Captive Mate - Eliot Grayson Page 0,66

was gray with shock and grief. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck…but on Nate’s other side was someone from the Kimball pack, and it looked like she was trying to work on Nate’s wound, which she wouldn’t have been doing if he was dead already. Maybe her name was Alicia? But I knew she was the pack medic, and she was putting pressure on Nate’s back and speaking urgently to Ian, something about severed nerves and surgery and a small chance of recovery and I’m sorry, Armitage.

My stomach clenched into a tiny, agonizing ball. Parker was dead, but it didn’t matter if Nate died too. Or if he spent the rest of his life paralyzed, broken, in misery.

I pushed through the small group and dropped down next to maybe-Alicia.

Ian looked up at me, and every trace of the threatening, arrogant alpha was gone. “Please,” he said. “Please, can you — please. He’s everything to me.”

An answer wasn’t possible, not without breaking down. And I had to focus, I had to be at my best, even though my best was somewhere back there in the woods whimpering under a tree.

I squeezed in next to Alicia and tore Nate’s shirt the rest of the way off of his back. I needed bare skin. My hands settled on either side of his spine, and I gathered what little reserves I had left and went in.

This wasn’t like healing Matthew from his fight with Tyler. That had been a simple matter of chasing out the poison and letting Matthew’s body do the rest — simple in theory, at any rate.

But Nate wasn’t a shifter, let alone an alpha. His body wasn’t repairing itself. And the damage was severe. Alicia hadn’t been exaggerating. His spinal column was nearly severed right at the base of his neck. Shock and blood loss were spiraling him down quickly, and on top of that, one of his lungs was punctured.

Nate living long enough to get to a surgery that wouldn’t do much in the first place sounded way, way too fucking optimistic.

And I didn’t have enough left in me to heal him. I was sure of it. I was running on fumes.

But there was no choice but to try anyway. I focused on his lung first, closing the wound as much as I could and stopping the flow of blood, pushing some of my own dwindling strength into him to try to keep his body from giving up. I moved on to his spine. His nerves were so delicate, so fragile, and they wouldn’t knit back together. Sweat was pouring down my own back and my forehead, my hair was falling in my face and sticking to it, and I wasn’t going to be able to do it. Nate wasn’t going to make it.

I’d failed again, and this time — this time, as much as I kept my conscience clear by simply not giving a shit, it was my fault. Parker had been after me. Nate was just collateral damage, and he was going to die in his mate’s arms only weeks after thinking he could actually be happy.

A whisper at the edge of my consciousness pulled me halfway out of my semi-trance. Not now, not now…but it didn’t go away, only grew stronger, poking and prodding me, demanding entrance to the space I occupied between my magic and Nate’s dwindling life.

It had a presence like…well, like the forest. Green. Quiet. Ancient and abiding and deep.

And it wanted to help me.

I opened to it, and heavy, slow-flowing power oozed into me, sliding along my own nerves and sprouting tendrils through my magic and into Nate.

One of the tendrils wrapped itself around his damaged nerves. They lit up like tiny fireflies, the severed ends connecting as if they’d never been separated. Another tendril teased at Nate’s still-damaged lung, whipping back and forth like a sewing needle.

I channeled what was left of my own strength directly into Nate’s flickering life-force, a delicate little blue-gold flame. It kindled and rose up, growing and growing until I had to look away from the brightness of it.

As the forest’s magic withdrew, the tendrils petted Nate’s skin, closing over the wounds in his back. They pulled out of me, leaving me empty and dark and drained. It didn’t matter. Nate was safe. Nate was healed.

And then they were gone, whispering away into the redwoods. The trees around us rustled and sighed, and then were still again.

My head spun and I started to topple, sliding sideways toward the