This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,55

within the house, I make out Jace’s presence, as well as two female shifters I’ve never met.

“Helen!” Tristan’s roar is like a smack across my head, his power pouring ahead of him and flooding my senses. I rush to pull back my power—to stop sensing so much around me—before I’m overwhelmed.

He bursts into the room, carrying a girl whose hair is so covered in blood, I can’t make out what color it is as it falls over his arms. She’s unconscious, her eyes closed and her left arm hanging loosely. Her face and body are covered in slashes that stop the breath in my lungs—cuts from a dagger or from claws, I can’t tell which. She’s smaller than an adult. She might only be fourteen, possibly even younger.

Jace runs in close behind Tristan carrying an even younger girl. Her left arm is held at an awkward angle against her chest while Jace holds her so he doesn’t hurt her. She’s awake, sobbing against his chest, the sound of her cries wrenching at my heart. She’s wearing ragged jeans and a T-shirt with a rainbow printed on it. She can’t be more than nine years old.

What kind of monster would hurt these kids?

My wolf’s energy rises inside me—far from calm—and it takes all of my concentration to calm my anger.

Helen gasps as soon as the men enter, her hand flying over her mouth. Her gaze shoots from the teenager to the younger girl. “Carly! Becca!” Her teeth clench. “What happened?”

Tristan races to the examination table, laying Carly onto it while Jace retreats to the side of the room with Becca.

“Baxter fucking Griffin happened,” Tristan says. “She’s been stabbed in her chest, back, and thighs. He clawed her face. She was trying to defend her little sister.”

Tristan presses the back of his hand against his forehead, his fist clenched, as he backs away from the examination table. “I didn’t get there in time.” His voice is raw, exposed, more vulnerable than I’ve ever heard him sound as he sucks in air. “I couldn’t fucking… get to her… Not fast enough…”

He reaches out to steady himself against the table at the side of the room, his chest heaving, lips drawn back, teeth gritted. He’s naked from the waist up. Bare-footed. The top button of his jeans isn’t done up, telling me he shifted and didn’t have time to dress properly after. He’s dripping sweat, beads of liquid slipping down the side of his face and the center of his chest.

A thin line of blood cuts across his chest from his shoulder to his hip. It’s a claw mark, not deep enough to do any damage but clearly intended to gut him. He must have got out of the way just in time.

“Tell me you can save her, Helen,” he says, a demand.

Helen doesn’t reply. Her book zips closer to her side, pages flipping rapidly. She’s already whispering spells as she works over Carly at a frenzied pace. I watch in awe as spells pour from her mouth and she layers her magic, one spell over another, across Carly’s chest—her vital organs—followed by Carly’s head and face.

Despite Helen’s efforts, Carly’s breathing becomes more shallow with every passing second and the furrow in Helen’s brow grows more intense, a fierce but desperate intensity in the speed of her spells.

I want to help, but there’s nothing I can do to heal Carly’s wounds.

It’s all up to Helen.

Which seems to be making Tristan even more agitated.

His growled demand cuts across the space between them. “Helen!” he shouts when she doesn’t answer him. “Promise me you can save her!”

Still, Helen doesn’t respond, but I suddenly realize how I can help her. I need to play interference between her and Tristan so she can concentrate on her work without the distraction of his fear.

I round the table and position myself so that I’m standing between Tristan and the examination table, becoming a visual obstruction. “Helen’s doing everything she can, Tristan. You have to trust her.”

“Trust.” He spits the word. His fierce green eyes focus on me for the first time since he arrived, a deliberate move, as if he’s been consciously blocking my presence until this moment. Somehow, no matter the circumstances in which we see each other, his gaze always feels sharp, as if he’s trying to scrape back my defenses and tear at the heart of me.

With a snarl, his focus rakes up and down me, all the way from my ruby red hair, down my usual