Closing her eyes, she found her lake of calm, turned it into a river…and poured power into him.
Donal had fallen into a universe of cold darkness.
He woke to sunlit warmth.
He took a breath, then a deeper one, feeling as if his lungs were stretching, as if he’d been moved out from under a massive boulder.
Scents drifted to him. Tynan was close. There was the soft fragrance of flowers. Margery? Was that her weight? Her furry head lay on his shoulder, her paw on his chest.
No, he knew better. She was headed for Canada.
Yet he didn’t move. Right now, he’d prefer the fantasy to reality.
Then he realized the smell of blood that filled the clearing included the scent of her blood.
His eyes snapped open, and he sat up so quickly his head spun. “Are you hurt? Where are you bleeding?”
On his other side, Tynan gripped his shoulders and steadied him. “There you are. I wasn’t sure you’d come back to us.” Tears glinted in his eyes. “Don’t do that again, mo deartháir.”
Donal pulled in a breath as he heard the pain. “I’m sorry, brawd.”
Slowly, he looked down—and yes, she was there. Margery. Obviously dislodged when he moved, she gave a pained whine and shifted to human. Slowly, carefully, she sat up.
She really was there.
In fact… The realization came slowly. She was the reason he was alive at all. “You shared power with me.”
Her hand was on her forehead. Her face was bloody, and her brows were pulled into a pained frown. Yet her lips tilted upward into a smile. “You’re welcome.”
By the Gods, he loved her. Gently, he pulled her closer and chuckled. “That’s what I meant to say. Thank you. You saved my life, you know.”
Her curvy body stiffened. “I know.” She gave him a dark look. “Like Tynan said, don’t do that again.”
He wanted to talk with her, tell her how much he loved her. But this wasn’t the time. “We’ll talk later, cariad.” Donal rubbed his cheek against hers. “Just don’t leave us again. Aye?”
“Aye.”
She’d come back to them. His heart felt swollen with the knowledge.
Even as he grappled with the emotions, he frowned and moved her hand from her head. The long furrow was too clean to be from a branch. “By Herne’s holy prick, what is this? No, don’t bother to try to snow me with pixie dust; I know what that is. You put your brain-pan, you know, where your brains are, in front of a Gods-benighted, buggered-up bullet.”
Even as his mouth kept moving, he laid his hand over the wound and healed the bruised, bleeding tissues inside her brain, the cracked skull, then the furrow.
“There are others who are worse off,” she protested.
As if he’d ever let her be in pain if he could help it.
But she wouldn’t accept that answer, so he gave her the other truth, the harder one. “I need you able to move. To help.” Frowning, he healed the knife wound over her ribs.
“Oh. Of course. What do you need?”
And he could only smile because the response was simply…Margery. If she could help, that’s where she’d be.
Tynan chuckled and kissed her hair. “I’ll find you some clothes, then go back to search and rescue. You okay now, cat?”
“I am.” Donal did a quick internal assessment and felt his eyes widen. “In fact, I’m full up.”
Margery snickered. “Healer, that sounds more like a car than a shifter.” Rising, she looked around the tent, eyes narrowed. Assessing. Triaging.
She filled his heart to overflowing.
As Tynan pulled him to his feet, Donal exchanged smiles with him. Their mate was back where she belonged.
Hours later, Tynan and his crew carried the last of the wounded to the dining tent on the festival grounds.
The battle was over. Was won—but at such a cost. His chest ached where bonds to several pack members had been severed by violent death. Dread lingered inside him because he didn’t know who’d survived…and who hadn’t.
It wasn’t only wolves. The cats. The bears. They’d died fighting for their people. Their clans.
With a sigh, he bent, eased the groggy panther off his shoulders and onto a blanket. He stroked the cat’s fur and murmured, “I’ll get someone over here to see you.”
Looking around, he spotted one of the injured, and his heart lifted. “Warren.”
“Uh. Hey, Beta.” The young male was curled up on a blanket. Bandages around his chest were bloodstained, and he winced when he tried to sit up. “You made it.”