A Handful of Wolf (19 page)

Megan had stopped. She stared at him.
Move, Cariad, please
. He wanted her far away from here, somewhere safe and wolf-free. He knew the threat he’d brought to her doorstep, the risk he’d heaped upon her, without her even knowing. And he knew that as much as he loved her, he’d rather she lived a long and safe life with someone else, than a short and dangerous one with him.

Megan couldn’t take her eyes off the smaller wolf. It looked exactly the same as Dream-Sasha had done. Another case of déjà vu? Or something even more unbelievable? She must have banged her head. “Phillip,
no
. He’s trying to protect me.”

“What?” Phillip half turned to her and the larger wolf pounced. It reared up and struck Phillip in the chest, shoving him back against the nearest tree, before dragging him to the ground. He collapsed, lifeless, to the earth with the wolf biting at his neck.

“No!” Forgetting her own pains, she stumbled forward and grabbed the branch Phillip had just dropped. A final surge of strength filled her and she swung out at the larger wolf, hitting it in the face. “You bastard, I hope you rot in hell.” She heard the crunch of bones and teeth, and saw blood splatter across its fur before it fell to the ground. Unconscious or dead, she had no idea. The smaller wolf limped toward her and she dropped her makeshift weapon when the beast nudged against her leg. She saw the necklace again and couldn’t resist touching it. “How can you wear this? It belongs to Sasha.”

The wolf tensed and lifted its head, ears pricked. A second later, Megan heard a howl, and then another. Please
no
, not another one. She couldn’t fight another. The Sasha-look-alike didn’t seem worried, he just nudged her leg again and whined. She glanced down and saw Phillip lying motionless and bleeding. A crunching through the undergrowth heralded three—no, four—more wolves running into the clearing. Her heart sped up and she prepared to grab the branch again, but these paid her no attention. Two more charged up and they gathered in a group around the fallen wolf, glancing at her over their shoulders. Weird, just too fucking weird.

Megan dropped to a crouch beside Phillip. Blood flowed thickly from a bite on his shoulder. Too much blood. She had to stop the bleeding. She clamped a hand over the wound and pressed down, hard. He needed an ambulance.

The Sasha-look alike bumped her gently and she looked at him. The shimmer of rainbow sparks should have been a surprise, but so much crazy stuff had just happened, this was just another helping. Naked Sasha leaned over her, his breath rasping and noisy, and blood streaming down his face. Yeah, she’d definitely banged her head. This was concussion. She was dreaming. “You’re naked.”

His smile looked awkward and she realized he was bleeding further down too. His left leg was a mess below the knee, bloodied and torn. “Did he hurt you,
Cariad
?” She pressed Phillip’s wound harder and tried to breathe through lungs that seemed to have forgotten how to work. “Megan? Can you run, baby?” He touched her chin with a trembling hand and she nodded. He sounded like Sasha, looked like Sasha, but she knew it was a hallucination. He couldn’t really be a…a…
wolf
. A vicious animal like the one that had attacked her and Phillip.

“What are you?” It came out as a harsh cry, her throat all clogged up.

He stared deep into her eyes for a heartbeat, and then brushed a kiss onto her forehead. “I don’t need to tell you, you already know.” His whisper was for her alone. He held her gaze and then stood. “I need you to go and get help for Phillip.” His voice louder, rougher. “These wolves will protect you, you can trust them,
Cariad
.”

Trust them? She shrank back from the idea, but then he groped for her free hand and squeezed the fingers. “Do you trust me, Megan?”

*

Please trust me.
Sasha wanted her away from the clearing, back in her house where she might be safe, surrounded by her gun toting family and with the police on their way. The rogue wolf was still here somewhere and every minute she stayed outside, she was a target.

He searched her face, seeing the exhaustion and fear, the pain and confusion, and wanted to beat himself to a pulp. He’d caused this. If he’d kept his distance, not got involved, the rogue wolf would never have noticed her. His wolf whined.
Mine
. He shoved down the panic at the thought of life without his Mate and focused on Connor’s wolves.

He took a deep breath and turned to the wolf Alpha, easily recognizable by his size. “This isn’t him. It’s one of his men. He’s here somewhere, I can smell him.”

