The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(72)

“Yeah.” He doesn’t say anything else, but as we come to the low brush along the road, he falls back to walk beside me, adjusting his stride to match mine.

I don’t know what to feel. My emotions are shorted, as muddled as my ability to think more than a step ahead. I’m so tired that I’m past tired. I’m in that place where my body and mind are only keeping on out of inertia.

Darragh walks beside me, and in a way—for the first time since my mother died, and I got thrown to the mercy of the pack—I feel safe.

And in another way—as his hands brush mine, and maybe a new life multiplies cell by cell inside me, and our bond flows, growing stronger every minute—I feel like I’ve never been so uncertain with so much to lose.





By the time dusk falls and Darragh hides me in a tunnel that runs under the road while he stands in the open, waiting for Killian, I’m not feeling anything except pain and exhaustion.

They come in three trucks, armed to the teeth. All the A-roster males are present—Ivo, Tye, Dermot. Several others. Darragh fetches me, carrying me up the incline to the road in his arms like a baby. I don’t argue. I couldn’t if I wanted to. My teeth are clattering too hard. He tucks me into a backseat, covers me in one of those aluminum foil blankets, and slides in beside me.

As soon as we start moving, I pass out. By the time I wake up, we’re back on pack land. I’ve never been so happy to see Salt Mountain in the distance until I remember the men tracking us with dogs.

Darragh, who had been resting his temple on the windowpane, blinks over at me with a frown. I can feel his concern through the bond. Could he feel my anxiety?

“Some of them got away,” I say to him under my breath. Killian and Tye are up front with the radio on.

“I’ll go after them soon.” His frown deepens as he examines me. “When you’ve been looked at.”

My heart lurches. “I don’t want you to go.”

He doesn’t have the chance to answer me. The truck skitters to a halt in the commons, and we’re surrounded by a crowd of elders and males. Mated females hang back, concern etched on their faces. I wouldn’t have thought my disappearance would have caused this kind of outpouring, but they did take Darragh, too, and they’re a clear threat to the pack. The females must be worried for their pups.

Someone opens the door and reaches in a hand to help me out. Darragh snarls. The helping hand disappears.

Darragh gets out, stalks around the bed, packmates backing out of his way like water flowing around a rock, and lifts me out.

“I can walk,” I hiss at him.

“I know,” he answers, and he carries me across the lawn to the infirmary. Cheryl is there. She holds the door and gestures for him to lay me in a bed. A bottle of water is pressed into my hand. I guzzle it down, and as soon as I finish it, I’m given another. I’ve never tasted anything so sweet.

And then Una is there, shuffling into the room, and Kennedy and Annie are on her heels.

Una has tears in her eyes. She rushes to my side and lays her palm on my forehead like she’s checking for a fever, and she must realize that’s silly, because she smooths her hand up to brush my dirt and blood-crusted curls off my face.

Kennedy coughs from the foot of the bed. “Hot date?” she asks, her lip quirking, bruises under her eyes from worry.

“I kind of got carried away,” I say. My throat is raw, and my voice comes out husky.

“We chased you. The van—it all happened so fast.” Kennedy’s face is stone hard. She’s mad at herself.

“None of us saw it coming,” I say. Kennedy’s expression doesn’t change. She’s not going to stop beating herself up because I say so. She’s the most stubborn person I know.

“I’m sorry, Mare,” she says, low, back and shoulders as stiff as a soldier.

“I love you, Ken.” I give her a smile. She goes red, and her lips spear down as her chin hikes up. I love embarrassing her in public.

“That’s enough for now,” Una says, rolling over a tray of bandages and bottles. She replaces Kennedy at my side and tends to my wounds, treating my burns with a salve and wrapping them in gauze. She frowns at my claiming bite. I automatically protect it, tucking my head and lifting my shoulder to my ear. She goes back to fussing with my scrapes and cuts.

She’s cleaning up her supplies when Old Noreen bustles in with a tray of her own, and she shoos everyone away until I have a cup of hot tea at hand and a wet rag on my forehead. She settles herself in the chair beside the bed, takes out her knitting, and glares at anyone she thinks is speaking too loudly.

At some point, Darragh disappeared, and I didn’t even notice. I search the bond, and he’s not far, so I force myself to relax. He needs to get cleaned up and seen to as well, although I can’t imagine him letting anyone fuss over him.

A flash of irrational ire heats my cheeks. Would he let the crone bandage his wounds?

“Where’s Darragh?” I call over to Una where she’s returning things to a shelf.

“I’m not sure,” she says. “When I finish with this, I’ll find out, okay?”

I nod. I don’t need to haul myself out of this bed to find him. Everything is okay now. This dread is just an aftershock from what we went through. I make myself breathe and focus on the room.