The Wolf's Mate Book 6: Logan & Jenna (2 page)

Ben walked over to the table, hands in his pockets.  “You
look like you’re ready to head out.”

He held back his automatic ‘
hell yes’
and said, “I
said I’d stick with you guys until midnight, I don’t mind staying.”  Inside his
mind, his wolf howled in dismay at his statement.  What the hell was wrong with
him?

The three other young males – Paul, Drake, and Luka – joined
them, and Ben said, “The girls here are like the chew toys at the bar.  They
only care what rank you are and what color your beast is.”

“Sorry, kid.”  Logan stood up and crushed the empty water
bottle.

Luka dragged his hand through his short blond hair.  “Could
you drop us off at Jake’s?”

“Sure.”  Logan decided he’d stick around there, too, and
drive the kids home.

Inwardly, his beast was rejoicing at leaving and urged him
on.  Wondering at the sudden strange feelings he was having, as if he
needed
to be somewhere, as if someone was calling for him, he started the Jeep and
pulled away from the rental hall, thinking someone needed to tell the
Were-Alliance that their mixers sucked.

As the lights of Somerset faded into the distance and they
drove towards Allen, the antsy feeling grew stronger with each mile, until he
could practically feel hands pulling him, a voice whispering for help in the
darkness.  The long stretch of highway cut through a wooded area, and as Logan
wrestled with the strange feelings, he thought he saw something flash on the
right side of the road.  He cut over to the shoulder, ignoring the boys’ alarm,
and jerked the Jeep to a stop.  Leaping out of the truck, he ran to the edge of
the woods and narrowed his gaze, straining to see what the flash had been.  The
clouds had been covering the moon and it was too dark to see anything much, but
when they cleared and light filtered through the thick trees, Logan saw it
again.  Silver.  Something silver was deep in the woods.

Without thought, he ran towards the flickering light, his
wolf scrambling in his mind to get to the light.

“Help…please,” a rasping whisper, so soft he could barely
hear it, met his ears and he growled in worry as he closed the distance to the
light, branches scraping his skin.

A blade of moonlight cut through the trees suddenly and he
stopped in his tracks as the body of a woman was made visible, just feet from
him.  She lay crumpled on the ground, wearing a dress that was dirty and torn. 
Cursing under his breath, he tore off his shirt and laid it across her body,
pressing his fingers against her pulse as he crouched next to her.  Around her
neck was a thick metal collar.  He glanced down at her body and saw similar
cuffs around her wrists and ankles.  His wolf howled in his mind to protect
her, to save her, and when he found her pulse was weak but thankfully there, he
stroked her hair away from her face.  “Sweetheart.”  His voice cracked, and he
cleared it.  “Can you hear me?”

She didn’t respond, and he lifted her carefully in his arms
and carried her quickly back to the Jeep.  Barking for someone to open the
door, he waited while Ben got out and held the passenger door for him, and he
climbed inside, carefully maneuvering the woman onto his lap as Ben shut the
door.

Ben ran around to the driver’s door and got in.  In the
overhead light, Logan tipped her head back and brushed her hair away.  Her long
brown hair was streaked with silver.  Purple lines snaked around her face,
growing from a thick purple welt underneath the collar around her neck.  Similar
snaking lines and thick welts were on her wrists and ankles under the cuffs.  It
looked like someone had drawn over her pale skin with a marker.

Logan inspected the collar and found that a simple latch
unlocked it.  Pushing the pin until it popped free, he pulled the collar off, dropped
it onto the floor, and went to work on the cuffs.

“Where’s the nearest hospital?”  Ben asked as he pulled out onto
the highway.

Drake said, “I’m pulling it up on my cell, hold on.”  After
a few seconds, he said, “Exit 47, just three miles from here.”

“Drive faster, Ben,” Paul urged.

Luka leaned forward.  “Is she alive, Logan?”

Logan’s throat felt like a hand had constricted around it
and he could barely say, “Yeah.”

When the word left his mouth, the female’s eyes popped
open.  Fear came from her, so thick he could taste it on the back of his tongue,
and then she relaxed slightly, as if she realized that he wouldn’t hurt her,
that she had found safety in his arms.

