Chapter 3

Cooper POV

Beep, beep, beep. The slow steady noise beside my head drags me from my sleep and into what feels like the worst hangover ever. I open my eyes slowly and it takes me a couple of seconds to get my bearings and realize that I am in a hospital bed. I try to sit up but a sharp stabbing pain in my stomach makes me lie back flat on the bed. I wince at my splitting headache and the agony I feel as I try to move my arms and legs. I hurt everywhere. I growl to myself, not liking this feeling of weakness one little bit, and lower my head back to the pillow. As a wolf shifter and an Alpha at that, I pride myself on being strong and nearly indestructible. I guess a speeding van is the exception.

"You're going to be a terrible patient, aren't you?" My sister Leila is standing in the doorway with her hand on her hips, chuckling to herself. I ignore her and close my eyes tight against the pain. She lifts the chart at the end of the bed and scans down over it, dark brows pulled together in a frown as she switches from annoying sister into serious doctor mode, reading out some of the litany of injuries cataloged on the clipboard in her hands. Fractured skull, cheekbone, and jaw. Dislocated shoulder, broken collarbone, arm and wrist, broken ribs, ruptured spleen, shattered ankle, and multiple deep lacerations. I wish she'd stop because I don't want to hear this. I can already tell that I'm a mess by how much it hurts. She shakes her head, dark chestnut brown hair falling forwards over her shoulders and whistles softly.

"You...you were very, very lucky. This...." she pauses, blinking hard, and shakes the chart at me before continuing in a wobbly voice, "this would be enough to kill most people. Even you Cooper. If that girl hadn't dragged you out of the river… I can't even think about it, it's too scary."

She keeps talking to me, well lecturing me really, about what a close call this was. As if she needs to tell me that getting hit by a van was a bad idea, but I've stopped listening. As soon as she mentioned the girl, flashbacks of what happened start running through my mind. But not the bad stuff, there is something else that my wolf is pushing me to remember. That amazing scent that I smelled just before the crash, I can remember it vividly and it's making my mouth water just thinking about it. Then the tingles I felt all over my face and body as she gently touched me, the feeling of calm that washed over me, despite my pain, as she whispered comforting words in my ear, her warm breath touching my neck.

My mate. She was there.

Another flashback of long tanned legs, a toned stomach, drops of water running down a slender neck and into a tight sports bra as she stands just a few feet away from me. A curtain of long wavy wet hair hid her face from view. A much less pleasant image of her cradled in Ethan's arms, her face buried into his shoulder and her hand resting on his chest pops into my brain. I clench my fists tight and grit my teeth, a growl building in my chest.

"Cooper? What the hell was that? Are you in pain?" my sister asks, looking at me with concern as the heart monitor starts to beep rapidly and my blood pressure shoots up. The thought of another man having his hands on her is making the blood boil in my veins and a jealousy, unlike anything I have ever experienced flares up inside me. I have heard stories about the possessiveness that comes with finding your mate, but this intensity is shocking.

Agitated, I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the metal hospital bed, ignoring the searing pain in my abdomen where I have probably pulled open some stitches. I blink away the dark spots that appear in front of my eyes making my head swim and my vision cloudy. I grab at the tubes and wires attached to my arms and chest, trying to rip them out.

I have to find her.

It's a primal need like nothing I have ever known, and the thought just keeps repeating over and over in my brain as my wolf pushes me to get moving.

"Jesus Christ, Cooper! What are you doing?" Leila shouts. When I don't answer, I see her bolt for the door to get help, but I don't care, they won't stop me. I don't care about anything other than finding her again. What if she was hurt too? What if nobody knows who she was and I never see her again? My wolf lunges for the surface, urging me to keep going and ignore the dizziness that is making the room spin. I push up onto my feet, grabbing the bed railing for support as my knees tremble slightly. Only then do I notice the cast on one leg up to my knee which will make walking difficult. I reach down to slip my fingers inside the cast and start to pull lumps of the plaster away.

"Woah, hold up Cooper, what are you doing man?" Ethan rushes in the door and grabs my arm, trying to stop me from destroying the cast while simultaneously turning me back towards the bed. Then I smell it, I'd recognize it anywhere now. I smell her, my mate, and that delicious scent that makes my heart soar.

But it's all wrong. It's on Ethan. I can smell her on him, and the scent is recent.

In a split second, I pivot and grab him by the front of his shirt with two hands, shoving him hard against the wall, pinning him in place with a forearm across his throat.

