War of Hearts(113)

She parted her lips, straining to speak. “C-Conall,” she began to choke, and he raised her head up gently, despair filling him as she spat out a thick glob of blood. “G-Get off. Bomb. Castle. G-Go.”

What?

His eyes flew to Callie’s.

“Conall.” Callie reached under Thea. “I think that means bomb in castle. We need to go. Now!”

Together they lifted Thea onto the boat, his heart wrenching at every moan of pain she emitted.

“Should we not take the dagger out?” Callie shouted over the noise of the speedboat as they sped across the water. “She cannae heal while it’s in.”

If he took it out … if he took it out, that meant …

Callie seemed to understand. “I’ll do it.”

Conall nodded, grabbing Thea’s hand. He bent to whisper in his mate’s ear as Callie wrapped her hand around the blade’s hilt. “My love for you is infinite, Thea Quinn.”

Thea jerked with a guttural groan as Callie wrenched out the dagger, her eyes flickering open again. She gazed up at him, her love visible through her pain. “B-Bite,” she gasped. “C-Conall … b-bite …” Her eyes closed, and she went so still, Conall’s heart dropped. He reached for her, his fingers at the pulse in her neck. It was faint but still there.

“James, warn everyone to get back!” Callie called to him.

His beta yelled “bomb” to those on shore but Conall was too focused on Thea to see if his pack heeded the warning. “Bite?” he muttered to himself.

“A fae of Samhradh House fell in love with her werewolf consort. The tale goes she couldn’t bear the thought of immortality without him and asked him to bite her.”

“You mean … change her into a werewolf?”

“Yes. Exactly. And it worked. She was no longer a true immortal.”

Conall ran a shaking hand through his hair as he stared down at his mate.

He wouldn’t do it before because …

“When a very weary prince of Earrach House discovered this, he asked to be bitten too. He didn’t want to be immortal anymore, and the cauldron couldn’t truly end his suffering. So the wolf did it but the fae died.”

Thea was dying anyway.

“Conall, let’s move!” Callie shouted.

With hope flaring, he slid his arms under Thea’s limp, cooling body and cradled her as they leapt off the boat onto the dock. The car park at the dock was clear, his pack at least three hundred yards away on the other side of the road that ran along the base of the hills.

He ran, cradling Thea, using his full speed as he, Callie, and James tore across the car park to safety. They’d almost made it when the sound of the world ending filled his ears.

At least that’s what it felt like as he stumbled to the ground, turning at the last second to protect Thea as he landed on his back.

The sky filled with black clouds and flickers of fire and debris. Conall sat up, checking Thea for injury. She was so still, he frantically searched for a pulse.

It was fading.

There was no time.

People called his name, cried out, shocked by the explosion, but Conall only had eyes for his mate. He laid her gently on the ground and forced his jaw to lengthen, for his muzzle to grow again, his wolf teeth to fill his mouth.

“Conall, what are you doing?” he heard Callie ask.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled down the neckline of Thea’s torn sweater to bare her collarbone. He then gently settled his mouth over the arc between her neck and shoulder and bit down into her sweet flesh. She shuddered underneath him as he made sure his teeth sank deep into her.

Pulling back, he forced the shift again, wiping Thea’s blood from his mouth.

He stared at the brutal, bleeding, swelling puncture wounds he’d made.

His bite wasn’t healing.

Was it too late?

“Conall?”

He looked up at his sister, who was eyeing him like he might have lost his mind.

“She’s fae, Callie. Thea is fae. And an iron blade through the heart kills a fae slowly. There is no coming back from it.”

Her eyes darkened in sorrow.

“But there’s a story that a werewolf once bit his fae mate and she turned. She was no longer fae. She was …” He looked down at Thea. “She became a werewolf. No longer immortal.”

“Conall, we need to go.” James kneeled beside him. “We have to get the pack out of here. We cannae be implicated in this.”

Nodding, Conall lifted Thea into his arms. “Get everyone back to Torridon. Call Brianna, see how fast she can get there.”

Brianna MacRae was their pack doctor; she lived and worked in Inverness.

Most of their cars were undamaged by exploding debris; those that weren’t, they tore the license plates from and left them. Conall carefully laid Thea across the back seats of his Defender. Her body bowed slightly between the seat gap but there was nothing for it, much to his distress.

“She’s fine,” Callie assured him. “I’ll drive.”

He shook his head. “I need something to focus on or I’ll go mad.”

His sister nodded and got into the passenger seat instead.

The desire to keep glancing back at Thea was great, but he forced his eyes on the road and followed the conspicuous cavalcade of cars leaving Loch Isla. Thankfully, Castle Cara had been built on a low-level loch, far from towns and amenities. There wasn’t anything but tight, single-track roads leading downward to Loch Isla until your ears popped from the drop in altitude. No witnesses.