He felt a sharp pain in his chest and he looked down to see
she had dug her nails into his skin and broken through, drawing blood.  “Swear
to me,” she rasped in a soft voice, the voice he had heard in his head.  “Keep
me safe.”

“I swear.”  He pressed his hand against hers and caught a
bit of his blood on his fingers, stroking lightly across her neck to leave the
blood on her skin.  “I swear on my wolf’s blood that I’ll see you safe.”  By sealing
his words in blood, they became an unbreakable vow.  No matter what, he would
see her safe from whatever had happened to her.

Chapter 2

As her eyes closed, he was only peripherally aware that they
had pulled off the highway.  Ben and the others were following the directions from
Drake’s cell.  All of Logan’s focus was trained on the female in his arms as he
dropped the last cuff onto the floor.  He could pick up her faint, irregular
heartbeat and shallow, slow breaths.  He could also feel small muscle twitches
and occasional shivers.  A dress shirt appeared in front of him and Logan
blinked at Drake, who was now shirtless.

“Thank you,” Logan mumbled to the young wolf.

“What are those cuffs made of?”  Ben asked, flipping on his
blinker and braking as he turned right around a sharp corner.

“Iron,” Logan said.

The truck slowed and stopped, and Logan lifted his head and
saw a hospital ER sign and the bright lights of the ambulance bay.

He draped the shirt over the female and opened the door.  “Call
Jason and tell him I need someone to bring my truck up here.  You guys can head
back.”

Ben shook his head.  “We’re not leaving you alone.”

Luka nodded.  “We’re pack, and pack sticks together.”

Logan was touched by the show of solidarity from the young
wolves, but couldn’t vocalize it.  Nodding at them, he kicked the door shut and
turned, racing inside.

Balancing her against him with one arm, he grabbed a doctor who
was walking by and pulled him close.  “She’s nearly dead, help her!”

His voice had taken on a growling tone.  He didn’t care if
they were afraid of him.  He just wanted her to live.  He
needed
her to
live.

The doctor frowned, opened his mouth and pointed towards the
reception desk.  “Right there — ”

Logan jerked him harder by the collar.  “Look at her. 
Fucking.  Look.  At.  Her.”

Angrily, the doctor cast his eyes downward and then his
mouth fell open.  “Shit!”

He yelled over his shoulder for a gurney, called a ‘Code F
’
,
and barked orders at the nurses and staff that suddenly surrounded them.

The gurney appeared and the doctor said, “Put her down, we’ve
got it from here.”

Logan laid her down gently and grabbed the doctor by the
collar again.  “I go where she goes.”  He snarled the words, barely able to
separate his thoughts from his growling wolf’s.

If the doctor thought to argue, he changed his mind
quickly.  “Fine.  Stay out of the way.”

The gurney raced down a hallway and Logan followed, fear
riding him hard.  He hadn’t cared whether someone lived or died since his
grandmother had passed away when he was twenty.  Now, though, his thoughts were
consumed by the female racing down the hall ahead of him.

Several minutes later, he stood leaning against the wall in
a private room in what he came to find out was the “supernatural” wing of the
hospital, watching a group of doctors, nurses, and specialists hover around the
female.  They had cut the dirty gown from her and dropped it into a plastic
bag.  Her pale body looked even paler under the harsh lighting.

The first doctor, Young, looked over at Logan.  “Do you know
who did this to her?”

Logan shook his head, feeling emotionally drained and
physically exhausted.  “I already explained that I found her in the woods off
the highway.  What happened to her?  Is she going to be okay?”

A whiskey-rough voice spoke loudly, “If she is strong, yes.”

Logan looked at the open door and saw a very short, round
woman walk into the room, carrying a patchwork bag.  Twin gray braids hung down
to her knees, and her tanned face was wrinkled with age.  The doctors moved
away slowly, like they were afraid to spook her, leaving the female on the
gurney naked under the lights.

He clenched his hands into fists to fight against the urge
to cover her from prying eyes, and instead looked the old woman straight in the
eyes.  She placed the bag next to the female and cast her gaze up and down her
body.  In the harsh light of the hospital room, the damage to her was even
worse than Logan had originally thought.  Her bruised and cut skin wasn’t just
pale, it was almost grey, and her dark hair was dull, save for the little
sparkles of silver.  And those damn purple lines were everywhere.

