Page 88 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

We have to set it,” Clay said in a hard monotone, his expression uncommonly drawn. Stiff as stone. “If we don’t do it quickly, we’ll have to rebreak it and set it again.”

I grit my teeth, still clutching my bloodied and broken arm to my bare chest. I shook my head. “I-It’s not a clean break,” I managed, trying to sound strong and not like the pain was completely unbearable, because it was.

There really was no point in trying though. They were my mates and they were sharing the same airspace. I was willing to bet they could feel my pain as though it were their own.

I took stock again just in case I was wrong. I wasn’t. After nine broken bones through my adolescent years, I could tell the difference. This pain was definitely not from a clean break.

“Are you sure?” Clay asked. I nodded.

Jared was pacing back and forth, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he worked his jaw, a vein twitching in his forehead. “We’ll take her to Stella. She’ll be able to heal her faster and set the bone properly.”

Jared spoke in a hiss, his eyes never landing on any one thing as he continued to move. I could feel his rage like a fire in my blood, trying to spark the gasoline still in my veins.

“By the time we get there, it’ll already be half healed,” Clay growled back at him.

“Stella will be able to numb the pain, too. Better than re-breaking it here.”

“I won’t leave them,” I stated plainly. “I won’t leave my friends.”

Still in their wolf forms, both of them emitted pitchy whining sounds that were like nails on the chalkboard of my heart. I needed to be here when they shifted back. I couldn’t leave.

“Besides, I seriously doubt Ry’s going to let me go on a fucking field trip right n—”

“I should fucking challenge the bastard. I should do it right now while he’s injured,” Clay said and the lack of emotion in his tone scared me. This was beyond red-faced, spitting rage. He was pale with it. Sick. His blue eyes glowing and sharp like cut glass.

Murder.

There was murder in his eyes.

Scarier still was how Jared didn’t say a word against Clay’s intentions. He only continued to pace, his eyes darkening. Would he stop Clay if Clay made good on what he was saying right now?

“Calm down,” Charity hissed at Clay, and I had to assume she either didn’t see the murder in Clay’s stare, or that she truly wasn’t afraid of it.

I wasn’t sure which.

“I know you’re upset but—”

“Charity,” Clay warned, and she shut up, grumbling something to herself under her breath.

“It isn’t up to my uncle,” Jared said, finally stopping the conversation.

He crouched down to my eye level, and I struggled to keep my gaze on his face and not the coiled masterpiece of his body.

His gaze darted to Clay. “Go. Take her to the healer. I’ll stay with Layla and Viv.

Nothing will happen to them while I’m here. ”

His eyes found mine again and he brushed a tear away from my cheek. “I promise.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Destiny spoke first. “I’ll stay, too. Ry’s pissed, but I don’t think he’ll do anything to hurt your friends.”

“If he does?” I challenged her. She was one of Ryland’s most loyal followers. Would she really stand up to him?

“He won’t,” Charity interjected, clearly not happy with where this conversation was going.

Destiny’s gaze hardened, and she let it fall back to Vivian, who lay panting in her arms. Completely ignoring Charity, she said fiercely, “I won’t let him.”

“Look,” Charity piped up. “I told Ry I wouldn’t leave until he returned. I said nothing about keeping any of you here for him. Jared’s right, Allie. You should go to the healer. Your friends are going to be fine.”

“I—”

A yelp came from my lips as Clay’s thick arms curled around the back of my knees and barred across my back, lifting me to his warm, bare chest. He moved so smoothly that it barely jostled my broken arm, but even the slight movement sent stars blazing over my vision and set my stomach to roiling.

“Sorry, baby,” he told me with a frown. “I’m taking you whether you like it or not.”

I bit back a biting reply and instead, focused my gaze on Jared, needing him to understand what would happen if I came back to find anything had happened to them.

He met my gaze with a furious one of his own and gave one sharp nod of understanding without the need for words from either of us.

If Ryland hurt them, I was going to kill him.

He leaned in and pressed a hard kiss to my forehead. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in a breath against my hair, his voice cracking.

“I won’t be able to cover our tracks,” Clay grumbled, his chest vibrating against my ribcage. “Everyone’s probably finished their shift and back at the fire by now, but if they come looking—”

“I’ll get Seth and the guys over here,” Charity offered. “Tell them what’s going on. They’ll stall. We’ll give you guys as much of a head start as we can. Just get back here quickly. It’ll be better for everyone if you come back on your own versus if Ry sends someone to bring you in.”

