Too Far Gone (Adirondack Pack Book 1)

by K. C. Stewart

  “What happened?” Owen pushed Tyson off the bed and took his spot.

  “Jack happened.”

  “Explain,” he barked out without bothering to look up. His eyes were only for Sadie as he poked and prodded all over her body.

  “I only came in halfway. He had her backed against a tree and was nipping at her. Looked like he had been at it for awhile.” Anger flared in him and he wished he could kill Jack all over again.

  “Wait,” Owen looked up at him. “He was a wolf during all this?”

  “Oh yes. I believe he changed in front of her.”

  “Shit. That explains the message. I’m going to skin him alive.” Anger, fresh and hot sparked in his eyes.

  “Message?” Tyson asked.

  “She called and left me a message but I couldn’t hear much. I knew it was Sadie and Jack talking but it was hard to make out the words. I was already on my way when you called.” He pulled out a pair of scissors and began to cut her jeans off so he could get a better look at the bite. “I was trying to help him, you know. After Jenny he was so closed off. With you gone, we needed an enforcer. I…I fucked up.”

  Tyson was sure he was “closed off” after Jenny died. Goddamn bastard. “He was trying to change her, Owen.” Just like before no one else saw what was so clear to him. Jack was Canidae. Jack was the spy in the pack. Jack was playing everyone. He wanted to punch Owen and knock some sense into him. There was no time after Jenny died to explain his feelings about Jack. It had been chaos. Or, at least in his roaring mind it had been chaos. Maybe if he would have kept his head on straight for two fucking minutes none of them would be here now. Sadie would be safe with no knowledge of wolves in her woods. Owen would no doubt still be the rock of the pack. And Tyson would be oblivious to it all.

  “He…fuck.”

  “I killed him.”

  Owen’s green eyes met his. This wasn’t his friend or vet, right now he was looking at his Alpha. It was only a small nod but Tyson felt the relief almost instantly. Approval from an Alpha could make even the guiltiest of conscious's feel content.

  “Good. I’d have done the same.”

  “I had to change her…or I tried to. I’m not sure if it took.” He brushed the hair off her shoulder and showed him the bite mark. “Did I kill her, Owen? I just wanted her to live. She had lost so much blood…”

  “We won’t know until the full moon. If she changes then praise Gaia. Right now we have to keep her alive long enough to reach next week.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Nothing. Wait and suffer like the rest of us.” Owen stood and squeezed Tyson’s shoulder. Tyson hadn’t been paying attention to anything but her face. Owen had gotten her pants cut off and cleaned and bandaged what needed it. “She’s stable. I want to keep an eye on the deep bites but for now we’ll keep her stable and comfortable.”

  Tyson gave him a look that said just how excited he was to hurry up and wait.

  “I’m guessing you want to claim her?” He winked at Tyson and smiled.

  “No.”

  “Wait…what? You change her and you don’t even want to claim her? What the hell Tyson?”

  He didn’t get it. Not yet. Once Sadie woke up he would understand. For now Tyson had no interest in explaining. “I have my reasons. Take her into the pack? For me.”

  Alpha eyes studied him. At one point he would have taken their inspection with a cocky grin and a wiggled eyebrow. Owen never could see through Tyson like he could the rest of his pack. But now? He felt those eyes touch his soul as they looked for some hint at what he was thinking, what he was feeling. Tyson turned his head. Too much.

  “Fine.”

  “And don’t tell her about me. As far as she knows I am a wolf who she named Fred and nothing else.”

  “But…” Owen ran a hand over his jaw scrubbing at the stubble. “Fine. Whatever. Want me to marry her too?”

  A lopsided smile tugged at Tyson’s mouth. “Nah, I’d rather she stay single for the rest of her life. If you want to you can chase away any admirers though.”

  He laughed. “Nice try lover boy.”

  “Just keep her safe, alright?”

  He looked like he wanted to ask a hell of a lot of questions but kept his mouth shut. “Alright.”

