Chapter 43: Dean

43

DEAN

A s I stride toward the clearing at the rear of the packhouse, the grunts and groans of fighting shifters become louder, drowned out only by the repeated dull thud of fists hitting soft flesh.

Laughter and cheers erupt at the sound of a loud crash, someone having found themselves tossed into the dense foliage surrounding the unofficial fighting ring. Beckett will be thrilled to see what they’re doing to his landscaping.

Lynn’s annoying voice fills my head.

LYNN: If you’re not claiming her for yourself, you can’t stop people flirting with her. And you can’t go around telling everyone she’s your mate.

DEAN: So, you heard about that.

I can practically hear Lynn’s eye roll.

LYNN: Everyone’s heard.

DEAN: Shit. I didn’t mean to; I just couldn’t stop myself.

LYNN: That’s a you problem. Jamie’s hurting, and you’re making it worse by acting all possessive. And if you’re too stupid to change your mind, then you need to let her go.

She might be right, but I’m not in the mood to hear it. Just the thought of watching her move on with another male makes me want to gouge my eyes out. My wolf won’t even countenance the idea of rejecting her. I suspect he’d force the shift and refuse to give me back my human form if I even attempted doing it. If it was up to him, even talking to my mate would count as an automatic disqualification.

DEAN: Since when does the alpha get told what to do?

LYNN: When he needs to hear it. And his friends are worried about him doing something he’ll regret.

Lynn breaks the link before I can argue with her. Jamie was polite but kept her distance, and her composure. Unlike me.

If this is how I behave every time another male even looks at her, I’m going to deserve the angriest alpha title by the time this competition is over. My pulse quickens, my temper rising again just thinking about the lust in the eyes of every shifter waiting in line to enter.

“You know she didn’t technically do anything.”

Groaning loudly, I look down at Ava’s grandmother, Iris, who’s blocking my way into the clearing.

“Who didn’t?” I ask, not wanting to get dragged into a question-and-answer session about my love life, even if it is my own fault for broadcasting that Jamie’s my fated mate after the pack run.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Dean Reynolds,” Iris warns, raising her wooden walking stick and jabbing it in my direction. “We all do crazy things when we meet our mates. There isn’t a wolf I know who doesn’t have a story. I’m certain of it.”

Fuck me. So, everyone knows everything? Great.

“She searched my private home, my office, and went through confidential pack files. That’s nothing?” I whisper to the old woman.

Iris quirks her lips and lifts both shoulders quickly in a sharp shrug. “If she’s to become our luna, she’d see it all soon enough anyway.” Stepping closer, she tilts her head and watches me intently. “You wouldn’t have tried keeping anything from her, now would you, Dean?”

Her stooped posture and perfectly styled grey hair does nothing to soften her will of steel. You don’t fuck with Iris. The oldest wolf in the pack, she’s earned her respect. And she’s dangerous with that cane.

“No ma’am. No secrets.”

“Then really, all she did was get a little preview.” She throws her hands out. “Her intent may have been questionable, but you know, deep down, that she wouldn’t have done anything unjust.”

She’s right. Jamie was looking for evidence. She wasn’t looking to deceive anyone. All she wanted was to know what happened to her mother, and her anguish made her act out.

But nothing she did really harmed anyone, except maybe, my ego. Because where I had fallen for her even before knowing what she was to me, Jamie was still clinging on to me being the bad guy in her story.

Ava comes over, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. Hopefully she’ll call her grandmother off.

“I don’t care what anyone else says, I think her being a rogue is awesome. She’s tough. She doesn’t care about money or fancy things, obviously, if she wants to move here.” The girls giggle and I frown, not understanding where she’s going with this. “She’d make a great Luna. Everyone in my class thinks so. We’ve started a petition.”

My head spins. A petition? So, they want Jamie here?

“What’s wrong with our pack?”

Ava shrugs. “We need a pool. Somewhere for the girls to hang out. You’re great, and we love you, but a Luna would get that.”

A fucking pool? I blink at the women in front of me. What the fuck is going on?

“She’s saying you’ve done a great job bringing this pack back from the brink, but it’s okay to want help and happiness, and it’s okay to forgive her.” Iris squeezes my arm to soften her words. “These idiots are going to hurt themselves before the next round even starts.”

Iris stands to the side now that her point has been made. She allows me to pass by and go to sort out the mess brewing in the clearing, where the so-called sparring is getting louder and more vicious with each punch thrown.

Multiple fights are going on at the same time and the crowd is baying for blood.

I need to get the carnage unravelling in my backyard under control before I can find a dark room and think. Already in a bad mood, I’m fit to explode as I watch on in disbelief as one wolf shifts and launches himself at another. I can handle some old grudges and amped up tensions leading to a fist fight, getting their animals involved is totally unacceptable.

“Enough!” I roar, the blood in my veins like red hot lava as every bit of my anger over the last few days bleeds into that one word.

The crowd falls silent, but the now two fully shifted wolves are still tussling on the ground, lost to their own fury, as they scratch and bite at each other.

“For fucks sake,” I mumble, climbing over the downed trees that surround the ring and into the centre. Reaching for the closest wolf, a dark brown animal with glowing icy blue eyes, I grab a hold of his ear and yell as loud as I can. “Shift or I’ll throw you out of this competition so fucking fast your head will spin.”

