Soul Bonded (27 page)

“He loved to go hunting. And I loved for him to do it. Nothing got him worked up like playing with a human woman before he came home to me.” Lisa lingered by the edge of the trees with a sneer on her face. “Zeke was a predator. You’re prey. He attacked you because that’s how nature works. But you know how nature
doesn’t
work?” She gestured at Rafe, then at her. “You two are an abomination. You’re
disgusting
. And I promise you I won’t stop hunting you until you’re screaming for mercy with my teeth in your throat.”

Katie had to forcibly stop herself from physically recoiling. She readjusted her aim, somehow holding her arm steady. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Lisa growled, then shifted into wolf form. She hobbled away slowly, clearly more affected by the nightlong battle than she’d let on. Katie trained her gun on Lisa’s back and watched her slow retreat, not lowering the weapon until she was long out of sight. Afraid to drop her guard but all too aware that Rafe’s time could be running out, she waited for a minute or so after losing sight of Lisa, then reluctantly pocketed the revolver and ran to Rafe’s fallen body.

His skin was frighteningly cold—far colder than she’d ever felt him. His blue-tinged lips brought her heart into her throat, but it was the red blood streaked across his chest, thighs, and face that really worried her. She ran her hands up the chilled, tacky plane of his chest, then pressed her fingers to his neck to search for a pulse. He was alive, but in rough shape. Though she saw no wounds that appeared to be fatal, the fact that he hadn’t yet regained consciousness concerned her deeply. That Lisa was awake told Katie that it was past time for Rafe to rouse from his moon-induced sleep, but he didn’t stir even when she bent and pressed her lips to his in a quick, desperate kiss.

“Please, Rafe.” Katie laced her fingers with his and squeezed, waiting for some sign that he could hear her. “Wake up, baby. I really need you to wake up.”

He didn’t move. Katie raised her head and scanned the tree line, then the unmoving bodies around them. They were incredibly vulnerable out in the open like this. For all she knew, Lisa wasn’t the only rival pack member who’d survived the night.
 
She needed to get him into the cabin as quickly as she could. As long as they stayed outside, they weren’t safe. But she had no idea how to move an unconscious man of Rafe’s size the thirty yards to the cabin, then up the porch steps and inside. If he wouldn’t wake up, she was in for a long, difficult task that would leave her completely exposed and helpless if Lisa or her friends decided to return.

Panic surged through Katie and she put her hands on his shoulders, shaking him hard. “Rafe!” She waited for his eyelashes to flutter, for a groan—some sign of life. But there was nothing.
 

A crushing wave of despair threatened to derail her. Rafe was alive, yes, but something was very wrong.
 

Katie stood up and, after a final glance around, slipped the revolver into the back of her jeans. Then she bent and grabbed Rafe beneath the arms. Summoning all the strength she had remaining, she grunted and dragged him a couple of inches across the slick snow. She had to stop and rest almost immediately. His limp body was impossibly heavy, and her ankle and hand throbbed from the events of the night before.

“Shit.” Tears slipped out of her eyes and froze on her cheeks, drawing her attention to just how frigid the morning air was. Nervous about letting her emotions get the better of her, she searched the trees once more, ready to draw the gun and defend Rafe to the death. Still quiet. Giving his arms another tug, Katie managed to move him a few inches closer to the porch before his foot got caught on the leg of the dead body lying beside him. No matter how hard she tugged, the corpse held him stubbornly in place. Exhausted, she let go of Rafe’s arms and fell backwards into the snow with a frustrated cry. “
Fuck
.”

“You look like you could use some help.”

Startled by the quiet female voice at her back, Katie leapt to her feet and whirled around as she withdrew the revolver from her jeans. An attractive brunette woman stood beside Rafe’s porch, not ten feet away, completely nude and wearing an expression of genuine concern. She narrowed her eyes when Katie pointed the gun at her head, but didn’t move.

“Don’t come any closer,” Katie warned in a tremulous voice. She swiped away her tears quickly, determined not to show any weakness. They might be the predators and she the prey, but she was damn sure going to do everything she could to defend Rafe. “Stay back.”

The woman ignored her and took a step forward. “Is he alive?”

