Loving Her Scars (Loving Her Scars Series Book 1)

by B M Griffin

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Shayla

  “Noooo!”

  Shayla saw Jim aim the rifle in Adam’s direction, but she couldn’t get to him stop him from pulling the trigger. It was like everything moved in slow motion, yet she still couldn’t get to him fast enough. Jim had come out of nowhere and aimed, what must have been the world’s largest rifle, at Adam. She launched herself in his direction, taking out anyone who stood in her way. Jim made his way to Adam’s body, and as Jim looked down at Adam she saw him smile in triumph. An image of Eric staring down at her bloody, broken body popped into her mind and Shayla screamed. She threw all of her power into getting to Adam and removing that smile from Jim’s face.

  Jim turned her way, the barrel of the gun pointed straight at her, but she didn’t hesitate. Shayla launched herself at Jim, his gun going off as he fell back when she slammed into him. Some part of her felt the sting of the bullet but her focus was on getting to Adam. Jim didn’t stand a chance against her, the heat from her flames engulfing him until he went up in dust.

  Shayla turned toward Adam’s body, lying limp on the ground. She could hear his heart still beating, but it was so faint, even the slightest breeze drowned out the sound. And the blood—there was so much blood. Shifting back to her human self she bent over Adam’s body trying to find the source of the bleeding. She had to try to stop it.

  The wound was huge and Adam was losing too much blood. Shayla tried putting pressure to slow the bleeding, but with only her hands to work with it was like stopping a water fountain with a strainer—everything was still getting through.

  “Cauterize the wound.”

  Jared’s voice came from nowhere startling her. On instinct, Shayla pushed her power to the surface, her body immediately engulfing itself in her purple flames.

  Jared stepped back with his hands held up in front of him. “Shayla, you’ve got to help him. You’ve gotta stop the bleedin’ now.”

  Shayla dropped back down to her knees beside Adam, tears flowing freely down her face. “I can’t,” she choked out.

  Jared dropped down beside her, careful not to touch her. “You can.” She looked at him through blurred eyes. “Use your heat. Cauterize the wound before he bleeds out.”

  “But I’ll just kill him for sure if I touch him like this.” She held up her hands, engulfed in flames.

  “Not if you control the amount of power you put into your touch. You can do this, Shayla. I know you can.”

  Shayla looked at the blood seeping out of Adam’s side. She had to try. If she didn’t he was going to die anyway. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her power. She pulled the power back inside of her until it was barely a flicker on the surface. Shayla opened her eyes and took in her outstretched arms. Instead of the open flames that had covered her from head to toe, her arms were now just faintly glowing purple light sticks instead of fire. Shayla lowered her hand to Adam’s side. Please let this work. She touched her fingertips to his wound. The smell of searing flesh filled her nose, but he didn’t go up in smoke so that was a good sign.

  “That’s good,” Jared said. “Make sure you run your hand around the whole wound. You should notice the bleeding slowing down.”

  Shayla did as Jared instructed, and Adam’s bleeding finally slowed. She looked up to Jared. “We’ve gotta get him out…”

  Another loud boom sounded and Shayla turned just in time to see Sharon with a rifle aimed in their direction. Shayla quickly covered Adam’s body and the bullet went through her arm, but luckily missed Adam.

  She reared her head back and screamed as the pain shot through her arm, but before she had the chance to get to her feet and take Sharon down, Sharon’s screams filled the air, but were abruptly cut off. Looking in the direction of the scream, she saw Sharon’s body on the ground, a giant black wolf on top of her. She could hear the wolf snarling as he yanked his head upward. The wolf jerked his head to the side, and Sharon’s head went rolling down the hill, then he stepped away from her body and shifted. Kevin Hall started making his way over to Shayla, blood from decapitating his own pack member running down his mouth.