"Where is she?!" I roar, not caring who might hear the commotion. Anyone from our pack will know better than to come in. Ethan slowly holds up his two hands in front of him in surrender and exposes his neck to show me his submission, to show he won't even attempt to fight back. My wolf accepts his submission, but he is grinning at me like a fool and it's infuriating. I don't care that he is my best friend of twenty years. At this moment all I know is that he is an unmated male who smells like my girl, and I want to rip his head off.

"Cooper, you need to chill out. Hayley's fine, she's safe, I promise," he says in a low, calm voice.

Hayley.

Pride fills my chest as I hear my beautiful mate’s name and I loosen my grip slightly. I feel Ethan relax a bit as I remove my arm from his throat, and he takes a deep breath. It's short-lived though, as that feeling of joy at hearing her name is quickly replaced by jealous rage as I realize that he knows her name and not me. He has her scent on him while I haven't even seen her face yet. I roar again in anger and lift him off the ground, shoving him hard against the wall again, causing a crack to appear in the plaster behind him.

"Who is Hayley? Ethan, tell me what on earth is going on?" My sister asks, confused. She stands a few feet back, knowing better than to intervene, and blocking the door from anyone else who might try to come in. I can hear the fear in her voice as she tries to work out what has happened between me and my best friend that could explain her normally calm brother acting so nuts.

"Cooper, she's here, she's in the hospital, but she's fine. I thought she might be yours, so I went to check on her for you. I knew that when you woke up, you'd want to know how she was. That's all, I swear!" He explains.

I set him back on his feet and fix him with a cold glare, growling at him one last time before I push away and drag in a few deep breaths to try and calm down. I drag a hand across my now stubbled jaw and try to regain some control.

"Show me where she is," I order him as I hobble around the room, searching for something slightly more respectable to wear to meet my mate other than a hospital gown with my ass hanging out.

"No Cooper, you can't go to her....", Ethan starts to say, but before he even finishes his sentence, I rush at him snarling. He's expecting it this time and dodges me, darting sideways, and managing to put the hospital bed between me and him. He rakes a hand back through his blonde hair and exhales sharply, holding his two hands up in front of him again.

"Wait, wait, wait! Cooper, damn it, stop trying to kill me for a second. I am just saying you can't go to her right now. She's human! You'll scare her if you don't get a grip on yourself." He sighs and stands up a bit straighter when I haven't moved to attack him again. He looks me right in the eye and I can see the sincerity in his eyes, he is trying to look out for me.

"She saw you get hit by a van yesterday for fucks sake. She knows how badly you were hurt. How are you going to explain this? How are you going to explain how you are up on your feet and walking around today?" He gestures up and down my already rapidly healing body. I pause for a second and my stomach plummets as I realize he is right. I don't want to scare her or freak her out, and that means staying away.

"But she's my mate," I grumble sulkily, and I hear Leila gasp from the corner of the room as she finally catches on to what is happening. I slump down defeated on the bed, with my head in my hands. This is just unbelievable; this is the second time being near her in the last twenty-four and I still haven't gotten to see her.

I heard all the stories about the mate pull, and I have longed for many, many years to experience it for myself. I am desperate to get to her. It feels like my skin is crawling with the urge to get up and go to her, forget the consequences. Even though logically I know Ethan is right, every fiber of my being is screaming at me to tear the building apart to find her. It must show on my face as both Leila and Ethan look like they are about to throw themselves on top of me if I try to get out of this room. I twist to face Ethan and fix him with a stare, pointing a finger at him.

"You! You make sure she is safe, if anything happens to her, I will end you." Ethan nods, still smiling despite my threats. Then I face Leila.

"And you, please get me out of here. I will tear this place apart if I stay here any longer knowing she is in the same building," I plead with my sister. She nods and leaves the room immediately, hopefully setting things in motion for my discharge. Given the majority of the town's residents are wolf shifters, the staff here are used to treating rapidly healing wounds, where making sure that bones are set correctly is normally their greatest concern. Before he leaves, Ethan reaches out, places his hand on my shoulder, and then he throws back his head and laughs as if seeing me so tormented is the best thing he has witnessed in a long time.

"Congratulations, man. You found your mate!" He cheers, tipping his head back to laugh at me some more. I try to console myself with the thought that this is only temporary. I wince as I lie back down on the crisp white hospital bed sheets and let out a loud sigh, wondering how long this torture is going to last.