Fighter (Outsider Series) (28 page)

The mutant fell and I tore into its side. Its entrails spilled onto the ground and
I spat out the rusty, decaying taste that clung to them.

Bentley finished off the other one. His golden eyes met mine in thanks and then he was gone.

I tore into the nearest mutant, ripping his legs from his torso. Nearby, Nolan roared and a wolf howled. Chaos reigned in the once silent forest, between the mutants and us.

Everything was in complete chaos. Wolves and mutants were everywhere and often there were limbs flying through the air as the mutants were torn apart.

I ran through the fray, tearing into every mutant that cut across my path. I was unstoppable, a force to be reckoned with, I was the
she-wolf
.

Mutants seemed to pop up everywhe
re. I lost count after a while because every time I killed one, another appeared.

The fact that this shouldn’t have been possible, and there were so many of them, scared
me.

A mutant started towards me, a grin on its lopsided face, its hands reaching for me.

Bring it, freaky zombie-mutant-thingy.

I snarled, baring my teeth.

It turned its head slightly, stopping. It seemed to be contemplating something but then, with a shake of its head it came at me once more.

I launched myself at its chest, digging my claws into its flesh.

It cried out, a very human sound, and I found myself hesitating.

But then the mutant bit me and all hesitation left me. With one snap of my jaw against the mutant’s neck, it was
dead.

I jumped off of the dead mutant and shook my fur
, when I saw a mutant escaping into the forest and went after her.

Unlike the blond girl, this one put up a fight. She kept biting me with her razor sharp teeth and wiggling around
so that I couldn’t get a hold of her jugular. I pressed all my weight on her chest and heard a few ribs crack. Her face contorted in pain but she kept fighting me. I scratched her with my claws, digging deeply, and she roared. For just a second, she stopped fighting and that’s all it took for me to end her life.

I’m sorry.
I thought towards the nameless girl.

A hiss from behind, caused me to turn.

A male mutant looked from the dead girl to me. Pain reflected in his eyes when he looked at her. Veins bulged underneath the surface of his skin. With a high-pitched scream, he charged me. I rolled out of the way, barely. He caught some of my fur in his fingers and it tore free from my skin with a ripping sound. I yelped in pain.

Grinning, with all those pointed teeth showing
, he bore down on me. I tried to get away. I kicked and I clawed him. But he was huge. He picked me up by the back of my neck. He lifted me until he could look into my eyes, much the way Travis had held the girl. He tilted his head, considering, and then he threw me.

I slammed into a tree
, a good twenty feet away. The snapping I heard wasn’t from the tree. It was the bones in my body breaking, and shattering. I screamed. I didn’t know a wolf could scream but I did. I saw the mutant flinch from the noise I was making and I couldn’t seem to stop. The pain was everywhere. I couldn’t move. He stalked towards me, a grin of triumph on his decaying face, and I braced myself for death. He started running, and was almost to me when a wall of blonde fur cut him off.

The wolf bit into his leg and tore. The mutant’s leg separated from his body and he slumped to the ground.

He wasn’t dead yet, though. The blonde wolf turned towards me as the mutant reached for the wolf.

Nooooooo!
I screamed.

The mutant grabbed the wolf’s neck and twisted.

I won’t forget that sound for the rest of my life. A sound like ripping paper.

The mutant fell backwards,
having used the last of its energy, and took one loud gurgling breath, before dying.

I watched in horror as my friend dropped to the ground.

Logan’s pale green, human eyes, met mine. His jaw was slack and his eyes were glazing over. His neck was twisted at an unnatural angle.

No! No! No!
I screamed.

I kept hearing Caeden’s words echo throughout my skull.
“If we die as a wolf, our bodies always revert back to human form.”

Logan was dead.

The pain in my body was forgotten as I looked at my dead friend. He’d died protecting
me.
This was my fault.

I lifted my head as much as I could manage and howled in mourning.

* * *

The fight raged around me but I was powerless to do anything. The breaks my body had sustained were going to take days to fully heal. I didn’t even have the strength left to move away from the action.

That meant
I ended up staring into Logan’s lifeless green eyes.

I didn’t know Logan as well as I did the others
, but he was still my friend. He’d died for me and if the situation were reversed, I would’ve made the same decision. Your pack is more than just being ‘friends’, they’re your family, and you’ll do anything for them.

Flinching from the pain, but beyond caring, I stretched out my paw and placed it gently in his open hand.

I knew his soul was long gone, but I still wanted to offer him as much comfort as I could.

Sophie!

Sophie!

Sophie!

Different wolves called for me.

I’m fine!
I called back.

Caeden i
s hurt!
It was Bryce’s panicked voice.

My heart kicked into o
verdrive and adrenaline coursed through my veins. The adrenaline would speed up the healing process but I would still be out of commission for a while.

I’m fine but I
’m hurt. There’s no way I’ll be able to get to him. And…

And what?
I heard Bryce again, he sounded closer this time.

Logan’s dead.
I whispered.

Silence.
The kind of silence that speaks volumes.

Bryce appeared in front of me and surveyed me.
Shit, you look terrible.

Thanks Bryce, that’s what every girl wants to hear.
I snapped.

Just sayin’. We’re both going to have to shift to human form so that I can carry you.
Bryce said.

Greeeeaaaat.