  Jared jumped between them, shifting mid-air, and blocking Kevin’s path to Shayla. Kevin just smiled and kept moving toward her, but when Jared was joined by several other members of their pack, Kevin finally stopped advancing as he took them all in with a big, toothy smile. “Jared, and friends,” he swept his hands outward, indicating the pack of wolves now staring him down, teeth bared ready to rip off his head the way he’d done to Sharon, “I mean no harm to Shayla. As you can see, I’ve punished Sharon for her mistake.”

  Shayla got to her feet; her bloody arm held tight against her body. “Just go!” she screamed.

  “Oh, I plan to,” Kevin said. He raked his eyes up and down her body, but Shayla refused to cower under his gaze. “I just need one little thing before I can go. Give me what I want and I’ll clear all of my pack out of here and we won’t return.”

  Shayla glance back at Adam. She’d been able to slow down his bleeding, but he was still in really bad shape. He needed help soon or he was going to die. She turned back to Kevin and his eyes were boring into her. There was no way he was still after Adam, not considering the shape he was in. No, he wanted her. She knew it even before he said it. It was the only explanation for his reaction to Sharon shooting her. He was obsessed with power, and he would have seen the power she’d wielded against his people. He wanted it for himself, to control and use to his benefit. She had no idea how many they’d already lost in this fight, but she couldn’t let anymore die for her.

  Kevin met her stare. “I think you know what I want, don’t you, Shayla?”

  Jared lunged forward, teeth bared, and a ferocious growl coming from his throat. Shayla stepped up next to him and he turned his head to look at her, but she kept her eyes on Kevin. If she looked at Jared she might back out of her decision and she had to do this. She might be powerful, but she couldn’t take on all of Kevin’s pack, and she needed the fighting to stop so Adam could get help before he could bleed out. She might be able to kill Kevin, but she stood to lose so much more if she wasn’t successful. Besides, she’d killed enough for one night and she didn’t think her soul could bear the guilt of one more kill in that moment. The guilt was already creeping in and darkening her heart.

  “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  Kevin’s smile grew wider. “I’m very happy to hear that.”

  Jared shifted, grabbing her arm. “Shayla, don’t. Adam needs you. You know he’ll never stop fighting to get you back.”

  “You have to find a way to make him, Jared. I can’t watch anyone else get hurt for me. I can take care of myself. You just take care of him. Make sure he lives, please.”

  “Shayla.”

  “Promise me, Jared.”

  Jared sighed. Shayla had never seen him sad but right then he looked like he’d lost his best friend. “I’ll keep him alive, but without you, it won’t matter. He’ll die in the worst way.”

  Shayla felt a pain in her chest so agonizing, she was amazed she was still on her feet. Even when Eric beat her within an inch of her life the pain hadn’t come close to what she was feeling in that moment. She knew Jared was right because in that moment, as she was letting Adam go, her heart shattered and her soul died inside of her. The effort she was using just to hold back her tears was nearly debilitating, but she had to push herself to do this and she wouldn’t let Kevin have the satisfaction of seeing her break down.

  Kevin held out his arms as if he intended to escort her wherever they were going, but Shayla just glared at him. “Let’s get this straight right now. We aren’t friends, and we never will be. I’m doing this to protect my pack, and you can believe me when I say that I will kill you if you fail to keep your side of the deal. If you so much as joke about going near anyone of them again, I will turn you to dust.”

  Kevin laughed, but he dropped his arm. “Becoming a werewolf has been good for you.”

&nb
sp; Shayla couldn’t stand there and listen to his bullshit anymore. She turned her back and started walking away—away from her pack and away from her heart.

  ****

  Adam

  Adam woke up with a start. He was alone and there were so many wires stuck in him, he felt like a marionette. He started snatching wires out of his arms. He needed to find Shayla; needed to see that she was okay. He remembered feeling a blinding pain, he’d been shot he was pretty sure, but everything was a thick fog after that.

  Joanna came rushing into the room, trying to grab his hands to stop him from ripping out the last wires. “Oh, hun, why’d ya do that? Ya need to put these back where they were.”

