King of the Asheville Coven (Winterset Coven #1)(2)

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” Aric asked, reaching in to check her pulse. It was there, but too fast and too faint. He searched the mangled door for a week spot he could bully into opening. “If you can hear me, my name is Aric, and I’m with the Winterset Fire Department. We’re going to get you out of here.”

Smoke thickened the air, and the SUV heaved backward and settled again. He could see it now, the deep ravine below. It had been veiled in darkness, but the boys were now shining lights on the wreckage, illuminating the entire scene. He didn’t mind heights and would survive, but this woman? No chance in hell if he couldn’t pull her out in time.

Gritting his teeth, Aric pulled on the door. It groaned and gave a little, but not even his supernatural strength could pry it open. “Where’s the jaws of life!” he yelled over his shoulder. Fuckin’ humans taking too long.

The smell of gas and blood and smoke was dizzying, and the SUV leaned again with a groan of metal. The snapping of a tree sounded. The officer on the ground held onto the sidestep of the car, legs locked against the uneven footing as he tried to keep it steady.

Aric strained against the door, pulling until his muscles burned and felt like they would snap in half. His skin was tough, but his hands were bleeding from prying the jagged edges of the door.

He could hear them now, the crew. They were securing ropes onto the SUV to steady it from above, but it wouldn’t save her from the fire that had sparked to life in the front of the vehicle. John had an extinguisher on it already, but couldn’t get under the hood at this angle, and that’s where the real problem would be.

This woman had just run out of time. “Shit,” Aric muttered, unfastening his turnout gear.

“What are you doing?” John screamed.

No time to explain he couldn’t shift in clothes this heavy, he yelled, “Get back!”

One of the ropes snapped, and the backend of the SUV rotated down the hill. There was pandemonium behind him from the others, but Aric couldn’t pay attention to that now. The flames up front were getting worse, and he could feel the heat radiating from the interior now. He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t watch this woman burn alive, couldn’t watch her roll to her death in this car, couldn’t lose another. Every lost life stayed with him, wrecked his dreams, made his eternity hellish. He kicked out of his fire resistant gear, reached inside the window, pulled her seatbelt to his lips, and bit through. One down. He had the belt on her lap to go before he could free her.

“Aric, it’s going!” John yelled.

He could feel the exact moment the rope gave. The exact moment the fire blazed up and consumed the hood. The woman lay there limp, her arm in his grip. He had to commit fully to the pain if he wanted to get her out.

Everything slowed as the SUV rolled.

Aric dove forward, pulled the belt off her lap, and bit it as hard as he could. The trees below were coming toward the window fast, and one branch through his chest could be his final death. He wasn’t ready. Wasn’t ready to die, but wasn’t ready to watch this stranger die either. She smelled good. Blood and something more that sang to him like a siren song. Can’t lose her.

When she slipped free of the belt, he grabbed her waist and pulled with all his strength. There was no more time. They were both about to be crushed. Flames reached for her as Aric pulled her body through the shattered window, and bunching his muscles, he blasted upward, giving his body to the bats and smoke that were always there for him. His body shattered, but he held on to the woman. Held on as the flames exploded toward them, held on as he went airborne with her. The bats and smoke were hard to control, contorting this way and that, but always around him, around his center, around the part of him that still felt like it existed.

He lowered to the street below and landed hard. His boots caved in the concrete where they hit, but he wasn’t done yet. She wasn’t saved. So much blood. Smelled so good. Stop it.

Aric laid her down gently and pulled himself together, morphed into his fully human form again. The crew was yelling about something below, and he could make out the glow of a raging fire over the ledge of the ravine, but Aric didn’t care about that right now. He checked her pulse. Way too faint, worse than it was before.

She was losing too much blood, and he could only guess at her internal injuries. “I need a C-Collar and a board!” he yelled at Chief Lang, but the statuesque man with the gray, animated brows was staring at Aric in revulsion, completely frozen where he stood holding a radio to his lips.

His shifted form did that to people. It was probably the bats.

“Chief!”

“C-collar,” the man said on a breath, seeming to come back to life.

Aric had all the paramedic certifications and knew what to do, but for some reason, this woman under his probing hands felt different. She felt important. He couldn’t explain it, but if he lost her here, right now, it would hurt him.

He had to find out where her bleeding was coming from. Had to stop it so he could buy time to get her to survive the ambulance ride. In a rush, Aric ripped off her tattered dress and wiped the dark fabric over the deep gashes in her chest. The blood washed away, but no new crimson welled up in the cuts. What the hell?

Aric leaned closer and studied the pink of the muscle cinching itself up. This woman had accelerated healing. Shocked, Aric eased back and studied her face. She was beautiful with long, snow-white blond hair, skin as smooth as a polished eggshell, pert nose, full lips, and perfectly arched eyebrows just a few shades darker than her hair.