Page 19 of Jasper (Were Zoo #20)
Ludo was going to kill Jasper.
She’d seen it as he rose to his feet with his claws out. So she’d done the only thing she could think of—push Jasper out of the way.
She hadn’t expected Ludo’s claws to be on the downward swing and catch her in the side, but here she was. Bleeding like crazy and in so much pain she couldn’t catch her breath.
Jasper yelled her name and rushed for her, and then she was on the ground and her hearing went tinny and echoing and she thought she was going to throw up. Her shirt was wet with blood, and her body ached in new and terrible ways.
Had she told Jasper she loved him today? She thought she had but she couldn’t remember. It suddenly seemed so very important.
She wanted the last thing she possibly ever said to him to be that she loved him with every fiber of her being, and that she’d keep loving him into eternity.
“I love,” she whispered thickly, and then there was just darkness and nothingness, and words that hadn’t been said.
Jasper shot toward Ludo, but Finn appeared out of nowhere, bloodied from a battle of his own. He took Ludo’s head in his hands and twisted sharply, letting out a howl of triumph as the male fell to the ground, dead.
Jasper collapsed to his knees next to Melody, pulling his shirt off and pressing it to the gaping wound on her side.
“Finn! Help, she’s hurt badly!”
Finn stepped over Ludo’s body and snarled. “Damn it! Pick her up, we’ll get her to the healer.”
“Joss!” Jasper called as he cradled his mate’s limp body in his arms.
“We’ll clean up the mess,” Joss called. “Take care of Melody.”
Jasper would thank his alpha and his friends later, but right now all he cared about was Melody.
She’d lost so much blood! It seemed impossible that she was even still breathing.
As he ran next to Finn, he told him what had happened.
“We got to the prison and it was surrounded by a handful of males. Your friends helped me take them out, but when we got into the prison, there was one male left and he was threatening the mate of one of the high-ranked prisoners. He cut her pretty badly, but we managed to get her free and put him down, then we set the high-ranked males free. They’re combing the woods now to ensure that Ludo hadn’t brought anyone else here.”
“I’m glad you guys are okay,” he said. “And that the threat is put down and the males freed. But damn, I wish Melody hadn’t been hurt. What if she’s…?” He couldn’t bring himself to finish his thought. It was too dark and his wolf howled in rebellion that they could lose her.
Not when they’d just gotten her back.
“She’ll be okay, she’s strong,” Finn said. He opened the door to a small home and called out, “Reese? We need you!”
A female wearing a long apron with dark hair in a long braid over one shoulder appeared in the doorway.
“I heard fighting, so I prepared for anyone with injuries. Bring her in, quickly!”
Jasper followed her through the door and set Melody down on a bed covered with white sheets. Reese lifted Melody’s shirt gently and examined the wound, which was still badly bleeding.
“She can’t shift and heal herself,” Reese said, “so I’ll have to do something else.” She handed Jasper a pair of scissors. “Cut her shirt off, I need full access.”
Jasper looked at Finn and gripped the scissors.
Finn said, “I’m going to get Viola; she’ll want to be here.” He put a hand on Jasper’s shoulder and squeezed. “She’ll be okay.”
Jasper nodded but couldn’t speak past the lump of emotion in his throat.
“Reese?” he asked as he cut through the material of Melody’s shirt.
“Yes?”
“Do you remember me?”
“Yes, you’re Jasper. You were forced away by Grimes, who didn’t like non-shifters and didn’t want you mating Melody. He was such an asshole.”
“Yes, he definitely was.” He pulled the fabric gently from her and dropped it to the floor, cutting through her bra as well. “I need Melody to be okay. She’s my whole world.”
“I’ll do my best,” Reese said.
As Jasper worked to cut her clothing away, Reese prepared something that smelled like citrus and pungent herbs, scraping a spatula inside a stone bowl and humming off-key.
He stepped away as Reese made a shooing motion, but held onto Melody’s hand. It was cold, and when he squeezed her hand, she didn’t squeeze back.
Come back to me, Mellie-mine. I need you.
Reese cleaned her skin of blood and debris, then smeared a thick dark-green paste on the wound. Melody groaned and writhed on the bed, but didn’t wake up. The smell was so strong and foul that Jasper’s eyes watered and he had to cough.
“It’s a special blend of herbs and minerals to help accelerate her natural healing. If she could shift, she could heal herself a heck of a lot faster, but this will work. I hope.”
“You hope?” Jasper whispered, trying to soothe Melody as she struggled on the bed.
“It’s the best thing I can do for her, but she’s lost a lot of blood.”
When the wound was covered, Jasper helped Reese wrap white linen around Melody’s torso, using safety pins to secure the material.
He looked at the healer, a wolf shifter who’d gone to human medical school and had learned about alternative methods of healing as well. “Reese?”
“All we can do is wait, Jasper.” Reese smoothed the hair from Melody’s face. “She’s put up with a lot over the years. It’s rough being unable to shift in the wolf pack, and she missed you so much too. But you’re meant to be together, and I don’t think fate would bring you together just to tear you apart like this. I’ll be back to check on her in a while. She’ll be unconscious until she’s healed. We just have to wait and see.”
“Thanks, Reese.”
She cleaned up the materials she’d used to make the healing poultice and then patted his arm before leaving the room.
He grabbed a chair and pulled it over, taking Melody’s hand again as he took a seat.
“Baby, I need you to come back to me. We just got started, I’m not ready to let you go. Can you hear me, Mellie-mine? Don’t leave me. I need another eighty years or so with you.”
“Just eighty?”
Jasper twisted in the seat and found his friends in the doorway. Lucius smiled. “Eighty doesn’t seem like enough.”
“A hundred,” Jasper amended. “Is everyone okay?”
“We’re good,” Alfie said. “It was a hell of a battle. Those wolves were determined to win.”
“I can’t thank you guys enough for coming with me. I didn’t know what we’d face. I thought I was going to die, but Melody is injured more than I was.”
His own wounds were healing, even the bad claw slashes on his side.
It was just Melody’s lack of shifting that made it more difficult for her to heal.
“Joss is with Finn and the high-ranked males. When Melody’s up and able to move around, we’ll all head home, together,” Lucius said.
“You guys can leave. I can get myself and Melody home,” he said, scrubbing at his aching eyes. He was exhausted and also wired. Halfway between crying and screaming in rage.
“Hell no,” Lucius said. “We came here together and we’re not leaving anyone behind. We’ll stay as long as it takes.”
He was humbled to the core by his friends.
“Hey, her friend’s mom was really hurt,” Jasper said. “Can someone ask Finn to find her? I’m sure Melody will want to know that she’s okay, and her friend too.”
“On it,” Alfie said and ducked away.
“We’re going to help secure the prisoners in the prison,” Lucius said. “The high-ranked males have a big job ahead of them setting the pack back to rights. Are you sure you don’t want to stick around and help? Like rejoin?”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “Melody and I already decided to stay at the park. After this, I definitely don’t want to stay here.”
“I get that,” Lucius said. “Holler if you need anything.”
“Thanks, man.”
When he was alone with his mate, he dropped his head to the stiff mattress and let out a bone-deep sigh.
“Melody, please wake up so we can get the hell out of here. I just want to get you home where I can keep you safe. I messed up before, but I won’t let anything like this ever happen to you again, I swear.”
He paused as his eyes flooded with tears and emotion clawed at him.
“Shit, baby,” he said, scrubbing at his wet cheeks. “I love you so much. I can’t live without you, so I need you to be okay. Come back to me. Please.”
Please .