1…

•Shaun•

Baaaaangggg~~~

I lifted my head from my laptop, heart lurching before my brain even caught up with what I’d heard. Please don’t tell me Luke hit someone Goddesso. I’d told Luke a hundred times to be careful on these back roads, especially once we crossed out of pack land and into the human world. One mistake out here could put our treaty at risk.

“Tell me you didn’t hit someone,” I said, already shifting in my seat.

“I think I killed someone, Alpha.” Luke’s voice came out strangled. “And I didn’t run into her. She ran into us.”

He was out of the car before I finished processing the sentence, the door hanging open behind him like an afterthought.

I sat there for one useless second, laptop sliding off my lap onto the seat, and let out a breath that tasted like dread. Hitting someone in the human world meant more than a dented bumper. It meant paperwork, police reports, hospital forms, and questions our kind usually paid good money to avoid. If the humans discovered anything unusual, the treaty council would come down on us hard. I did not have room in my schedule for that. I had a pack to run and a treaty negotiation hanging over my head, and now, apparently, a body in the road.

I dropped the laptop onto the seat and got out.

The night air hit me first, cold with the smell of wet asphalt, and then I saw a woman crumpled on the shoulder of the road, dark hair fanned out around her, one leg bent at an angle that made my stomach turn.

“Is she still breathing?” I asked, walking closer, forcing my voice steady.

“Yes.” Luke was crouched beside her, hands hovering like he was afraid to touch her wrong. “But can I get a little help, please? She weighs a ton, I can’t carry her alone without making it worse.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

I dropped to my knees beside him and reached for her shoulders, and the second my skin met hers, something detonated behind my ribs.

It wasn’t pain. It was worse than pain, in the way that lightning is worse than a spark. Heat rolled up my arms and straight into my skull, and every nerve in my body lit up at once, humming, singing, screaming one word over and over until it drowned out everything else.

Mate, my wolf said.

Mine. Wait. What. Mate?

I froze there with my hands under her shoulders, staring down at a face I couldn’t even see yet because she was turned into the ground, mud smeared thick across what little of her skin was visible. I turned her head gently, tilting her face up out of the dirt, and even caked in mud she looked strangely familiar. Then her eyes fluttered open for half a second.

“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t let them find me.”

My chest tightened.

“Who?” I asked, but her eyes closed again before she could answer.

I didn’t waste time being stunned. I got my arms under her and lifted her myself, refusing Luke’s help this time, because some part of me, some old and possessive part that had never spoken this loud before, would not let anyone else carry her. She was soft everywhere I held her, full hips and thick thighs and a weight that settled into my arms naturally. I had never held a woman who felt so unexpectedly right against me, and my wolf practically preened just holding her.

I got her into the back seat and climbed in after her, cradling her head in my lap.

“Drive fast, Luke.”

Luke slid into the driver’s seat but didn’t start the car right away. He turned around, staring at me like I’d grown a second head. “Alpha, she’s human. We can’t bring an unknown human into pack territory. The council will tear you apart if she exposes us.”

“I know the law.”

“Then why are you holding her like she’s already yours?”

I looked down at the unconscious woman.

“This is your Luna,” I said.

Luke’s mouth fell open. “Fuck. She’s your mate.” A beat, and then, slower, like the weight of it was still landing on him. “Congratulations, Alpha.”

“Congratulate me later.” My hands were shaking, and it had nothing to do with the cold. Her breathing was too shallow, too slow, and no matter how hard I willed my power into her, nothing happened. Nothing. “If you don’t drive fast, I might lose my mate before I even get her name, because my powers aren’t touching her. She needs a human doctor. Now.”

Luke swore again and the tires screamed against wet asphalt as he threw the car into gear, and all I could do was hold her closer and pray to a goddess I wasn’t sure was listening that I hadn’t just found my mate only to watch her slip away in my arms.