Microsoft Word - Jacks-Marcy-One-Night-Stand-with-a-Werewolf.doc (15 page)

That little son of a bitch!

Buddy screamed out the signal now that their surprise attack had been pissed down the drain, and he, his men, and every single available alpha charged each other, seemingly at the same time.

He was going to get as many of these fucking wolves as he could, even if it killed him.

* * * *

Markus shifted away from the hand that was slapping his face.  The next smack came harder, and his eyes flew open.

Hands on his shoulders made him fight back, but then the calming voice that spoke to him suddenly made sense, and he recognized who was in front of him.

John.

He was yelling something down into Markus’s face, but everything sounded so far away. John’s voice echoed, and it took a couple of seconds before the noises coming out of his mouth turned into words that Markus could understand.

“Come on. Stay with me. You’re all right,” John said, still gently  smacking his cheek, as though trying to wake him from his daze.

Now it was really starting to work.

Markus sat up so suddenly that the world around him spun. He  turned over and vomited into a bush.

John was swearing and jumping back away from the carnage  Markus was causing before he came back and started patting  Markus’s back, as though that would help him out anymore.

One-Night Stand with a Werewolf
                
107

It took Markus another few seconds, and another bout of

vomiting, before he realized that his hands were no longer bound  together. Neither were his legs, though the circulation still felt stiff.

John must’ve just finished cutting him loose. “What happened?”  he asked groggily. The taste in his mouth was disgusting, and he had  to spit a couple of times.

“We’re almost done chasing them off the property. Killed some,  though. Cole is missing, and a few others are injured, but so far none  on our side are dead. Christ, I just saw you laying here. The hunter  must’ve abandoned you to escape.”

Just the mention of hunters brought to mind the one person  Markus should have been thinking of first.

“Lance. Where is Lance?” He tried to remember what happened  but couldn’t recall if the hunters had taken the other man with them or

not. They’d drugged him with something pretty damn strong, and now  he could barely think straight.

Then the memory came back to him. The heavy scent of blood  and Lance being stabbed before falling to the ground.

Markus launched to his feet, and then bent over and puked some

more.

John was rubbing his back some more. “Get it out of you. That’s right. You’ll feel better when it’s gone.”

Markus was coughing now and trying to speak before he was even finished heaving. “Lance?”

John’s hesitation was not a good sign. “We haven’t seen him. We don’t know what the hunters did with him.”

That meant they’d left him back at the pond. They’d left him for dead. Maybe he already was dead.

Markus pushed away from the tree he’d been leaning against and started moving.

John followed him a couple of steps. “Where are you going?  There are still hunters crawling all over the place.”

A gunshot sounded, and then the shouts of members of the pack as

108
                         
Marcy Jacks

they continued to attack came from somewhere behind them,  accenting John’s warning.

“Lance is at the pond,” Markus said, coughing and choking some  more. “He was stabbed. He needs help.”

He looked behind him briefly to see the way John had stopped and  half turned, looking back to where the fight was still taking place.

Markus wouldn’t have blamed him for going back. His mate was  back there, also fighting for his life, as well as the rest of the pack.  Really, John didn’t know Lance well enough to risk helping Markus.

He was both surprised and happy when his friend started running  with him again, until they were right next to each other.

“You’re going to need some backup,” John said.

They both ran as quickly as they could back to the pond.  Occasionally Markus needed to stop to heave some more, and his  body was so weak that, when he tripped over the odd tree root, he was  forced to rely on John to catch him before he fell.

They made it back to the pond in good time, however, and the  scent of blood, his mate’s blood, was enough that he nearly vomited  again.

Lance wasn’t where he’d been carelessly dropped by that bastard  hunter. No. He’d managed to drag himself, leaving a thick trail of  blood, toward the pond.

Markus had told him it had healing powers, after all.

“Lance!” He ran to his mate. Lance was half in the water, his face

partly submerged, and when Markus fell to his knees and pulled him  out, he was terrified that he would find that his mate had drowned

himself on accident when he passed out.

“Please be alive. You have to be alive.” Markus put his hands  against Lance’s neck, and he breathed a heavy sigh when he felt a  pulse there. Lance’s face had been adequately out of the water, so he  could properly breathe at least.

“Thank God.”

“I smell gunpowder,” John said. He started looking around the

One-Night Stand with a Werewolf
                
109

blood trail that Lance had left behind when he’d dragged himself and  then picked up a revolver.

John’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit. He was the one to warn us.”

“What?” Markus asked, barely sparing his friend a glance as he  searched his mate for any more injuries, as well as the stab wound  he’d received. He needed to make sure that Lance was in no danger of  dying on him. He hadn’t forgotten that the magic of the pond didn’t  always work.

What he found wasn’t very encouraging. It was a little more  difficult to find the stab wound than it should have been. The pond  water had washed much of the blood away before it could stain his  already dark clothing, and it took a minute before Markus found the  hole where the knife had gone in.

He ripped it open even wider with his hands to have a better look.

He hadn’t seen the size of the knife, or if he had, he couldn’t

remember how big it had been, but the slice in his skin was definitely

smaller than the hole itself had been.

