Page 109 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

brYN

Staying quiet while Evan mocked and belittled my man drove me and my wolf fucking wild, but I knew I couldn’t say anything.

This was personal. He and Night had history that they were working through in live time right before my eyes.

I thought about the conversation I’d had with Evan only the other day.

Part of my brain felt sure there was something I could have done to prevent things from getting so bad, but the rest of my brain shushed that voice.

Right here, right now, my soulmate was losing a lot of blood.

Each second brought him closer and closer to unconsciousness, but he was still fighting through it, trying to convince Evan to see the error of his ways.

My mate was fighting for both our lives, and I couldn’t waste time thinking about what I could have done to help, not when we were minutes from death. Night couldn’t fight, so I’d have to be the one to get us out of here.

Evan was the only one with a gun; Harlon and Samson were unarmed. If I could just find an opening, I could end this here.

“I have no problem killing anyone in my way, Night,” Evan said, leveling the gun at Night, “starting with you and your whore of a mate—”

The moment I saw Evan’s finger twitch over the trigger, my wolf surged forward to take control, and I let her without hesitation.

She sprang into action, sprinting for Evan even before he finished speaking.

Evan reflexively pulled the trigger, but the shot went wide.

My wolf and I growled loud as we bit down on Evan’s wrist, forcing him to drop the gun.

Our scrambling back paws kicked it away, toward the center of the cave.

Evan cried out and kicked me hard in the chest. We let go, his blood spraying after us as we flew a few yards away. We hit the ground, but quickly hopped to our feet and lowered our head, hackles raised.

“Bryn,” Night called. He was lying on the ground, watching us. His voice was weaker than I remembered it being. “Go! Get out of here!”

“Fuck that!” we snapped. “I can’t leave you here!”

Evan shook out his arm, which still dripped with blood. “Samson, Harlon, get out of here. You both know your parts of this plan.”

“You got this, then?” Harlon asked.

“Yeah. I can take Night’s whore.”

They nodded and headed toward the back entrance of the cave.

Evan shifted into his wolf form. It was blond like Dom’s, but his coloring was brassier.

His wolf and mine circled each other, each looking for an opening.

This was different from the fight with Troy.

I had no element of surprise here. Evan had seen my fight with Troy, and I wouldn’t be able to use his underestimation of me to my advantage.

My wolf understood that just as well, which was why she wasn’t going for the first attack. Evan seemed happy to take that honor for himself. He sprinted forward and tackled us. Our fangs and claws scraped and bit and tore and ripped at each other.

“Not bad for a bitch,” he sent to me.

Hearing his voice in my brain, this close to me, made my skin crawl. “Don’t you fucking speak to me, traitor!”

We bit Evan on the shoulder and threw him into the cave wall.

He yelped, but recovered quickly. He took hold of my back, throwing me into another spot of the cave wall.

We shook our head and jumped at him again.

Fur and blood flew in every direction. While my wolf fought, I tried to keep our mind off Night and the fact that he was bleeding out on the other side of the cave.

I tried to force the fear of his death from my brain.

Despite how focused I tried to keep us through the fight, Evan got in a few lucky shots.

He kicked us off him. As we hopped to our feet he slammed into us, and our right side hit a particularly jagged and craggy section of the cave wall.

We crumbled to the floor, vision swimming.

We tried to get up, but pain seared across our side, and we couldn’t keep our balance.

Evan gave a panting, barking laugh. He turned to Night, and we knew he was going in for the kill.

We shook our head, hoping to regain some stability in our vision, and when we opened our eyes, we saw Evan towering over Night.

His fangs were out, and a stream of saliva poured from the sharpest ones onto the floor.

The seconds slowed to a trickle. I summoned all the energy I had left to force myself to my feet, and then I started to move before I fully realized what I was doing.

Between one blink and the next, I found myself across the room, with Evan’s throat between my teeth.

Before I could stop myself, my jaws closed, and I felt his neck snap from the force of my bite.

Evan’s body hit the floor, and I stared at it in horror. There was no mistaking that he was dead or that I had been the one to kill him. My mind raced, spiraling down and down again in a horrible loop of reliving that snapping moment. The sound of Night’s pained groan forced me out of it.

He had already passed out, and there was so.

Much. Blood. More than I would have thought he’d be able to hold.

I threw back my head and gave a couple more piercing howls for help.

Then I scanned the cave for anything I could use to slow the bleeding.

All I found were Evan’s clothes. I limped over to them, my entire body aching, and then limped back.

Shifting to my human form, I fell to my hands and knees next to Night and shoved the cloth into the wound. Night didn’t stir.

“Night, come on.” I slapped his cheeks, but he said nothing. I pressed my ear to his chest and heard a heartbeat, but it was so faint, fluttering like the wings of a dying bird. I straightened, my body going cold.

