He laughed again and kissed me one more time before I felt his weight leave the bed. “I’ll see you later, love.”
“Bye,” I croaked before rolling over and falling back asleep.
I’d thought nothing of him leaving that morning. It had been just another shift patrolling pack lands for him and there’d been no warning that this time would be any different. It wasn’t until I was downstairs having breakfast with my sisters that I knew any better.
The room was buzzing with conversation, but all that stopped the moment Clyde whipped the sliding glass door open and rushed inside. “They’re coming!” he yelled. “The Charlotte pack is advancing on us. Everyone needs to get down to the basement.”
There was a single moment of calm before the room erupted into a frenzy. Most of the people in the kitchen at that time were enforcers and they all jumped to attention, their expressions grim. I looked around at the wary eyes of my sisters and felt my own stomach pinch as I remembered Wyatt was out patrolling.
I jumped from my seat and ran toward the back door, ready to race to wherever he was. I’d only made it a halfway across the patio when someone grabbed my wrist and pulled me to a stop. I turned to find Beatrice, her face stony.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to find Wyatt.”
She shook her head. “He’s busy, Callie. You need to stay here.”
I yanked on my arm, but she had it in her freakishly strong hold. “I don’t care, Bea. I need to get to him. I need to be with him.”
“No. You need to stay here and do your part. We all have jobs to do, including you. Wyatt doesn’t need you distracting him right now. He’s on his way to Abraham and Ellie anyway.”
I finally pulled my arm free and turned to face her fully. “Where’s that?” I knew they were on their honeymoon and that they’d opted to stay close to pack lands, but I didn’t know exactly where.
“You don’t need to know that right now. All you need to know is he’s busy and so are you. I need you, Del, and Evey to go down to the pack houses and get all of them up here and into the basement. Once they’re down there, you three need to guard the lodge. I’ll have some enforcers out there with you too, but there won’t be many because I need the rest of them meeting the Charlotte pack head on. You’re the last line of defense we have.”
I brushed her off and walked past her. “They’re werewolves. They can fend for themselves. I need to find my mate.”
“What about Nora?” she called from behind me.
I froze at the top of the stairs, my mind whirling.
“Nora can’t defend herself and Wes and Wyatt aren’t here to do it. She needs you, Callie. More than Wyatt does right now. Do this for him if nothing else.”
Dang it.
She was right.
Nora was just as important to me as any of my family and she needed protecting more than anyone else did. I growled softly and took off down the stairs. “Fine,” I called. “You go tell the others to meet me at the pack houses.”
I took off across the field, my mind on getting Nora to safety, but my heart with Wyatt. I had to believe he’d be okay. I had to believe he’d keep his promise and come home to me. There was just no other acceptable option.
Chapter 38
Callie
“Have you heard from anyone?” Evey asked for the fifth time in the past half hour.
I huffed out an annoyed breath and shook my head. “You’ll know when I do.”
We’d had complete radio silence from all the enforcers for the past hour except for the few that were stationed around the lodge. I’d been running routes alongside my sisters for that long, dying to hear anything from anyone, but there was nothing.
I reached out to Wyatt again, even though I figured it would be in vain like all the other times. “Wyatt, just let me know you’re okay, please. Just a single word and I’ll leave you alone.”
I waited and waited, but predictably, there was no answer. Digging my claws into the soft grass beneath me, I picked up the pace and made another lap around the lodge.
We’d successfully gotten everyone into the basement and had them barricade themselves, just in case of the worst possible outcome. We didn’t say it out loud, but we all knew a couch shoved in front of a wooden door wouldn’t stop a determined werewolf for long. We just had to hope it didn’t come to that.
It’d been quiet on our end, which was a good sign, I guess. That meant no one had broken through our ranks. But that also meant the conflict was still going on and we had no way of knowing how it was going. Or who was winning.
“I’m sure everyone’s okay,” Evey said, but it sounded she didn’t even believe herself anymore.