  “Thanks.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Yellow.

  No.

  Brown.

  No.

  A brown so light and airy that it appeared golden.

  Yes.

  That’s it. The man had golden brown eyes. Man? No, that’s Fred. Or…wait…

  The image was overlapped, a picture with multiple exposures. Fred and a man intertwined. Gray hair with black accented ears underneath a man with light brown shaggy hair that kept falling in his face. Two days worth of scruff cover his chin…no those were whiskers. Hand became paws. Blink. Covered in fur became smooth tan skin. Blink. Ears were rounded then big and pointed. Blink. No matter how many times she blinked to clear the image, nothing changed but yet, everything changed.

  Same eyes.

  Yeah, they both had the same eyes. That made her feel better. Calm actually. Sadie ignored the rest and just focused on the eyes. When she smiled, Fred gave her his custom lopsided grin and took off running into the forest. She was compelled to follow. Her body low to the ground. Feet quick beneath her. She was right on Fred’s tail. He looked back at her satisfied that she was keeping up. How was she keeping up? Fred was tearing through the trees as fast as he could. Sadie had seen how fast he could run many times before and somehow she was right there with him.

  Eye to eye.

  What the?

  She stopped running. Fred kept going. In an instant he was gone. The trees had swallowed him whole. Sadie shifted from foot to foot to…foot? She blinked. That wasn’t right. Too many feet. Why did she have too many feet? The answer was there, right on the edge of her mind keeping out of sight. But she could feel the cold prick of awareness on her neck.

  She looked back to where she had last seen Fred. A fluffy white tail swung in her way. She blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Four feet and a tail means…no…I couldn’t be…but…but how? In a panic Sadie began to run. A hazy image floated in front of her. Jack at her door, stripping his clothes as his body changed. Sadie ran right through the cloudy movie dispersing it into dust. Another clip misted beside her. It followed along as she pushed herself faster. Jack chasing her through the forest, biting at her legs when she stumbled for more than a second.

  An angry growl vibrated from her chest. Sadie jerked left and ran through the images, once again kicking through them like dust. Another one popped up almost instantly. Fred leaping onto Jack’s back and biting his throat until blood seeped between his teeth. Then a man carrying her, fussing over her. The images were a jumble of memories and unconscious thought. A voice, smooth and soothing told her to hold on and keep fighting, urging her to wake up. That same voice, broken and apologizing.

  Sadie shook her head. Everything was all mixed up. Her head hurt and her neck blazed in pain. Up ahead a lake loomed. She pushed herself towards it. Ignoring the pain and the floating memories, she kept going as hard as her feet would take her. Only when the trees end did she stop. The moment she left the forest the memories disappeared. She could hear them just on the edge of the trees, pacing back and forth waiting for her to come back. They couldn’t get out of the forest. They were trapped there.

  The water of the lake was glassy and still. She moved to it as it called to her. Step by step her feet didn’t once falter even with the tremble of fear that rumbled through her heart. On the shore she moved right up to the water. No sense in waiting, drawing out the inevitable even if it scared the piss out of her.

  No, Sadie wanted to know. She needed to know. She leaned forward above the water. The surface so bright and clear there was no doubting what she saw…what she was.

  Wolf.

  *****

  “Good morning!”

  “Aahhhggg.”
Sadie squeezed her eyes hard against the cheerful voice. If her head wasn’t throbbing she would have reached up and smacked whoever woke her. Instead she grabbed the side of her head and rolled into the pillow seeking darkness.

  “Oh no you don’t! Not this time.”

  She recognized the threatening voice as Lee’s, which was good since she was in no mood to be friendly. Sadie reached forward and patted the air until she found Lee’s face. With a weak shove she pushed her friend away. “Go away.”

  “No. You need to wake up…for real this time.”

  “Why?” The throbbing in her head was getting worse. Thousands of tiny hammers pounded away at her skull.

  “You’ve been out for well over 15 hours. I need you awake to make sure we didn’t miss anything when bandaging you up.”