Connor shifted and stood before him. “I’ll send three wolves to escort your Mate to safety, the rest of us will hunt. I have the best enforcers in the country and if anyone can find him, they will. Are you staying here?”

Much as he wanted to be the one to take the rogue wolf down, someone had to keep Phillip alive until help came. He wasn’t sure he could run much further anyway, his leg was about to give out, and
Christ
, his shoulders hurt. Megan stared wild-eyed at him as though cornered by a dangerous predator, oh wait, she was. He felt deathly tired. Clothes, he needed his clothes. He hobbled the few yards to his abandoned jeans and pulled them up, trying not to yelp at the pain in his leg. Digging into his pocket, he grabbed his phone, dialed 1-1-1 and demanded an ambulance for Phillip. Attacked by a wild dog in the woods, in need of urgent medical aid. He had a missed call from Jake, but that could wait.

He stumbled back and collapsed to the ground next to Phillip’s prone body. Fuck, the man had lost a lot of blood. Megan was busy wadding her torn shirt over the wound and he took over, pressing down with all his remaining weight. She wore a skimpy camisole T-shirt underneath and he took one last, longing look at her beautiful curves. After today he’d clear out of her life.

“Go,
Cariad
.” He knew he sounded exhausted, and wondered fleetingly how much blood
he’d
lost.

“You’ll stay with him?” Her anxious voice cut another slice from his heart. He nodded, unable to speak. “We’ll talk later? I need to talk to you, Sasha.”

“Yes, of course.” Fuck, he was such a good liar. His last sight of her was as she hurried away through the trees, three of Connor’s wolves surrounding her.

*

Did she trust him? Sasha’s words echoed in Megan’s head. He’d run to her rescue, attacked the bigger wolf and now wanted to send her for help, for the man who’d attacked
him
. Her brain felt like it was working at half speed as yet another dream came to life. Running through the woods, wolves bounding alongside her, keeping her safe. Safe from what? She wasn’t entirely clear on that point.

The other naked man—
shifter
—had said they were hunting. Her mind shied away from what. Focus on Phillip, getting help for him. What about Sasha? He looked dead on his feet too. Could he be treated by a doctor? Would they know something was different about his body? What would happen to him?

She tripped over a lumpy tree root and nearly fell, but one of the wolves darted to her side and she grabbed him, keeping her balance, just. He gave her a big, doggy smile, vivid blue eyes glowing in a dark face. “Thank you,” she muttered. She’d wake up in a minute.

Rounding a corner she saw Alex, shotgun in hand. “Meggie!” He paused in his tracks and stared at the wolves, and for one horrified moment she thought he’d fire at them.

“Don’t hurt them!”

He closed the distance and swept her up in his arms in a big, reassuring brotherly hug. “For God’s sake, Meggie, we were scared shitless. What happened?” While she tried to process his words, she saw the three wolves melt away into the shadows as though they’d never been there. “Dad’s here, somewhere, and Phillip. Sasha said you’d been kidnapped.”
What
? She wriggled free and grabbed his shirtfront.

“Phillip’s hurt, and so is Sasha. He called an ambulance, but he might not make it. He sent me to get help.” Her words tumbled out in a mad rush and she tried to draw breath, to speak more clearly. Alex looked confused and she tried again. “By my old tree house. This wild…dog…attacked me and they tried to fight it off. Phillip’s been bitten and Sasha, he’s…”
He has the same eyes as the wolf that attacked me.
That was a shifter too? She shrank against the security of her brother. “They’re hurt bad,” she finished, unable to say any more.

Alex already had his phone out. What felt like seconds later, Dad was there too and she was leading them back to the tree house. They heaped questions on her, but she just shook her head. “Later,” she kept saying, “
later
.” When she’d had chance to think about it, to get her head around the enormity of what she knew. If she ever would. Alex fussed over her bleeding hand, but that was nothing and she refused to stop until they reached the clearing.

What the fuck?
The fallen wolf had gone. Phillip lay groaning on the floor with a strange man tending to him. Where was Sasha? She hesitated and stood still while Alex and Dad rushed to her ex. Sirens wailed in the distance. What about the other wolves? Where had they gone? Her head spun. She stepped forward, to the stranger;
he must know
. He turned to face her and she gasped, she recognized him.