In an instant, I’m holding the ear of a pissed off but subdued looking twenty-year-old male.

Behind me, I hear the vicious growl of the other animal, still lost to its blood lust. This is more than two young men getting carried away, there’s a hatred here that has nothing to do with the games.

As I twist to block his attack, my stomach drops, and the blood in my veins turns to ice.

Freddy’s on his hands and knees in the middle of the ring, clutching the fluffy teddy he was trying to show me earlier.

The wolf is crouched, claws out and fangs bared, ready to launch itself at the man by my side, unseeing the toddler about to push to his feet between us.

His paws leave the dirt just as Freddy stands to full height and puts himself right in the wolf's path. I shift, going from man to wolf in a heartbeat, and jump, trying to meet the beast mid-air, to push him backward before they collide.

The dark wolf is huge compared to the fragile boy, and he’s in a frenzy. He might attack not knowing who or what got in his way.

Everything is a blur as I crash into the dark grey wolf, but it’s a fraction of a second too late.

He’s already hit Freddy, although the force of my weight barrelling into him stops him getting the full brunt of the impact. I send the wolf flying into a nearby tree stump instead of landing on top of him.

Rolling across the clearing, my back hits the ground hard, and I grunt in pain, momentarily winded. Rolling onto my side, I drag a shaky breath into my spasming lungs and blink hard, trying to get eyes on Freddy.

Maggie crashes through the crowd and pulls him up off the ground, cradling the back of his head as she checks him over.

But beside him, unmoving, is Jamie. She’s sprawled in the middle of the clearing, between where the wolf launched his attack and Freddy. There’s a line of red slowly developing on the side of her fitted white top, and more worryingly, along the pale skin of her neck, dripping into the dirt below.

Time stands still as I scramble across the ground, shoving the crowd that’s surged forward out of the way. I hear the whispers, each voice registering in my brain, as I reach down and brush her dark hair away from her face to check if she’s breathing.

She saved him.

Jamie jumped in the way. She ran out of the trees. It’s like she appeared from nowhere.

I don’t know how she even got here so fast.

She doesn’t move, knocked unconscious by the force of the blow. A red mark on her temple is the only evidence on her face of the bang to the head that she took. But the scent of her blood is getting stronger, and I feel sick to my stomach as I look down and see the long gash running from the back of her shoulder, almost around to her collarbone.

That’s a lot of blood.

His claws caught her neck.

He could have taken her head off.

“Jamie,” I whisper, clamping a hand tightly over the wound to stem the flow of blood. I ignore the mind-links flying through my subconscious. My pack is doing as it should, a well-oiled machine springing into action in an emergency, getting supplies, calling for help, and clearing the area.

I can’t focus on anything other than my mate.

Lifting the hem of her shirt with my other hand, I examine the other nasty claw mark running down her side, but it’s nothing life-threatening.

Ava falls to her knees beside me and presses her hands down on that wound, while Maggie passes Freddy to one of the bystanders and starts pulling out bandages and gauze from the medical bag that’s just been thrust at her.

I keep my hold on her neck firm, trying not to panic as blood continues to seep out through my fingers, the puddle beneath her spreading wider and soaking my leg where I kneel in the dirt.

This blood is coming out too fast.

Maggie takes one look at the pool of blood and pales, swallowing hard.

This is bad.

“Fuck man, I’m sorry…” one of the wolves’ steps forward and moves to help but I snarl at him and he wisely shrinks back.

“Touch her and I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Jamie’s eyelids flutter, and her fingers dig into the ground as she moans in pain, but thankfully, she doesn’t attempt to move.

“Jamie, you’re okay. I’ve got you. Don’t move.” I press my lips to her forehead and bend down so I look her in the eye. “Just hang on. You’ve got to hang on.”

Maggie’s beside me, poised to take over the second I’m ready to remove my hands. “I need more space, Dean. You’re going to have to move out of the way.”

My wolf howls, not prepared to leave her, even for a second, and not trusting her welfare to anyone else. But we need help, or she’s going to bleed out before our eyes. Forcing back my fears, I lift my hands and step back, watching in terror at the amount of liquid that spurts from the cut in that split second without pressure.

I’m coated in it instantly, and I can’t breathe, panic gripping me as I edge around to Jamie’s back and hold her steady while Maggie works at trying to put a temporary stitch in the wound that will buy Jamie enough time for her wolf to heal it.

That’s the best we can do.

Her skin is pale, and her breathing shallow.

Maggie curses, her hands coated in slippery blood as she works to close the gaping wound as fast as she can. The bleeding looks to be slowing, but is it enough? She’s lost so much already.

“We have to move her now, Dean. She needs blood, and I can’t do it here.” Maggie gently coaxes me away as they lift her onto a stretcher.

I’m back by her side instantly, trying to ignore the massive puddle of blood under my feet, as we hurry toward the packhouse as fast as we can without jostling her.

“My blood. You’ll give her my blood,” I demand unreasonably, thumping my chest hard.

We’re mates. My blood and my presence will heal her. It has to.

Maya and I used to joke that there must be something flowing through our veins that kept us alive countless times.

I’m praying that whatever it is will be strong enough to keep my mate alive, too.