  That made as much sense as a monkey teaching biology. “Huh?”

  “Just open your eyes for me and I’ll explain.”

  Sadie didn’t do or say anything. An explanation was not nearly enough incentive to open her eyes and face whatever fresh hell awaited her in the daylight. Besides the fact that her head felt like a construction zone, her upper leg was on fire and he entire body ached. Experimentally she tried to move he leg but it was swollen to twice its size and was heavier than she remembered.

  “Fine. Be that way. Open your eyes and I’ll give you a cup of coffee.”

  Her eyes popped open and immediately slammed shut at the brightness of the room. “Aaaahhhhgg! Bright. Too bright.”

  “I’ve got it,” a man’s voice said before the light behind her eyes dimmed. “How’s that Sadie?”

  “Better.” She opened her eyes and found Dr. Owen Purcell smiling down at her. “Um…” Not that she minded having the attractive vet standing over her in bed, it was just a tad confusing. The hammering was making it hard to concentrate. Why were they in her room? And had Lee said something about being asleep for 15 hours?

  He smiled. “All in good time. Lee, why don’t you go get that coffee you promised her?”

  “Can do.” The weight on her bed lifted as Lee left them. Owen, was standing over her in all his broad chested, tall and tan, male glory. It was overwhelming. He seemed to feel her apprehension and pulled a chair over to the head of the bed and had a seat.

  “How do you feel?” His sincere concern was heartwarming. It was more than a “you’re my patient and it's my job to make you better” kind of concern but in more of a “I care about you” way.

  “Really want me to answer that?”

  He grinned. “Let’s just say you feel as good as is to be expected.”

  “And what does that mean?” Riddles plus migraine equaled one unenthused woman.

  “What do you remember?” he countered.

  Sadie groaned and laid her head back against her pillow. “Not in the mood for story time. Just give me the facts.”

  “What do you remember Sadie?” This time his question was like hand prying her mouth open and pulling the words from her throat before she even had a chance to disagree.

  “Jack came over.”

  “Good and what did he want?”

  She frowned. “Me. He wanted me to mate with him or something. He told me he was a…a wolf?” God, her head hurt. Sadie squeezed her eyes shut trying to remember around the pain. “He began to strip out of his clothes. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen. Then he started to change somehow. Like his whole body was blurred out. I ran out the back door. He…he followed me.” The more she talked the clearer it became. “But he wasn’t Jack anymore, he was a wolf. He kept chasing and biting me. I fell and…fudge.”

  The pounding in her head was becoming unbearable. Owen grabbed something, it crinkled a bit as he placed it on her head. The ice pack was deliriously cold and Sadie sighed in relief.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. You were saying?”

  She cracked open and eye and glared as good as she could under the circumstances. “He grabbed hold of my thigh with his teeth and wouldn’t let go. Fred was the one who knocked him off. Everything after that is fuzzy. I remember bits but none of it makes sense.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it would.” He frowned, not looking forward to whatever he was about to say. “Jack is…was,” he corrected, “what we call a shifter. He was born with two souls, one of a human and one of a wolf. He was part of a local pack. He was also mentally…unwell.”

  “Fudging crazy?” she supplied.

  His lips twitched. “Yes, he was fudging crazy.” The small bit of humor dropped off his face and he signed. “I am the Alpha wolf of the pack. Lee is one of us too.”

  Sadie swallowed. How hard had she hit her head? “Why are you telling me this?” The town was crazy. She decided right then that the entire town was bat shit crazy.

  “Because well, Jack was trying to change you. He might have succeeded.”

  “Might have?” she asked as all the air left her lungs.

  “We won’t know for another week. On the full moon you will be able to change or you won’t. No way to tell until then.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Pardon?”

  “People who change to wolves aren’t real. I must have a concussion and its messing with my brain. Stop all this and let me sleep.”

  “Sadie,” he said chastising like he was disappointed in her not jumping on the crazy train with him.

