Wolf Girl (Wolf Girl, #1)(47)

Holy shifter.

The knife at my throat tightened, began to cut into my skin, and then a gunshot cut through the space and the knife fell away as the vampire-fey dropped to the ground behind me. Eugene stood five paces away, sleek black gun raised.

My legs were suddenly too weak to hold me. The fall down the mountain and the fall out of the tree had injured me so badly I wasn’t sure how I’d stayed standing this entire time.

“We’ve met the requirements of your demands and we will be taking the girl,” Eugene called out to the people, who looked shocked at their dead leader on the ground. “We will leave the money for any inconvenience we’ve caused you.”

A helicopter whirred overhead and people started to back up, holding their spears to the sky as if they’d never seen a helicopter before.

Maybe they hadn’t.

Eugene reached me, cutting my hand and leg bindings, and everything spun as the last drop of adrenaline left me.

I was saved. I wasn’t going to be skinned alive. Sawyer won his fight.

I started to fall forward when a blur of dark hair flashed before me and Sawyer caught me right before I hit the ground. His strong arms scooped under my knees and behind my back, hauling me against his chest. Warm, tight, safe arms cradled me so hard it actually hurt. My cuts and bruises weren’t healing like a shifter’s should, and I winced as Sawyer loosened his hold.

“Oh God, Demi. I’m so fucking sorry,” he murmured against me, the warmth of his breath feathering over my face as my chest tightened.

Eugene approached him. “Sawyer, you’re badly hurt. I can carry her.”

His response was a guttural growl and Eugene dropped his head in response, giving Sawyer the top of his head in a submissive gesture.

Sawyer walked me to the helicopter and called out over his shoulder, screaming over the whirring blades. “Get me a witch to get these fucking cuffs off of her!”

When he looked down at me, his blue eyes held so much anguish, so much regret, it broke my heart. “Can you ever forgive me?” His voice cracked and he looked genuinely panicked that I would say no.

I’d never met a guy like Sawyer, one who was so intense and protective, and one that asked forgiveness for his mistakes. I had to be honest with myself here, this was an all or nothing moment in our budding relationship. I either said yes and we moved forward in the direction of where we were going, or I said no and probably cause irreversible harm to any future we might have had.

Honestly? I’d never had a man fight for me like Sawyer did. From day one he’d been in my corner. And people made mistakes.

“Yes.”

I forgave him. I forgave him for thinking that hiding what I was would protect me. It obviously wouldn’t. We were going to have to come up with a plan B, together. With a deep sigh, he rested his forehead against mine and everything inside of me opened to him. I realized I’d been keeping a wall up, something to protect me in case he chose another girl, but now I was all in. I wanted to win his heart and in order to do that, I needed to lower all of my defenses.

“I’m going to make this up to you,” he whispered as we climbed into the chopper. Everything hurt, my skin, my bones, my muscles, everything.

“Thanks for coming to save me,” I told him.

He shook his head and swallowed hard. “It’s the least I could do after you saved me.”

I frowned. A medic started to look at a gash on my elbow and his words pinged around in my head.

How did I save him? Maybe this had to do with the brokenness I saw inside of him the day we met, the heaviness in his deep blue eyes that sometimes came to the surface to signal that he was dealing with too much.

“You’re going to need surgery,” the medic said to Sawyer. “A skin graft, and then your healing should take over from there.”

He shook his head. “No. I’ll be fine.”

The medic, a blond female about thirty, frowned. “It will scar, it will take days to heal.”

He looked at her with hard eyes. “I’m not leaving her side.” The wolf threaded into his voice and the woman lowered her gaze.

“Sawyer—” another medic said, but his wolf was out, there would be no reasoning with him and that was obvious. Eugene jumped into the helicopter and we took flight.

“Witch is on the way. Will meet us at your place. I thought you might like to be discreet,” Eugene told Sawyer.

He nodded. “And call Doctor Berns to look over Demi. He can meet us at my apartment too.”

Eugene’s eyes widened. “Your father’s private doctor is for the alpha family only. I don’t think—”

“I wasn’t asking, Eugene.” Sawyer’s voice was short and clipped.

With a nod, Eugene dialed another number and I reached out to stroke Sawyer’s face, pulling him down to look at me. His eyes were blazing yellow. I was guessing his wolf didn’t like being in such a small space with other people and a bad injury, but I knew his wolf was also protective over me. More than human Sawyer was.

“I’m okay. You did good, and I’m okay now,” I purred into his ear, trying to soothe his wolf.

He held up my arm, putting the cuff in full view of my face. “Nothing about this is okay.” His voice cracked with emotion. “I basically left you human, you could have been—”

“But I’m not.” I ran my thumb over his bottom lip and he shuddered, eyes flashing yellow to blue and then back to yellow.