Hey, it’s not like you haven’t seen Thunder.
He chuckled at me.

Don’t remind me.
I groaned.

Are you really going to argue about this when Caeden’s hurt?
Bryce asked.

I shifted.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, now human. He picked me up as gently as he could, but I still screamed. It felt like every inch of skin on my body had been beaten with a meat tenderizer.

When I saw Caeden with
blood matted fur and gasping for breath, I nearly jumped out of Bryce’s arms.

“Caeden!” I screamed, reaching for him, forgetting all about my own pain.

I had to get to him,
now
.

Bryce set me
down on the ground.

“Are you sure this will work? I thought-”
I started.

“
Travis isn’t an Alpha, anymore,” Bryce answered.

“Oh, Caeden,” I sobbed, staring at the bloody mess that was his shoulder. The skin was shredded and the muscle completely visible.

“I don’t know what to do!” I cried.

“Sophie,” Bryce said calmly. “Don’t over think this. Just do it.”

I placed my hand lightly against the torn tissue and Caeden grunted. I was so sore that I could barely lift my arm, but for Caeden I would do it. I closed my eyes and willed him to heal. I willed him to
live
. His breathing became stronger and I opened my eyes to watch as the shredded muscles and tissue stitched back together.

When his sh
oulder was healed back to the point where his own healing powers would be able to take over, I moved to the other spots. A deep cut on his stomach, a gash on his leg, and a rip in his ear.

The energy it took to heal him was my undoing and I finally collapsed into darkness.

* * *

Every part of my body hurt. My arms, my legs, even my scalp and fingernails hurt. At this point, death would’ve been nice, but I was a fighter and I wouldn’t succumb to that.

I kept my eyes closed
, and let the hum of the voices around me, lull me back to sleep.

*
* *

My body was rocking.  Up and down. Up and down.

I felt something warm, and pressed my cold cheek against it. I sighed in pleasure at the contact.

Wind gusted against my hair… Or was it something else?

My eyes were too heavy to open up and see. I had never been exhausted like this before. It was like my whole body was in hibernation. The only thing that assured me that I was alive, was the steady beating of my heart.

I heard a thump and then my body was being placed on something cold. I cried and reached out for the missing warmth. I began to shiver all over, which only made me scream as my broken bones shifted around.

So. Much. Pain.

And I couldn’t even open my eyes. Instead, I was trapped in darkness.

Oh, God! What if I was blind?

Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes
, but I was too weak to wipe them away.

“I’m sorry, Soph,” a thumb stroked away my tears. “I should have been with you. I
promise
as soon as I’m strong enough, I’ll heal you.”

Something soft was gently wrapped around my quaking body.

“I’m so, so, sorry.”

*
* *

I could fe
el it flowing through my veins. It was ice cold and I wiggled to get away from it.

“Sophie! Stop! Soph! It will help with the pain until I can heal you!”

Didn’t the voice know that the ice-cold liquid, hurt? It was burning my veins.

“Is the morphine working?” Another voice
asked.

“Not yet. She might burn it off too fast to help. Do you know what happened to her?” The person that this voice belonged to gently brushed my hair away from my forehead. I flinched from the contact and the hand disappeared.

“She slammed into a tree… healing you did her in.”

“But she’ll be fine, right?”

“In a few days… maybe more. She’d heal faster if she’d switch to wolf form but with all the broken bones, I wouldn’t recommend that.”

“As long as she’s going to be okay, I don’t care how long it takes.”

“You’ll be no good to her if you’re dead on your feet. Get some rest Caeden.”

I heard someone walk away and a door close.

I assumed I was in a bed, as the side to my right dipped down, and I felt a sheet pulled over me.

“From now on, Sophie,
we fight together. Never apart… I never want to have to see you in so much pain, again. You shouldn’t have healed me, baby. I would’ve been fine.” Tears splashed onto my shoulder. “You’re so much braver than I am. I love you.”

The morphine chose that moment to kick in and I was lost.

* * *

My eyes blinked open and I saw light for the first time in days. The harsh brightness caused me to flinch and cover my eyes.

I could move!

I lowered my arm and wiggled my fingers, then my toes. No pain.

“Hey beautiful, I was starting to think I was going to have to kiss you, in order to wake you.”

“Caeden,” tears clogged my throat as I reached for his scruffy cheek.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he gently cradled me against his chest.

“What happened!? There was so much blood! I thought you were dead! Oh, God! Logan’s dead! Is anyone else dead? Hurt? Are the mutants gone? What about Travis?”

“Shh, baby, shh. One thing at a time,” Caeden crooned.

I gripped his shirt in my hands.

He reached out and tucked my hair behind my ears. His fingers brushed against my cheek and lingered there. I leaned into it, soaking him in.

“Baby, you healed me, you don’t remember?”

I nodded. “I remember, I just… I thought I might be too late. I thought I was going to lose you forever, before I ever really had the chance to have you.”

He gently kissed my tears away before
putting his left hand in the air.

“Soph, as long as I where this,” he wiggled his ring finger,
“I promise nothing bad will happen to me. When we venture into the afterlife, it will be together. We’re going to live a long life, Sophie. One day we’re going to have grandbabies running around and we’ll be old and gray. We’re going to die together, in our sleep, not by the hand of some psychotic wolf.”