He took a step forward and the old woman looked up at him. 
She regarded him carefully, one eye narrowing, and he had the distinct feeling
that she was peeling away the layers of his mind.  “She is yours, yes?  Your
mate?”

He swallowed hard.  He hadn’t thought that far ahead.  He
hadn’t thought any further than her just living, but it explained a lot about
his reactions.

He heard his wolf’s answer to the old woman, a guttural,
growling acknowledgment.  He stepped forward until he was standing next to the
gurney and he reached his hand for the female’s smaller hand.  When her cold,
limp hand was cradled in his large one, he felt a connection spark between
them.  The old woman was right:  the female was his truemate.

He looked at the old woman and had to force his voice to
work past the knot in his throat.  “Can you save her?”

The old woman busied herself removing things from her large
bag.  Vials of oddly-colored powders and liquids, and a narrow wooden case. 
The woman looked over at the hospital staff and said, “If you aren’t
supernatural, you need to leave the room immediately.”

Everyone moved to the door, leaving Logan and the old woman
with his mate.  “Do you know what she is?” the old woman asked.

Logan shook his head.

“She’s fae, a fairy.  Fairies are the only creatures that
are deathly allergic to iron.  These marks,” the old woman gestured to the
thick welts on her wrists, ankles, and neck, “were made with iron shackles. 
Someone put her in shackles designed to kill her.  Somehow, she escaped or was
set free.”

“How did she call for me if she doesn’t know me?”  He
watched the woman pull a stone bowl from the bag and pour the vials into it.

The woman raised her brow.  “Because fairies are magical,
young wolf, more magical than your kind.  In the depths of her pain, she called
out for help to the only one who could find her in time — her truemate.  If you’d
been further away, you might have been too late or never heard her.  She might
have died, alone and in pain.”

“She knew she was safe,” he said quietly, watching the woman
stir the contents of the bowl.

“Of course she did.  She-fairies often mate with wolves and
other supernaturally strong creatures.”

The old woman instructed him to lift his mate up so she
could force the liquid from the bowl into her mouth.  Logan let go of her hand
and bent over, sliding his arm gently under her and lifting her upper body from
the gurney.  He pulled her jaw down so her mouth opened as her head lolled
back.

He rubbed her throat to encourage her to swallow as the old
woman poured the contents of the bowl slowly into his mate’s mouth.  She choked
and coughed weakly, and Logan had to breathe out of his mouth to escape the
putrid scent of the liquid she was being forced to drink.  When the bowl was
empty and he had soothed the last of it down her throat, he was told to keep
her upright.

“It’s a magical chelating compound, to help rid her body of
the iron poisoning and begin the healing process.”

He was about to ask how it was going to rid her body of the
iron poisoning, when the old woman put a plastic bin on his mate’s lap just
seconds before she vomited violently.  The old woman held the bin steady and
Logan kept his mate’s hair back, holding her up so as little got on her as
possible.

Every few minutes she would throw up again, still
unconscious, and it tore at his heart to see her so ill and weak.  He wasn’t
sure how much time had passed, but the bin had been emptied multiple times.  Slowly,
the purple lines began to fade away.

The old woman, who had identified herself as Brigid, a supernatural
healer, looked at him as she began to put away her things.  Only the narrow
wooden box remained on the gurney next to his mate.

She opened the lid after directing him to lay his mate back
down.  “The iron is mostly gone from her body.  The chelating compound forced
the iron in her blood to move to her stomach so she could vomit it out, but
there is severe damage that her natural healing abilities are having difficulty
fixing.  Do you wish to see her live, Logan?”

“I will do anything to see her alive and safe, I swore on
it.”

“Then give me your left hand.”

He stretched his arm across the body of his mate.  From the
box, Brigid pulled out a thin blade with a handle that looked like it was made
of bone.  She turned his mate’s left hand over so that her palm faced upwards
and then she brought the tip of the blade down into the center of her palm and twisted,
opening a hole in her flesh.  Logan growled, prepared to shove the old woman
away, when she grabbed his left hand and stabbed his palm in the same way,
twisting the blade so deeply that he felt the scrape of the blade against the
bones in his hand.