured down the mountain and back to the cabin – an arduous journey that would’ve been impossible without Ronnie and Will’s combined muscle. The unhurt Half Moon members had had to take turns carrying the injured, a difficult task that had required them to trek through the wilderness in their human forms, their bodies exposed to the branches, thorns and other little threats that the forest boasted. Jack had carried Mandy despite his wounds. Everyone was covered in scratches and at least a little bruised.

“Hand me that roll of bandages, will you?” Clarissa’s voice drifted from inside the cabin. “Thanks.” She emerged onto the porch a moment later and nimbly leapt over the railing, dressed in an outfit of Mandy’s as she hurried to one of her patients.

Daniel and Michael had been placed on stacks of blankets in the grass around the side of the cabin. The evening air was cool, but they were both in such poor condition that no one wanted them to miss a single ray of moonlight. Ronnie and Clarissa took constant care of them, doing everything they could to keep them from bleeding out as they waited for the sun to set. Clarissa took orders from Ronnie and assisted him however she could while he handled anything complicated.

Both Daniel and Michael’s wounds could easily have been fatal, though by an immense stroke of luck, none of their major organs had been hit. Daniel had taken a bullet to the chest and Michael had been hit in the chest and the shoulder.

Ronnie hadn’t attempted to remove the bullets from either of their chests yet, fearing that if he did, he’d drain them of what blood they had left. He was waiting for the moon to emerge; its light would aid his surgeries by causing their bodies to heal, even as Ronnie worked. With luck, they’d both survive, just like Mandy had months ago when she and Jack had fallen prey to another shifter hunter.

She’d been shot in the chest too, but it had occurred outdoors at night, and the moon had immediately begun healing her. She hadn’t had to suffer through hours of being carried through the daytime wilderness, losing blood the entire way.

“Bring me a bowl of ice water and some washcloths,” Ronnie said, his voice a low rumble. “We can’t let his fever get any higher.”

Mandy glanced to where Ronnie was kneeling beside Daniel, frowning as he secured a fresh bandage around his abdomen. Like Michael, Daniel was still in his wolf form – since neither of them had regained consciousness, they couldn’t be persuaded to shift back, though their hairy coats made it more difficult for Ronnie to treat their wounds.

“I’ll be right back,” Clarissa said, hurrying into the cabin and glancing over her shoulder at Daniel as she went.

April reclined on the lawn too, though she was conscious. Ronnie had dug the bullet out of her hip and cleaned and bandaged her wound; now she waited for the moonlight, like everyone else.

Mandy’s heart ached for Clarissa, who’d been tirelessly helping to treat not just her own mate, but all of the wounded. Mandy could imagine the agony of seeing her mate in such a condition – Clarissa must feel as if her life were hanging by a thread, just like Daniel’s.

And then there was Mandy’s mother. Mandy’s chest tightened at the sight of her mother’s strawberry-blond head bowed in misery as she knelt in the grass beside Michael. What must she be feeling, watching the long-lost father of her child linger on death’s doorstep in the form of a huge wolf? Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d known nothing of the shifter world and had seen neither hide nor hair of him for thirty years.

Mandy’s stomach churned with guilt – maybe she should’ve told her mother what she really was. Plainly, she could handle it, though she was clearly in agony. Being bombarded with so much new, improbable information at once and during such tense times had to be taking almost as big of a toll on her as Michael’s injury – the one he’d incurred in an attempt to save Mandy.

Conflicting emotions clashed inside her as she eyed the big, brown wolf stretched out on a pile of blankets. Jack had told her what had happened, how Michael had disobeyed his orders and raced to the heart of the conflict, saving Jack from one hunter and then leaping in front of the barrel of a gun, purposely taking bullets that would have otherwise hit Clarissa and Violet. If not for him, Jack would be dead, and he’d saved two of Mandy’s other packmates, too. How could Mandy ever feel anything but grateful to the man who’d saved her mate? For that, she could forgive just about anything.

Clearly, she’d misjudged her father. Yes, the mess had been his fault in the first place, but he’d tried to fix it, and his actions had proven that he regretted endangering Mandy and the pack – enough so that he’d been willing to sacrifice his life in order to lessen the damage. What in the world would she say to him when he recovered? And if he didn’t … what could she possibly say to her mother? It was obvious that she loved him in spite of everything, and nothing would ever be able to heal the wound she’d be left with if she lost him a second time, especially after all this.