This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,100
wolf may be able to tear at the senses of someone she passes through, but she can’t heal a dying shifter.
Danika drops to her knees beside me, her golden brown hair burned at the ends, smudges of soot smeared across the backs of her hands and her cheeks.
She shakes as she reaches for me. “What do you need, Tessa?”
“Can you fly to Tristan? He needs to take Bridget to Helen. She’s the only one who can help her. I don’t know what sort of supernatural that man was, but—”
“Ice jotunn,” Iyana says, dragging herself upright on the opposite side of Bridget. “He was an ice jotunn.” She pronounces the creature’s species as ‘yuh-tun.’
My eyes widen. “An ice giant?”
“Not actually giants, but yeah, they’re big guys. And rare. I didn’t know any still existed.” She rubs her heart. “One icy punch to my heart and he knocked me out cold.”
Danika takes hold of my shoulder, trying to turn me toward her. “Tristan’s on his way already. That’s where I went. To get help. But, Tessa…” She gestures. “You’re hurt too.”
I shake my head, refusing to look at my chest. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” Her voice is gentle, compelling me to check the damage to my chest.
A single glance, and I wish I hadn’t. Part of the bodice is melted away, burned and curling at the edges. My left breast is only just covered by the strapless bra beneath it. My skin is split and bleeding across the location of my heart—a three-inch-wide wound, although it’s shallow—while a dark bruise is developing around the impact area and across my left shoulder. “I’m going to be okay.”
I sense Tristan’s approach, his power streaming ahead of him.
My wolf shivers and I suddenly realize that she’s exposed. I wrench her back into my body so fast that she disintegrates before my eyes, leaving behind only a black spot in my vision. Her energy passes across the air in a blink and blends with my human form again. The bright blaze she leaves behind is tinged with cobalt blue light—the color of my fear. She reminds me exactly of the way the white wolf disappeared in front of me the other night.
“Tessa!” Tristan’s roar breaks across the distance. He’s bare-chested, jeans unbuttoned. He probably shifted into his wolf form to run all the way here, and then dressed on the run a block back.
I was expecting to see Jace too, but he’s nowhere in sight.
I’m not caging my emotions and they must be exposed and wounded, buffeting Tristan in waves. The same way his emotions are hitting me hard.
He’s angry.
So angry, I don’t need melding to read his mind. Neither, it seems, do Danika and Iyana, who both brace, tensing up as Tristan sprints toward us.
“You should both get out of the way,” I murmur to them. “I can handle this.”
They shake their heads, but I grimace. “Please. This is my responsibility.”
They slowly rise to their feet, leaving me beside Bridget, but they don’t go far, standing protectively behind me, Iyana paler than normal and Danika singed and smeared with soot.
“What the fuck happened?” Tristan shouts as he drops to his knees, sliding the last inches to stop at Bridget’s other side, despite ripping up the knees of his jeans in the process.
“Two men. An ice jotunn and a warlock,” I say, waiting for Tristan to look at me. “The ice giant got Bridget.” While Dawson distracted me.
Tristan leans over Bridget, pressing his hand to her heart, searching her face. He rejected me the other day so that he wouldn’t lose her, so she wouldn’t run, to keep her in his pack. He risked fighting me for this woman.
He still hasn’t looked at me. I’d like to believe it’s because he’s busy assessing her wounds, but it’s more than that. I feel it in the anger he isn’t hiding.
I failed him.
“She needs Helen’s help.” I grit my teeth and bury my own emotions, determined that Tristan won’t sense my regret or pain—or my shock.
“This is on me,” I say, my voice flat. “It was my job to keep her safe.”
Tristan scoops Bridget into his arms, the ice burn across her arm a sickening sight as he gathers her up against his chest. “Jace has gone to get the SUV. He’ll meet me halfway.”
Tristan is gone before I can reply, carrying Bridget away as fast as he carried me on the first night we met, his powerful legs pumping.