  “I must have misunderstood what I saw. I have an over active imagination.” But that was a lie. Sadie didn’t have even an active imagination. Sure she could day dream with the best of them but creativity wasn’t her top trait and even at her best she wouldn’t have been able to dream up what she saw with Jack.

  “I don’t like lies.”

  “I don’t like being told I might be a werewolf,” she countered.

  Owen closed his eyes for a silent moment. When he opened them he apologized. “I’m sorry. I’m doing this wrong. It's my first time telling someone about us. We don’t talk about pack life outside of the pack. You are the first person I have met that Gaia had gifted and I’m not sure what to do.”

  She swallowed the hunk of dread in her throat. “You’re telling the truth aren’t you?”

  He nodded with a sad smile.

  “Give me a minute.” He didn’t leave but he didn’t look at her either. It was the best she was going to get. Wolves who can change to men were real. Men who could change to wolves were real. Someone named Gaia gave her the ability to change. Nope. Still not buying it. Sadie couldn’t wrap her head around the “facts” as Owen saw them. She saw them as a head injury that was impairing her memories. She didn’t believe him but yet she had questions.

  “So full moon?”

  He nodded. “Next week. You won’t be able to help it if he has succeeded. The magic of the night will push the change along. I’ll also be there to help control it.”

  Nervousness began to fray the edges of her voice. “But Jack had changed and it wasn’t a full moon.” Why was he being so calm about this? Her life may or may not be in complete upheaval and he was just sitting there like what she might soon turn into was no big deal. Of course it was a big deal! It was a huge fudging deal. She might turn into a wolf and howl at the moon and pee on trees and eat rabbits.

  “This wasn’t his first time changing. We all can change at will after that first time.”

  “Oh that’s just peachy.”

  “I know this is…unexpected. But you will be welcomed into the pack. We will care for you.” Owen gave her a pitying look.

  “I don’t need anyone to care for me but myself,” she snapped. Her flare of anger wiped the pity off his face. The smirk that followed was a small improvement but not much. Sadie didn’t do pity. She had left Buffalo because that was all people did when they saw her. She told pity to fudge off there and she’d do it here too if need be.

  “Indeed.”

  “So what happens next?” Information was her friend. The more she knew about her situation the better prepared she would be
to handle it without freaking out on everyone.

  “Well,” he leaned back in the chair making himself comfortable. “I’m going to assign Lee to be your teacher. You’ll move in with her for a few weeks until you can change comfortably on your own. It will take a bit of getting used to and she can help with your questions and the changes you will be facing.”

  Sadie sighed not liking the plan but knowing it was probably for the best. At least he put her with Lee, she actually liked Lee. “You make it sound like I’m about to hit puberty.”

  Owen laughed. “In a way, you are. Your body chemistry is going to be changing over the next few days. Let Lee help you through it.”

  She nodded. It wasn’t like she had a choice in the matter. Her brain needed time to process everything. A subject change was in order. “Do you know where Fred is? Was he hurt in the fight?” She expected him to be here but there had been no sign of him yet.

  Owen’s eyes hardened. The easy smile slipped from his face. “He’s fine.”

  “Then why do you look like he just bit your mama?”

  “You should rest.” He stood making it obvious how he felt about continuing that line of questioning. But she had to ask one more question before he left. His reaction worried her and after everything she just learned she had to know.

  “Is he…”

  He shook his head before she could finish. “Fred is a wolf. Simple as that.”

  “Oh…ok.” The disappointment was a surprise. Sadie wasn’t sure what she had been hoping for but it was gone now.

  “Rest now. Lee and I will help you pack some things when you wake.” He brushed a hand over her head and laid a kiss on her hair. His touch was soothing. “Sleep,” he said again in a soft dreamy voice. She hadn’t been tired but now her head lulled to the side with exhaustion. God she was so tired all of the sudden. Her eyes began to droop as he left and closed the door. Within seconds she was asleep.