She aimed at the woman’s forehead. “Stop or I’ll shoot you. I swear I will.”

The woman stopped. Then she sighed. “I came to help Rafe. Want to put down your gun and let me?”

Katie lowered the gun slightly, but didn’t relax. “Who are you?”

“My name is Susan.” She looked past Katie and frowned. “Why is he unconscious? Is he badly injured?”

Susan. The name tickled at her memory before she recalled why it sounded so familiar. “Rafe’s Susan?”

A smile played at the corners of the other woman’s mouth. “I haven’t been Rafe’s for a long time.” She moved forward, hand up to forestall Katie’s protest. “It’s not safe for either of you out here. We can talk while we carry him to the truck.”

“The truck? No, I need to get him inside so I can look at his injuries—“

“That’s not a good idea.” Susan lowered her hand. “As soon as the pack regroups and realizes the losses they’ve taken, they’ll come for you. And it’ll most likely be with Jack Devereaux’s blessing—if not his help.”

“We didn’t choose this fight,” Katie said. She kept the gun trained on Susan, afraid to trust her. “We were only defending ourselves.”

“I know. But this,” Susan gestured at the bodies lying around them, “is a pretty big fucking deal.”

Katie wanted help so badly that she was tempted to simply pocket the revolver and hope for the best. She was almost certain she couldn’t get Rafe into the truck alone. But the sudden reappearance of Susan after years missing seemed too coincidental to be true. Too easy. She didn’t trust the situation any more than the woman who claimed to be Rafe’s long, lost love. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

“I want Rafe to live. Now please.” Ignoring the gun pointed at her, Susan closed the distance between them and knelt at Rafe’s side. She reached to touch his throat, but Katie knocked her hand away with her foot. Susan narrowed her eyes, then snatched the revolver out of Katie’s hand before she could react. “You’re starting to test my patience,” Susan said as she rose to her feet. For a breathless moment, she pointed the gun at Katie’s head and stared hard into her eyes. Then she turned the revolver around and offered Katie the handle. “I could have killed you just now, if I’d wanted to.” Katie took the weapon with a shaking hand and Susan knelt back beside Rafe. “I hope you’ll take that as a sign of good faith that I don’t particularly want to.”

It was agony to decide whether to accept help from a strange werewolf after everything that had happened. This woman could be anyone. It was possible that Rafe’s enemies knew about his history with Susan—especially if they were the ones responsible for her disappearance. This could be an elaborate plan to get her to drop her guard. But what other choice did she have? Unless she was willing to kill Susan right now, the only thing left to do was accept her help and pray that her trust wasn’t misplaced. The fact that she desperately needed the help made the decision feel like it was hardly one at all. “Fine. Help me carry him.”

Susan was far stronger than she looked. She grabbed Rafe by the arms and hefted him into the air, leaving Katie to pick up his feet and follow her as she carried him to the old Chevy pickup truck parked out front. Both the driver’s side and passenger windows were smashed in. Yet another way the rival pack had entertained themselves during the run-up to the main event, she supposed. Nervous that they’d caused more serious damage, she checked the tires.
 
Snow was still piled around them, but hadn’t drifted high enough to block access to the passenger door. The good news was that the snow had probably protected the tires from vandalism. The bad news was that they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere until they cleared it away.

As though reading her mind, Susan said, “Let’s get him in the passenger seat and then I’ll help you dig out the truck.”

Nodding, Katie allowed Susan to support more of Rafe’s weight while she tugged on the passenger side door handle. It was locked. “Shit.”
 

“Where are the keys?”

Katie turned and looked at the cabin, then Susan. “Next to the icebox.”

“I’ll get them.” Susan jerked her head at a patch of fresh snow beside them. “Let’s just set him down. You can wait here and guard him.”

Glad that Susan wasn’t expecting her to leave Rafe, Katie nodded. “All right.” Once they lowered him onto the snow, however, her paranoia kicked in. Did she trust Susan in the cabin alone? Shilah was in there. With the truck’s windows broken, she didn’t technically need the keys to get the door unlocked. But she would need them to leave—and that wasn’t all she would need. Deciding to test Susan’s willingness to bring her the keys before she mentioned Shilah or her purse, Katie said, “The kitchen is just through the front door. Icebox is on the left.”