“You’re Jonty. I met you with Sasha.” More brilliant blue eyes and a familiar, wolfish smile. Was he one of the wolves that ran home with her?

“I heard a cry, came to see if I could help.” He cocked his head slightly to one side. “Looks like the ambulance is coming, Miss. You don’t need me anymore.”

“Wait.” She needed to stop him before he left. “Where’s Sasha? And the wolf that attacked me?”

He shrugged. “Dunno anything about a wolf, but your friend left when I arrived.”

Sasha watched absently as a high-powered 4WD pulled up nearby and unloaded another couple of shifters. They hogtied the wolf that had been savaging Megan and tossed it into the back of the vehicle. He was still unconscious; his Mate had hit it good and hard. A tsunami of pain engulfed him.
Not
his Mate any more. He had to let her go. Someone snapped fingers in front of his face and he blinked, then focused on Connor. “You want to come too, Sasha? Give you a ride back to town. I’m going to interrogate this sucker, see what he can tell us.”

Sasha licked dry lips. “I can’t leave this guy. I promised.”

“Jonty can stay.” Connor nodded to a familiar looking shifter who came to crouch next to him. “You need stitching up, young wolf.”

His option was to wait here until the cavalry arrived, fend off a million more questions and run the risk of seeing Megan again. “Yeah, I will. Thanks.” Once upright again, he swayed when a wave of dizziness hit him, but managed to stagger the short distance to the vehicle. As the car sped back to Wellington, he remembered his phone and tugged it out of his pocket. Jake had sent a text after he’d failed to answer.

Tammy in hospital, prepping for appendix removal op. She’s worried about you, says something is wrong and won’t let them touch her until she speaks to you. Phone ASAP.

He took a deep calming breath and then another, and then thumbed the keypad and dialed Jake’s number. He picked it up after one ring.

“Sasha. Hold on, little cousin, I’ll pass you straight to Tammy.”

“Crasher. Are you okay? I’m terrified and I don’t know why. What’s happened?”

I watched as my Mate was nearly torn to shreds, only she’s not my Mate any more, and I need to walk away from her and pretend she never existed.
He swallowed and forced himself to sound normal, and not as though his soul was being ripped apart, one excruciating inch at a time. “I’m good, Tamster, just worried about you. Now go and get fixed, okay? I’ll be home soon.” The prospect of going home appealed immensely. The mountains and snow, and the endless space to roam in. He could run for days on end and not see a single person. “I might even come home early, make sure you’re taking good care of yourself.”

His twin sighed down the phone line thousands of miles away, but her amusement as clear as if she sat next to him. “Want to show off your Mate? I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

Sasha closed his eyes. He still saw Megan. “She’s, ah, not. She’s not my Mate. I was, uh, mistaken.”

“What?”

He couldn’t have this discussion right now. He just couldn’t. “Tamster, I have to go. Please let them fix you, sis. Now give the phone back to Jake, I’ll be home soon.”

“Sasha?” Jake sounded concerned.

“Cuz, I need to ask you a favor. Can you please sort me out a ticket on the first possible flight home? I’ll pay you back out of my savings.”

“Done, and don’t worry about the cost. I know you want to get back for Tammy. I’ll text you the details.”

* * * *

The little clearing was too crowded. Police, paramedics, Alex and Hugh tag-teaming as usual, and her father. The one person she wanted to see had vanished, leaving behind a grey T-shirt she recognized and a pair of sneakers. He was bare-chested and barefoot, wherever he was.
Or in his wolf form again
. No, she couldn’t think about that, it was too much to process. Instead, she tried to pay attention to the bizarre story Alex told her. They thought she’d been kidnapped? No, she’d gone for a walk. Her phone would be at home in her bag. She’d no idea where Sasha and Phillip had got that idea from.

She let the paramedic clean the wound across her palm and then went to the hospital with Phillip; Alex and Hugh followed in another car. Phillip was awake, but confused and concussed, and in need of an urgent blood transfusion. He remembered crashing head first into a tree, and then the dog dragging him to the ground and biting. His memories of earlier were fuzzy. He couldn’t remember why he’d even been there, or if he’d been alone.

Hours later, Megan escaped from the hospital. Her brothers refused to leave her side and together they walked slowly across the car park to Hugh’s car. “I need to go and see Sasha. Will you take me to his house please?”