“P-please, Night, don’t go. You can’t. We have so much that we have to do together. We have our lives to live. We…we…” Tears blurred my vision. “You said you’d always come back to me,” I cried. “So you better come back to me now. If you don’t…if-if you don’t, I’ll never forgive you!”

“Bryn? Night?” Dom’s voice sounded from the opposite entrance to the cave than the one we entered.

“Dominic! In here!” I called back. “Night’s hurt! He’s not responding!”

A group of Wargs sprinted inside. The moment Dom saw me, he shifted to his human form and jogged to my side.

He helped me apply pressure to Night’s wound when he saw how badly I was shaking.

With a quick glance around, he took in the bodies of the feral wolves, the gun, and the brassy-blond wolf lying dead near me.

“Bryn, what happened?”

“Evan betrayed us,” I said. “He tried to kill Night, so I k-ki—” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t give voice to the horrible thing I’d done to save my mate. “He’s dead now, but Samson and Harlon are gone. They went out the way you came in.”

Dom cursed under his breath. More wolves flooded into the cave and started to move Night out of there. They would want to get him to the infirmary as quickly as fucking possible. In the meantime, another wolf brought me a blanket to drape over my shoulders, and Dom helped me to my feet.

As soon as we reached the Alpha cabin, Dom and Vince laid Night across the bed and I made a beeline for the closet.

I pulled on the thickest robe I could find and wrapped myself tightly in it.

As I tied the sash closed, I turned to see how I could help.

The clothes I’d used to staunch the blood were soaked through.

I threw open the dresser drawers until I found t-shirts. I grabbed them in handfuls and gave them to Dom. He looked thankful as I took them.

“Vince, get Doc,” he said.

“R-right. I’ll bring him right back.” Vince shifted back into his wolf form and dashed down the stairs.

“Dom,” I began, my voice hoarse, “how is he?”

“I can’t tell,” Dom said. He had switched out the bloody scraps of clothes for linens. “I’ve never seen an injury like this. And this blood, I don’t know why his wound isn’t closing.”

Fear was an ice pick stabbing repeatedly into my chest as I looked at Night.

His breathing was shallow and raspy, his face waxy with perspiration.

The sight of my strong, handsome mate so weak and in so much pain shook me more than the entire rest of the night had.

A normal bullet shouldn’t have been able to do this to him.

Had it hit something vital? Was it killing him?

For a second, my mind returned to that moment in the cave, when I had my jaws locked around Evan’s neck and the taste of blood in my mouth. I tried to shake myself out of it. I needed to be here for my mate.

Dr. Stan arrived seconds later. There were bags under his eyes, and he looked about as pale as the night’s patients, but he wasted no time getting to his Alpha.

I stood at the foot of the bed and watched him crouch at Night’s side.

He took a quick whiff of the wound, and his lips pulled away from his teeth.

“Get me a boning or paring knife,” he said to the room. “Now.”

He hadn’t specified who, but after the cooking I’d done in that huge kitchen, I was the one who would be the most efficient at grabbing it.

I dashed down the stairs, slipping a little on unsteady legs as I made my way to the kitchen.

When I returned, Night’s face was contorted with pain.

His hands gripped the sheets of the bed, smearing them with blood.

“Please, Bryn,” Dr. Stan said, “the knife.” He held out his hand for it.

I snapped out of my shock. With a trembling hand, I gave him the knife. He pushed Night onto his side, exposing his back. With a deft move, the doctor shoved the knife into Night’s back. Night jerked, his eyes snapping open.

“Hold him!” Dr. Stan snapped.

Dom took Night’s shoulder, helping to keep him steady as the doctor worked.

My wolf shrieked and banged around in my mind, eager to go to our mate.

Her intent was clear—if she could get the doctor away from Night, he’d hurt less.

I clenched my hands and kept her at bay.

When it came to fighting, I would always defer to her, but when it came to matters of logic and reason, I had to deal with it on my own.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t recede into unconsciousness or let my wolf take over in this situation.

The moment I did, she’d get in Dr. Stan’s way.

“Bryn,” Night’s voice was a breathy rasp.

I was at his side then. Dom stepped back to let me kneel at his side. I took my mate’s hand and touched his cheek. The moment our skin made contact, his jerking and trembling began to subside.

“I’m here, love,” I whispered, squeezing his hand. “I’m here.”

He looked at me, his eyes narrowing as he tried to focus on my face. I ran the pad of my thumb over his bushy eyebrows.

“I’m here,” I said again, kissing his hands. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. Soon, his eyes began to slip shut, and his body calmed. Dr. Stan breathed a sigh of relief and continued to work. Other than a faint twitching of his eye, Night didn’t try to resist treatment again.