He was healing, but blood still poured wet and warm from the wound itself. There was no sign of clotting, which might have been the fault of the cool water, and he was definitely growing paler.

Markus forced his breathing to calm down as he placed his ear over Markus’s heart.

He could hear his heart, as well as his lungs. Both were slowing

down.

“Fuck!”

“What is it?” John asked, stepping forward. Every time there was  the sound of a twig cracking, he would turn around, searching for the  sound. He was clearly on edge now that they were out here on their

own.

“The water’s not healing him all the way.”

“What?”

Markus couldn’t explain it, and he didn’t want to try. Honestly, miracle pond or not, the water here was really starting to piss him off

110
                         
Marcy Jacks

for its lack of predictability.

He picked Lance up and started rushing into the water with him.  He could remember times gone by when some of the others had been  forced to bring their mates or family members here, and the water  either had worked for them or it hadn’t.

Christ, it was working a little, but nowhere near as quickly as it should have been. Markus pushed forward until the water was up to his chest. That was more than enough space for the pond water to fully cover Lance’s body. Now he just needed the stuff to work.

“You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. Come on. Heal. Heal,” he said, keeping one hand on Lance’s neck, wishing the ever-weakening pulse and breath would pick up some strength already.

The blood still seeped into the water, and at first it was heavy, but then it started to vanish and drift away, giving Markus a clear look at the wound beneath the water as it closed up.

He laughed with the relief he felt.

“Is it working?” John called.

“Yeah,” Markus called back, and he kissed Lance’s pale cheek.  “You’re going to be fine. Come on, baby, open your eyes.”

He shook Lance a little, expecting some sort of reaction, but  Lance’s head drooped. His body remained limp in Markus’s arms, as though he was a doll or something.

Worry crept back into Markus’s gut, and the little monster settled down there, heavy and ugly and getting stronger by the second.

He shook his mate again. “Lance?”

Markus put his hand back on Lance’s neck, noting the way the pulse had continued to slow down, to the point where, at one time, he even thought his heart had stopped.

He was still dying.

“No!”

Markus turned, and with every bit of strength he had left in him,

he rushed out of the water.

John’s face was horrified. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

One-Night Stand with a Werewolf
                
111

There was only one other place that Markus could think to take him that could possibly save his life at this point. “A hospital! He needs a hospital!”

112
                         
Marcy Jacks

Chapter Thirteen

Lance woke up feeling high and heavy at the same time. It wasn’t the good kind of high he remembered from college, however. This felt awkward and wrong, likely brought on by the heaviness in his body.  He didn’t particularly like that.

It took him several minutes, what felt like several minutes at any rate, to determine what that beeping, sighing, and chemical smell was.

Plain, boring white walls, guard rails beside his bed, and was that tubing in his nose?

Great, he was in a fucking hospital.

“Oh! You’re awake,” said the cheery voice of the male nurse.

That was good, right? If the staff were in good spirits while they were in his room, then it meant he wasn’t dying, right?

A bright light flashed in his eyes, and the man with dark skin wearing the pink top pulled back. “Can you speak?”

Lance tried it. His voice came out sounding worse than a frog’s croak, and his mouth tasted like shit. “Where am I?”

“Sorry?”

He repeated himself to the best of his ability when it appeared as  though the nurse was about to brush him off as being unable to speak  at the moment.

“Try to rest your voice if you’re having trouble speaking, but  you’re in Beaverbrook Hospital. You had a pretty nasty fall.”

Well, at least he wasn’t going to have to make up some kind of lie  as to how he’d gotten injured. They’d already come to their own  conclusions.

Wait. Beaverbrook? Did that guy just say Beaverbrook? Lance’s

One-Night Stand with a Werewolf
                
113

addled brain tried to figure out precisely where that was, but he just  couldn’t figure it out before everything went black on him again.

The next time he woke up, it was dark in his room, but the  beeping and sighing of the machines were still there. Lance was able  to think a little clearer as well.

Beaverbrook. He didn’t know the area too well, but if he was

remembering it right, that was the next town over from Brampton.

It was also a hundred miles away from where Markus and his  pack were.

His first thought was to get the hell out of here as quickly as he  could. He needed to find Markus and explain to him that he didn’t  have anything to do with what Buddy had done.

Actually, he needed to find Markus period. Shit, they’d taken him!

He’d just fallen out of bed when an alarm went off. Several staff  members rushed into the room and grabbed him. He fought against  them, he screamed at them that he needed to leave, but then

something pricked him in the ass, and he realized they’d injected him  with something to calm him down.

The bastards, he thought right before he went under.

It was still dark the next time he woke up. He couldn’t even see a  clock anywhere to tell him if it was nearly morning or if another day  had come and gone.

He did hear the breathing of another individual in the room. At  first he thought it was the patient sharing the room with him, but he  was pretty sure he’d been alone the last time he woke up. Did they  bring someone else in here with him?

A car drove by the hospital outside, and the lights from the vehicle  quickly swept across the room, and Lance saw the shadowy figure  standing over his bed.

He tried to move away, but his hands were shackled to the bed. He  tried to scream, but hands came down on his mouth, keeping him  silent.