  Adam waved her off. “I’m good. I gotta find Shay. Make sure she’s not hurt.”

  Joanna grew quiet, a trait she was not known for so it caught his attention. Her face turned stark white and she looked like she was going to be sick.

  Adam felt bile rise up his own stomach. “No, please, no. Joanna, please tell me she’s alive.”

  “I think you need to talk to Jared.”

  Tears stung his eyes and a piece of his heart slowly ripped away causing an agony that was far worse than the pain of getting shot. “Joanna, please, I need to know. Just tell me if she’s alive.”

  Joanna shut her eyes, tears running down her cheeks and he knew…

  “She’s alive.”

  Jared’s voice came from the doorway and Adam immediately brought his eyes up to meet those of his alpha-his friend. In a stark contradiction to his words, there was a deep, resonating sadness marking everything about Jared, from his sullen facial expression to the way he limped when he walked. Jared looked as broken as he felt. If Shayla was alive why couldn’t he feel her? He could always sense when she was close thanks to his bonded wolf. Something was wrong. Adam felt it in his heart, and in his soul. Something was very wrong.

  Adam narrowed his eyes at his long-time friend. What wasn’t Jared telling him? “Where is she Jared?”

  Jared’s tired eyes focused on Joanna. “Joanna, please let us have some privacy.”

  Joanna scurried out of the room like a scared mouse, something that was not at all like the loud, vibrant woman he’d grown to love as his sister. Whatever Jared was about to tell him was bad, Joanna knew it, and clearly didn’t want to be around when Adam was finally clued in.

  Jared raked his hands through his hair and began pacing the width of the room, but he wasn’t saying anything, and Adam was getting really fucking tired of being evaded. “Jared, tell me what the fuck’s going on.”

  Jared finally met him in the eye. “She’s gone.”

  Adam took a step forward, anger building momentum inside of him. “You said she was alive, so what the fuck do you mean she’s gone!”

  “Kevin said he’d leave us and never come after another member of our pack.”

  Understanding hit Adam like a grenade, and he was across the room and in Jared’s face in under two seconds. He clenched Jared’s shirt in his fists and brought their faces nose to nose. “Tell me you did not let her leave with him.”

  “I tried to stop her.”

  “Tell me you did not let her leave with him!”

  “I tried, brother, but you were dying and she saw it as the only way to stop the fighting so we could save your life. She thinks all of this was her fault.”

  Adam shoved Jared away from him, and turned to the closest thing near him, picking up the chair and smashing it into the wall across the room.

  He heard Jared take a step closer to him. “She said she loves you but she couldn’t watch anyone else get hurt.”

  Adam clutched his chest as he fell to the floor, all his strength wiped out of him in one blow. He imagined the pain in his chest to be similar to the pain of a soul being tortured in Hell by Lucifer himself, only this had to be at least a thousand times worse. His heart didn’t break, it was ripped apart one small piece at a time keeping the tortured pain coming again and again. Until that very moment, he hadn’t been sure if he believed in the idea of souls, but he was certain they were real and a part of all of us. He knew that because he could feel his being ripped from his body, his soul dying while his body continued to exist. He wouldn’t say live. Nothing about him was alive in that moment, nothing but his pain and anger.

  Adam stayed there, on the floor, sobbing for what felt like hours. At some point, he felt Jared lay a hand on his shoulder, trying to offer him comfort, but it was no use. Shayla was gone. She’d left him and knowing Kevin he would keep her on the move so they couldn’t find him.

  Kevin’s face filled his mind. He could see the sonofabitch smiling, mocking him, just as clear as if he’d been standing right in front of him. The holes left behind by his broken soul were quickly filled with a white-hot rage unlike anything Adam had ever experienced before.

  Getting to his feet he turned to face Jared who took a step back and away from him. “Adam? Your flames…but you didn’t shift. Maybe Shayla’s powers aren’t just hers. Maybe you just hadn’t tapped into your full potential yet.”