This was torture.
Knowing my mate was in danger and not being able to do anything about it. Being forced to hang back when all I wanted to do was find him and make sure he was okay. It was enough to drive a wolf mad, and as the minutes ticked by, it felt like I came closer and closer to flirting with that line.
I made another lap around the lodge and passed Will for the dozenth time. He’d opted to not join the fight, but he’d been outside with us and the enforcers since we’d locked down the rest of the pack. I didn’t know if that meant he’d defend the lodge against the Charlotte pack, and I hoped I didn’t have to find out.
I reached out mentally to one of the enforcers stationed with us, Austin. He was newer to the force and that was probably the reason he was stuck back here with us and not with the others in battle.
“Any news?”
“Nothing yet, Callie,” he responded right away, and I worked to not growl at his answer just because it wasn’t the one I wanted. It wasn’t his fault. He was as much in the dark as the rest of us.
I’d just made another lap around the lodge, pushing myself to run faster than ever when a sharp pain shot through my abdomen, stealing my breath and knocking me off my feet. I tumbled to the ground, my face skidding across the grass as I gasped in pain.
“Callie!”
“Callie!”
“Callie!”
My sisters called out to me, but I ignored them, focusing instead on the last voice I’d heard.
“Wyatt?!”
It had been his voice I’d just heard in my head, I knew it. I’d recognize it anywhere, even if it was distorted and weak and nothing like he normally sounded.
“Wyatt?!” I tried again. “What’s going on? Where are you? What just happened? Are you okay?”
I flung question after question into the void, but there was no answer from him. I’d almost convinced myself I’d imagined it, but the pain in my stomach was worsening and I had no explanation for it.
I curled into a ball on the ground, soft whimpers escaping my lips as the pain radiated through my whole body. On some level, I realized my sisters and a few of the enforcers had circled around me, but I was in too much pain to concentrate on that.
Just as the blackness had begun tunneling my vision and I knew I’d pass out from the pain, it abruptly vanished. I laid there panting, waiting for it to return, but it was gone, and it was like it had never been there to begin with.
I crawled to my feet and shook out my coat, expecting some kind of wound, but there was nothing. It was almost like I’d imagined the whole thing, but I knew I hadn’t.
And I also knew Wyatt was in trouble.
I don’t know how I knew that, or what led me to that realization, but I felt it down to my bones. He was hurt somewhere, and I had to get to him. Now.
Without giving it a second thought, I took off running. Question after question followed by demands and pleas filled my head from my sisters and the other wolves I’d just left, but I ignored them all. I didn’t have time to answer their questions and I couldn’t concentrate on that anyway. I was too busy following that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I knew would lead me to Wyatt.
I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, faster than I’d ever moved in my entire life, and it still took too long.
It still felt like years passed as I sprinted through the woods, my stomach in knots and my heart in my throat.
I burst through a cluster of trees and landed on a gravel drive leading to a small cottage. There were a couple vehicles parked out front including Abey’s truck, so I knew I was in the right place. I felt that thing tug in my stomach harder than ever and I knew Wyatt was nearby.
I trotted around the other side of a green Jeep I only vaguely recognized and finally picked up Wyatt’s leather scent. My feet carried me faster as I followed my nose. Finally, I caught sight of a body lying on the gravel drive and my heart leapt to my throat.
I raced over to him, my body shifting mid-stride. “Wyatt!” I screamed.
He was still and deathly pale except for the crimson blood leaking from a little round hole in his stomach. I reached out to him, but my hands just fluttered uselessly above his naked body. I didn’t know what to do or how to help, but I knew I needed to.
Because even though I could see the slight movement of his chest that meant he was still breathing, I knew he didn’t have much longer left. I knew he was dying. And I could not let that happen.
We hadn’t had enough time yet.
I wasn’t ready to lose him.
I refused to lose him.
“Callie?”
