Eli put his arm up just as those jaws clamped down, and Chris yelled.
94 Marcy Jacks
Chapter Eleven
Chris screamed as he watched Eli get thrown down into a bed of shattered glass by the wild animal who jumped through their window. The blood spurted next, and just as Chris recalled Eli’s command for him to hide under the bed, he thought, Fuck that.
Chris jumped out of bed, still completely naked, and he ran behind the wolf that currently had his lover in a death grip. Eli had put his arm up to defend his face, but now his arm was in the mouth of that raving wolf, and it was being torn to shreds.
“No!” Eli yelled at him when he caught sight of what Chris was doing.
Though he felt compelled to turn back and run, or at least make an attempt to obey Eli’s earlier command―which in itself was only a product of their mating―Chris ran behind the wolf.
The gray mass of snarling hair was too busy trying to yank Eli’s arm out of his socket that he didn’t notice Chris approaching from behind. Not until Chris grabbed the creature by the ears, digging his fingernails into the sensitive flesh, and yanking back as hard as he could.
The result was instant. The wolf released its hold on Eli’s arm as
it bucked back in pain. Chris felt some of the skin tear up and collect under his fingernails when he scratched too hard, but he had no time to reflect on that as the wolf twisted around and shot out its claws
along Chris’s chest.
He didn’t feel any pain. The wolf missed!
“Chris? Chris!”
Chris only heard the alarmed shout as though it had come from
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down a long tunnel. He felt a warm, wet something cripple down his chest, and he looked, expecting to see wolf drool or something.
He saw red. Blood. He didn’t understand why his eyes were playing tricks on him like this. It looked like it was squirting from several gaping slashes on his chest, going from the top, all the way down into his stomach, where the slashes got to be deeper.
That couldn’t be right! He wasn’t hurt!
The wolf whined, its tail cowering between its legs before it jumped back through the window, disappearing.
Chris had scared it away. Good.
Then he keeled over.
Eli caught him before he could land on the hardwood floor, and then Chris really started to feel the pain.
That had been so fast. Less than ten seconds, and now he was
going to die.
Eli shook him. “Chris? Chris! Stay awake!”
“I’m fine,” he said, but Eli ignored him, heaving Chris into his arms and running out of the bedroom.
From Chris’s position, he could only make out things that were happening above him. First the slightly cracked ceiling of their cabin. Then the blue sky, and then the faces of the other members of Eli’s pack gathering around him. Their faces ranged from sick horror, to sympathy, and then sadness.
“James!” Eli shouted, even though his alpha was standing right there. Eli was panicking. “He’ll be okay, right? That other wolf infected him, so he should start healing soon? Right?”
His voice became more and more desperate the more he spoke.
Chris’s vision was starting to go fuzzy now, but he could still make out the way James clenched his jaw and bit on his lower lip. He looked behind himself and called for someone to step forward.
Old Maggie came into view. The pack’s wise woman. Chris felt a sense of calm at seeing her. She would tell everyone that he was fine, that all Chris needed was some sleep, bandages, and chicken soup or
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something.
She scrutinized the wound carefully, and Chris’s eyes became heavier and heavier. Eli shook him again.
“Stay awake! Baby, please, stay awake. Don’t die on me.”
Eli was crying now. Chris could tell by the way his voice broke, and the gentle, tickling splash of warm tears on Chris’s face.
“His bowels were nicked,” Old Maggie said, and then she shook her head in a decidedly nonencouraging way. “I have nothing that can save him from that.”
“No!” Eli screamed, mirroring Chris’s thoughts.
“The pond! I’ll take him to the pond.”
“He may very well not make it that far,” Old Maggie said. “And
those wild werewolves are still surrounding us.”
Chris didn’t care. He didn’t want to die, and he did his best to
convey those thoughts to Eli.
Eli looked down into his face and must’ve seen that. “James?” his
voice was begging.
Luckily, he was on board. “Andrew, take Nick and Adam and run ahead. Take down anyone you see that we don’t know. Isaac, pull your guns out. You and Morgan can cover us.”
The sound of a gun barrel clicked. “Will do.”
Chris was already starting to feel the world shaking around him. If he’d wanted to fall into a peaceful sleep before, he didn’t now, since
everything was too uncomfortable as Eli ran with him in his arms.
Chris had been told about the pond’s strange healing powers, but he’d never bothered swimming in it before. He really hoped that what Eli and the others said about that water was true and that he could
hold on just long enough to make it there.
* * * *
Eli could hear the growls and howls of the wild werewolves as
Nick, Adam, and Andrew hunted them down.
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But there were far too many of them for just three alpha wolves to take down on their own. There were also the wolves that stayed away from the fighting, the ones who peeked their heads out through the shrub to watch as Eli ran as quickly as he could with Chris’s limp body bleeding profusely in his arms.
Maybe they didn’t attack because James was currently in his wolf form, running beside Eli and growling at any wolf who got too close, and then there was Isaac, who pointed his Glock and let off a random shot into the bushes to scare any wolf away from coming too close.
Maybe they just felt