  Adam held out his hands. His arms were engulfed in the blue flames he’d only ever experienced as a wolf. Looked like Jared was right. It had just taken a shattered soul for him to reach his full potential.

  He met Jared’s eyes. “I’m getting her back, and I’m gonna kill Kevin and anyone who gets in my way.”

  “I thought you’d say that. The pack is ready when you are.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Shayla

  Shayla stared out the window of her prison. Maybe she couldn’t call it that since she knew she could leave if she wanted to. Kevin was no match for her. It was just that every time she thought about someone else getting hurt, or her having to kill someone else so that she could survive, her already broken heart sunk further into the pit of her stomach and she felt like retching. She kept replaying the night their pack fought over and over in her mind. So many people were lost on both sides. She kept seeing Eric’s face when he realized what was about to happen to him, then she relived the moment when he turned to dust—when she turned him to dust. It wasn’t that she cared for Eric, no, he’d made sure of that years ago, but she had never imagined that taking another life could come so easy to her. In reality, the act of taking his life had been exceedingly easy and that scared her more than anything. She had convinced herself at the time that it was necessary, but she wasn’t so sure anymore. He’d been locked up and from what she’d overheard from Jim they weren’t going to come in after him.

  Then there were the images of Adam lying on the ground, bleeding out, dying. Those were the images that always brought her to her knees. He had almost died, hell for all she knew he had, but there was something inside of her that said he had not. Some sliver of her soul that had miraculously remained intact, an instinct that told her he had survived.

  She was on the floor in front of the window, her head bent forward in her hands, and her face was tear streaked and blotchy from crying when she heard the door open. She knew who it was without looking. She knew his scent and had learned to loath it. She didn’t lift her head, didn’t turn around to see him in in a fancy suit and his fake concerned expression.

  “Oh, Shayla dear, I had hoped you’d be ready to go by now.”

  Kevin’s voice grated on her nerves like the cries of a banshee luring in her next victim. She didn’t move and she didn’t respond. She’d agreed to come with him so he’d leave the people she loved alone, but she never said she would help him. It was a point that he somehow seemed to miss, but not her. She certainly had not agreed to come with him to spare people’s lives just to hurt or kill others so he could obtain more power.

  When she failed to respond, Kevin spoke again, “Shayla, you’re my beta now. It’s expected that you be at my side during certain events.”

  That time she did let a horrid bit of laughter escape before she put it back in the box. That was another thing he’d been trying to shove down her throat, insisting she be h
is beta since she’d killed his last one when she took out Jim. He’d even went as far as announcing her position to his pack, or so he’d said. She hadn’t been present. She hadn’t been present for anything in the weeks since she’d left with him. He’d brought her to this house, wherever it was, she hadn’t paid attention, and shown her to this room declaring it as hers. It didn’t feel like her room. To her it was a prison, locks or not, she couldn’t leave unless she wanted to risk another battle and more lives lost, and she wouldn’t do that. No more lives needed to be lost because of her.

  She heard him approaching, but she still didn’t respond until his hand landed on her shoulder. Shayla was off the ground in a nanosecond. Her body spun around to face Kevin, her canines descended and bared as a low warning growl rolled up from her throat. She allowed her powers to breach the surface enough that she knew her eyes and skin were glowing. A warning to him not touch her again.

  “Fine. Fine.” He held up his hands and took a couple steps back and away from her. “You know Shayla, my patience is starting to run thin. Either you get with the program or I’ll be forced to go back for Adam. Now that I have you, I’ve got a feeling he’d be much more inclined to follow my instructions.”

  Shayla shifted and launched herself at him, but he was quick to get out of the way. He might not have the powers Adam or she possessed, but she got the feeling he was a lot more powerful than any of them knew. She could feel it emanating.

  She shifted back, and even though seeing his eyes rake over her body made her skin crawl, she stood tall and forced her arms to her side, refusing to cover up and let him think he was getting under her skin. He was, but she wasn’t going to advertise it to him.