I looked up through watery eyes to find Ellie standing there, her face somber.
“What happened, Ellie?” I asked as the tears streamed down my face. I rubbed at them viciously, but they continued to fall as I listened to her explain.
Apparently, Peyton and her brother Paul had shown up at this cottage that Abey and Ellie were honeymooning at to kill her. Peyton never liked Ellie, and once she got kicked out of our pack, we all knew she’d hold a grudge, but I don’t think anyone expected her to go this far.
While Peyton confronted Ellie, Wyatt had tried to take out Paul when he got shot. Clearly, Paul knew he’d never win in a fight against Wyatt, so he’d had to resort to the gun he’d been issued as a cop.
I looked back down at him as my heart pounded in my throat and my stomach hollowed out. It was so typical of him to get himself hurt protecting someone else. He’d told me before what an honor it was that Abey had trusted him to protect Ellie. I knew he cared deeply about her. Knew he would have done anything to keep her safe, and the proof of that was the bullet hole that had ripped through his skin.
A sob tore from my throat as I leaned closer, my hands shaking violently. “Wyatt, please,” I begged. “Don’t leave me. I can’t lose you. Please,” I cried again.
I cupped his pale face between my hands and kissed his lips, hoping, praying, begging anyone who’d listen that it wasn’t the last time.
It couldn’t be.
I wouldn’t let it.
I sniffed hard and turned to Ellie. “Can you find me a shirt or something? I’m coming with you guys.”
“Um. Sure. Yeah. Here,” she said as she handed me a bundle of cloth. “See if you can get these on him.”
With careful movements, I slid a pair of shorts up his legs before looking around for something to stem the steady flow of blood leaking from his stomach. “I need something else. A rag or something,” I said out loud to whoever was listening.
If I’d had a stitch of clothing on me, I would have torn it off and used it, but I was bare and completely useless.
My brother came into view, a dirty cloth in his hands. “Here, this is better than nothing.”
I gratefully accepted it and pressed it against the bullet hole in Wyatt’s abdomen. Looking back up at his face, I found it even more pale than the last time I looked and my whole body shuddered in fear.
I was going to lose him if I didn’t get him some help fast.
“Help me get him in your truck,” I called to Abey. “He needs to get to the doctor now. He’s running out of time.”
My brother nodded once and hurried over to us. I watched him carefully slide his hands underneath Wyatt’s still body and lift him from the ground. I stood too, following them and doing my best to keep pressure on his wound. Abraham laid him gently in the bed of his truck.
Ellie came running out of the house moments later and tossed me a large shirt that I tugged on before climbing into the truck bed and crawling over to Wyatt. I pressed the rag harder against his stomach, wishing I could do more for him. Wishing I even knew what to do. Because for all my researching and knowledge and years of schooling, I was completely useless right now. Helpless and useless as I watched my mate slowly dying in front of me.
Thankfully, Abraham didn’t need my encouragement to gun the engine of his truck and race back toward pack lands. It was still the longest ride of my life, even if it was only a few minutes.
As we pulled up to the doc’s house, him and his mate, Doreen, came running out. Abraham jumped from the cab and yelled to them that Wyatt had been shot before racing to the back and lifting Wyatt again. I scrambled out of the truck bed and hurried behind them, my hands still gripping the bloody cloth I’d had pressed against his abdomen.
I followed Abraham back to an exam room where he set him on the table and left the room. Doc Monroe started his examination right away as Doreen came up to me and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You can wait out in the living room if you want.”
I shook my head, my spine stiff. “No. I’m not leaving him.”
“Callie, we’ll take good care of him.”
“I know you will, but I’m not going anywhere.”
Doc sighed from across the room. “Callie, I might have to operate.”
“Then I’ll scrub up too, but I’m not leaving.”
He sighed again and jerked his head to the side. “Fine. But stand over there and stay out of the way.”
