It didn't matter. We rushed her into the house, taking care not to bump her head on the entryway around the door or anything like that. She murmured, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. My phone was lost in the shuffle, getting her onto the couch inside and wrapping a blanket around her. She was ice cold to the touch.
I looked back at Leo. "See if she had the heat on. It should still be warm out there."
"Got it," he said, and was gone.
My hands cupped her face, trying to warm her up. I crawled onto the couch with her, drew her into my arms, and held her tight. Being close to her without being able to really feel her hurt like walking across hot coals, but Sadie's lips had a blue tinge to them that I hated. What if Lillian's stupid potion had poisoned her? I couldn't imagine some mage working with the stuff you got at the grocery store and I wouldn't put it past her to fuck up something that was supposedly so simple.
Sadie stirred against me and sighed. "Xav...?"
She didn't even know who I was. I had skin-to-skin contact with her and she didn't realize it was me. It would have been one thing if we'd been surrounding her, if she had the whole pack wrapped around her at one time, but Xavion had followed Leo. I was the only one near her at the moment.
"No. No, it's Hudson. Did you have the heat on in the car? What happened at the restaurant?" I tried not to demand too much from her, but my voice came out in a gruff half-snarl that made her flinch away from me.
"Take it easy with her," Gabe whispered.
I turned to him and searched his face for some reassurance. I couldn't lose another mate, not Sadie, not now. We'd been a complete pack, happy and comfortable. We'd made love, all of us at once. We'd even marked her already, showing the werewolf world that she was ours.
Gabe shook his head and I looked at her neck. The skin was pale, sickly, but untouched. My chin quivering, I turned her head to the side and saw nothing where Gabe's mark had been.
Xavion followed Leo in, but it was Xav who spoke up. "Heat wasn't on. Doesn't smell right in there, either. Like astringent, or like those hospitals that reek of cleaner and death. Does she need a doctor?"
"No."
Sadie's eyes opened as she spoke. Her color was a little better, but nowhere near what I wanted it to be. She cleared her throat and spoke again. "No doctors. Nobody but us. I don't know what she did to me. She ruined it. She ruined it all."
"She didn't ruin a damned thing," Gabe snapped. "And you don't worry about her. You rest, you recover. We should have never let you go."
Our little omega sighed and those eyes slid shut again. "Wanted to go. Wanted to try to save us."
And she was out like a light. I slid my arms under her and carried her to the bedroom. Gabe went to check on Tommy as the rest of the pack joined me in the guest room. There was a bigger bed there, thicker blankets, more comfortable pillows. Like everything else, Sadie gave her all to those who depended on her and left herself wanting.
I put her down in that big bed and slid right in with her. Gabe rejoined me, Xavion and Leo following close by. The four of us crept into bed with her, curling up under the covers to keep warming her up. Her breath smelled like alcohol and I assumed that Lillian had gotten her pretty drunk before Sadie had run away. I didn't approve of drunk driving, but then, who did?
But I understood that it'd been a panicked moment and there was no damage to the Hummer. She'd had to escape, knowing what she knew when she lost her connection with us. And she'd come back to her pack as fast as she could, looking for solutions and finding just... us.
"No one leaves tonight," I said. "Even if she's up and feeling better, we stay with her. Vengeance can wait until another day."
Xavion glared at me. "If I want to go tear her head off, I'll go do it."
"And leave us as three to face judgment from the others?" Gabe asked. "We need you. We all need the pack to remain intact. Sadie isn't with us anymore." He saw my face and amended it. "Not like that, anyway. There's nothing we can do about that until we get permission."
The thought had crossed my mind. It would be nothing to simply turn her again, but the Meet would find a werewolf, not a human. And what if Lillian told them about her creative solution to Sadie's new furry problem? They would expect to find her human, not part of the pack, and they'd know what I'd done. One accidental turning by a pup had the slightest chance of being forgiven.
If I went against the cultural rules that I'd been raised with, ignored the statutes and the regulations set down by those who had come decades before us, there would be no mercy. And it was likely that, after getting my first mate killed with some stupid sheep, they would judge us to be so impossible to control that we would all have to be euthanized.
It would, of course, be for the greater good. Isn't that usually the theme with idiots like that? We'll take