“Thank you,” I told Charity, really meaning it. I knew how hard it was for her to go against what she knew Ryland would want. “For everything.”

She was always sticking her neck out for anyone who needed it. One of these times, I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to avoid the ax.

Clay stepped back into his pants with Charity’s help and didn’t waste any time leaving.

He grunted as Charity removed her t-shirt and draped it over me just before we left, rushing away a second later, taking us deep into the dark forest. I was grateful for the thin bit of fabric.

It blocked enough of the frigid midnight air to keep my teeth from chattering.

Like me, Charity still wasn’t completely used to the whole being naked all the time thing, but she was definitely more used to it than I was.

Besides, she planned to stay in wolf form while they awaited Ryland’s return.

Better hearing, and the ability to communicate with Seth and the guys made that choice an easy one.

I just hoped we could get to wherever we were going and back again before Ryland returned.

“I can walk,” I offered once we got clear of hearing distance from camp. It was my arm that was broken, not my leg, after all.

Clay’s jaw twitched.

“Really, it’s okay. You don’t—”

“I do,” he all but barked, a little bit of that fiery anger I knew him for showing through his stony mask. His arms tightened around me, holding me harder against him. “Just…just let me take care of you,” he added, pressing his lips into a hard line.

I didn’t bother arguing a second time. His nearness and warmth were nearly enough to put me to sleep, even with the scattered battleground of my thoughts and the agony stabbing up my arm with each of his steps.

The adrenaline was wearing thin, and a heaviness was replacing it.

A sort of numbness that made it hard to hold on to any one thought.

That made my body sag and my eyelids droop.

Clay began to hum softly sometime later when I was nearing the edge of sleep. The rumble in his chest and the deep, rich, baritone of his voice sent me over the edge.

“Clayton?” The voice roused me from a fitful sleep, and I peeled back heavy eyelids only to have my eyeballs seared by a blight blue light flitting back and forth. I groaned, shifting.

A stifled hiss passed through my lips when I jostled my arm.

It didn’t feel right.

Not in horrid pain any longer, it just ached dully.

At a glance, I found that the bone was still protruding from my flesh, but that it’d stopped bleeding.

And inside, I knew that it had somehow fused improperly, or had at least begun to.

It felt pulled the wrong way and tight, stretching the muscle and sinew in a way that it shouldn’t be.

“Who is that?”

“Allie,” Clay replied, and I twisted my neck to find the woman who spoke.

She was maybe in her early thirties, with a shock of silvery white hair that fell in a messy bob to her shoulders. Her petite face was pinched as she took us in, a frown tugging down on the corners of her thin lips.

The blue light that’d burned my eyes, stilled above us. It was…a glowing orb. Like a little blue sun hovering in midair.

“Help her,” Clay demanded.

The woman rolled her eyes and gestured to the house at her back.

It was a modern looking thing. Not at all what I would’ve expected from a witch—er— alchemist. All black with a boxy shape, it hid like a shadow amid the trees on what looked to be a large property, concealed with high hedges all around it to hide it from view of people passing by on the street.

Though I doubted they were a necessity. I assumed, like Clay’s cabin, this home would be warded against curious onlookers, too.

“A simple please goes a long way, you know,” she said over her shoulder as she made her way to the door. Clay followed, muttering something I couldn’t make out to himself.

We passed through the doorway and into a foyer that smelled of patchouli and something vaguely reminiscent of jasmine, but with an undertone of some scent I couldn’t place.

“It’s a bad break,” Clay explained to the woman as he kicked the door shut behind him. “Can you do something for the pain? It’ll need to be reset.”

“This way,” was the woman’s only reply as she waved us through the foyer and down a narrow hallway. The warmth inside made me shudder after however long we’d been out in the cold. My skin burned from it, telling me it must’ve been a lot longer than I thought.

How long had I been asleep?

We followed her through a doorway and down a flight of stairs where the temperature dropped again, and through a dark crowded storage space into a room.

It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. “Lucidus,” the woman said and that blue light that’d been hovering over us outside reappeared, lighting the space just long enough for her to set about lighting some candles and flicking on a lamp.