Susan gave her a smile tinged with sadness. “I remember.”

Katie tried not to feel a twinge of jealousy as she watched Susan jog toward Rafe’s cabin—nude, supple, and so very graceful on her feet. After only a couple of days with Rafe, she was starting to get used to seeing strangers naked. Yet seeing his ex-girlfriend that way was a unique experience. Though she didn’t doubt the strength of her bond with Rafe for a second, it was still strange to witness the sudden reemergence of his first love. She was beautiful. Trying to sort through her mixed emotions about Susan not only made her head hurt, but also distracted her from protecting Rafe. Determined not to let her guard down, Katie pulled out the revolver, did a quick visual scan of the trees, then knelt at his side.
 

“Please, baby.” She caressed his cool cheek, rough with stubble. “Please,
please
wake up.”

The sound of a door closing jerked her attention back to the cabin. She stood up quickly, only barely resisting the urge to point the gun at Susan again. Nervous and on edge, she wasn’t ready to trust anyone around the man she loved while he was totally helpless. Susan gave her a cautious look as she approached, shotgun cradled in her arms, and unlocked the door with a key fob. “Lot of bodies in there.”

“I didn’t invite them inside,” Katie said pointedly.
 

Susan held up the shotgun and the rest of the shells. “You don’t want to forget this.” She walked to the truck and yanked open the passenger door, tucking the weapon between the seats. After sweeping her arm across the seat to clear the broken glass, she turned to Katie. “Any luck waking him up?”

Katie slipped the revolver into her pants, then grabbed Rafe’s legs as Susan hoisted him by the armpits. “No. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

They didn’t speak as they wrestled his heavy weight into the seat. Susan leaned over his lap to buckle his seatbelt while Katie kept a watchful eye on the forest. It was almost eerily still. The sky was blue and clear, and sunlight shone down from above, illuminating the snow and making it seem to glow. If not for the fact that corpses littered the yard around them, it would be a beautiful day.

Susan shut the passenger door. “As soon as you have the chance, you need to hold him. Make sure your skin touches his. I don’t know if it works the same with a human, but as his bond-mate, you should be able to send him healing energy. Just focus on your bond, on his heartbeat…” As though suddenly self-conscious about her nudity, she folded her arms over her chest. “It’s hard to explain. Just
want
it, and trust your instincts.”

Having been the recipient of Rafe’s healing touch, Katie had an idea of what she needed to do. She just hoped she could muddle her way through the details. “I’ll try. How long will it take him to wake up, if it works?”

“I’m not sure.” Susan crouched and shoveled snow away from the tires with her bare hands. Her urgency quickened Katie’s pulse and drew her attention to their surroundings once more. “Head south on the first road you come to. Then west when that road dead-ends. Turning east will take you right through their territory, and trust me, you don’t want to go there.”

Reluctant to put down her gun or use her bare hands to move snow out of the way, Katie kicked at the rear tire. Her head swam with questions, not least of which was how she would explain the unconscious, naked man who was covered in blood in her passenger seat if she did happen to make it to civilization. This was not a day she wanted to get pulled over. “Are the roads even safe to drive on?”

Susan gave her a meaningful look. “No less safe than staying here. You’ll need to be extremely careful, obviously, but with the chains he has on the tires, you should be able to drive out as long as the weather holds.”

Katie glanced into the truck at Rafe, who still hadn’t moved a muscle. She wished desperately that he would show some sign of life. It was terrifying to see him so still and powerless. In fact, it was probably the scariest thing she’d seen so far. After only two days together, already she couldn’t imagine her life without him. She looked back at Susan—the woman she suspected had chosen to leave him willingly. “So you never answered my question. Why are you here?”

“Because I care about Rafe. I want to see him survive this mess.”

“If you care about him so much, then where have you been?” Accusation sharpened Katie’s tone and made her words come out harsher than she’d intended, but she didn’t care. This woman’s disappearance had caused Rafe immense worry and heartbreak, yet here she was—alive and well. “He thinks you’re dead, you know. That the others murdered you.”

“And as far as I’m concerned, it would be better for everyone if he kept thinking that.”