I would have bristled at his curt words, but I couldn’t have cared less in that moment. He could have spit in my eye and I would have thanked him because he was the only person that could help my mate right then.
I stuffed myself into a corner and watched, the tears streaming unchecked down my face and the bloody rag still in my hands. I gripped it so tight I lost feeling in my fingers as I watched the doctor work on Wyatt.
“He’s bleeding internally from his spleen,” he muttered to his mate, who doubled as his nurse. “We’re going to have to open him up and take it out.”
My heart fell to the soles of my feet as I watched the two of them pull on protective gear and clean around Wyatt’s wound. Doreen walked over to me with a mask and a lab coat that I hurriedly pulled on.
The surgery might have taken minutes, or it might have been days. There was no way for me to tell time in that room, and so it became this abstract thing to me. All I knew was my mate was fighting for his life and I was pleading with every deity I’d ever heard of to save him. To let him live. To give me just one more day with him.
When Doc Monroe finished the last stich in Wyatt’s abdomen, he set down his needle and thread and sighed. “That’s about all I can do.”
My heart climbed up my throat, coming to a complete stop. “No,” I whispered. I staggered forward a step before my legs gave out completely and I fell to my knees. “No,” I said again, louder this time.
Doreen walked over and pulled me to my feet, her arm wrapping around my shoulders. “It’s in his hands now, Callie. He lost a lot of blood and his body’s working hard to replace it. What he needs now is time to rest and recuperate.”
I realized I’d been shaking my head the whole time she’d been talking and did my best to hold still. To stop breathing all together as I watched the slight rise and fall of Wyatt’s chest.
Doc Monroe sighed and pulled off his gloves. “You can stay with him while he sleeps off the anesthesia if you’d like.”
As if I had anywhere else to be.
As if there was anywhere else I could be.
As if my heart and soul wasn’t lying on the table right in front of me, struggling for each breath.
“I’m staying,” I said, my voice stronger than I’d anticip
ated.
The two of them finished up in the room as I pulled a chair next to Wyatt’s bed and picked up one of his clammy hands. I squeezed it between mine as the tears began to flow again and I closed my eyes.
The minutes dragged by as I steadily watched Wyatt’s chest rise and fall. Watched his nostrils flair with each breath and watched the pulse in his neck beat steadily. Doc and Doreen came in every once in a while to check on him, but not much changed. He was still fighting though and that’s all I could ask for. He was still breathing, and that was all I needed to continue taking breaths of my own.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but when something squeezed my fingers, I opened my eyes and realized I was face down on the edge of Wyatt’s bed. Something squeezed me again and I looked down at my hand to find it still wrapped around Wyatt’s. My eyes trailed from that hand, up his thick arm to his face, his light brown eyes cracked open and looking at me.
“Callie girl?” he croaked.
A soft sob wrenched from my chest as I inched closer to him. “Wyatt. You’re up,” I cried.
His thick brows pulled low over his eyes as he closed them again. “Why you cryin’?”
I wiped the stupid tears that were blocking my view of him and shook my head. “I’m not.”
“Liar.”
A watery chuckle fell from my lips as I kissed his hand. “I’m just so glad you’re awake. I was so worried about you.”
“What happened?” he whispered.
“You were shot.”
He was quiet for a moment before he groaned softly and shook his head. “Fucking Paul.”
I sniffed back the tears and stood up. “I should go get the doctor.”
He shook his head again and pulled gently on my hand. “No. Stay. I need you.”
A small crack raced through my heart as I sat back down and pulled his hand to my chest. “Okay. I won’t go anywhere.”
“I’m sorry, Callie girl.”
“For what?”
He squeezed his eyes closed and grunted softly. “Promised I’d come back.”
There was no stopping the tears this time. “It’s okay, Wy. It’s okay. You’re here and you’re going to be okay. That’s all that matters.”
Chasing Callie (Southern Werewolf Sisters Book 1) Page 32
