I dropped the phone to the dirt and shucked my shirt, pressed it over her wound to stanch the blood flow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, then winced. Her eyes were filled with pain. Regret. Fear. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t a lie.”
“Shh, angel. I know.”
“How I feel about you wasn’t a lie.”
I leaned over her again, so she could only see me. “Angel, you were doing your job. I know that. You did nothing wrong. I’m to blame. I shouldn’t have doubted you or pushed you away. It doesn’t change what I knew the first second I caught your scent—you’re mine. My mate. My heart. I love you. Now fight.”
Determination filled her eyes, but she moaned in pain. She pulled out her phone with shaking hands. “Call… Vaughn. My boss. Tell him…”
“Okay, I’ll call him. You just hang in there, angel.”
She was going to die. I knew it. There was no way I could save her. Audrey was a doctor and could help, but she wouldn’t be here for at least five more minutes. Then, we still had to drive to the hospital.
“I love you, Willow. You stay with me. Stay with me,” I said. I repeated it over and over as I held her gaze.
Then my wolf instincts prickled. Willow’s eye color changed from green to gold.
All at once, she moaned. Loud. Deep.
I stopped breathing.
Her joints cracked and snapped, her clothing ripped. From one blink to the next, Willow shifted from red-haired human to a ginger wolf.
My wolf did a double backflip of joy. Of relief.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
My mate was a shifter! Which meant she wasn’t going to die.
28
ROB
Willow struggled, rolling to her side, then emitting a yip of pain. She was panicking, her amber eyes wild and almost feral. This hadn’t been one of her secrets. I was sure of it. She hadn’t known she was a wolf—or part wolf—because she sure as hell had smelled like a human before.
Which meant… she’d never shifted before and only did so now because of the pain of being shot. Her biology kicked in to save her life. No one had seen her like this before. No one knew how perfect she was… human or wolf.
I stroked my hand over her soft fur. “Shh… settle.” I put alpha command in my voice. “It’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re a shifter, like me. That’s why my wolf chose you.” I smiled down at her. “I know you hurt, but shifting is a good thing. You’ll heal and quickly. Your body knows what to do. Don’t be afraid, you’re going to be just fine.”
My words must have penetrated because she stilled. I felt the frantic beat of her wolf heart beneath my palm, the silkiness of her fur. I saw the gunshot wound, staining her cinnamon fur a fierce red. The blood wasn’t pumping from her now but slowed to a trickle.
That eased my own wolf. “That’s it. Just relax. Let your wolf heal.”
I looked into her eyes, just as I had a few moments before and tried to comfort her. “You’re so beautiful as a wolf. Didn’t know you had it in you, huh?” I smiled.
Finally, I was at peace. She wasn’t going to die, but she needed to be talked through the healing process, the shift back to human form. If she’d never done it before, she wouldn’t know how.
My parents had talked about our first shift for years. I never remembered a time when we hadn’t talked about it. What it would feel like. What I’d do when I shifted. How I shifted back. If a first shift came early, there was some danger that a teen wolf couldn’t shift back. Sometimes it took an alpha command to make it happen. I’d been called in a few times to help new wolves who got stuck.
I remembered what Willow had told me about being in foster care as a child. That part was probably the truth. She’d given me the truths she could. Maybe she hadn’t known one or both of her parents at all—that’s why she hadn’t known she was a shifter.
I wondered if she’d had any hints of wolf, if she’d had any clues to it. Signs she wouldn’t have known were the need of her inner wolf to be revealed.
“Holy shit.”
I looked up when Boyd and Audrey came rushing in but skidded to a stop as they stared down at us. Audrey had her assessing gaze on Markle for about two seconds, then to us. Dead was dead. No matter how skilled a doctor Audrey was, she wasn’t fixing Markle.
“Um… Rob,” Boyd said. “Is that—”
“Willow’s a shifter.”
He grinned. “No shit.”
No shit.
“Did you know?” Audrey asked, squatting down beside me. From what she and Boyd told me, she’d seen James get shot by Markle and shift, and she’d watched him heal so she knew what was going to happen. There really wasn’t anything for her to do to help.