As if reading my thoughts, she clapped her hands together loudly and blue sparks shot from her palms.
Holy shit.
Sage swallowed hard and I saw the hope in her eyes too.
The brown-haired girl looked up at me. “Please remove your fingers, Alpha. I will save him for you.”
I was… stunned… again by her use of that word. It sounded so… soft and respectful on her tongue, and she sounded so sure. My heart thundered in my chest. Did she somehow know who my bio father was? Could other Paladins smell my lineage? Arrow hadn’t… just because I was half of a Paladin alpha, that didn’t makemean alpha. Right?
I looked at Sage, wondering if we should trust this girl with Walsh’s life.
She gave one curt nod, and I pulled my finger out of the wet hole in his ribcage. Blood bubbled to the surface as the Paladin sighed deeply. “Father God, guide my magic,” she whispered, and again Sage and I shared a look.
Please be a badass healer, please be a badass healer, please be—
Holy rattlesnake.
I gasped as blue sparks lit up her face, and Sage’s, and… everything. This wasn’t witch magic. This was… something else. Something breathtakingly beautiful.
Little glimmers of bright blue rained down from her palms like glittering snow and fell onto Walsh’s abdomen. It coated his skin, the sticky blood, his gaping hole, his entire body, making him look like an injured alien unicorn. Walsh’s entire form glowed with glittering blue as the young naked Paladin female breathed in and out deeply through her nose, with her eyes closed.
“Protect me from evil, Father,” she whimpered, and I frowned just as an unseen force knocked into her and she fell backward, holding her stomach.
My eyes widened as I ran to her, forgetting all about Walsh. She lay flat on her back on the splintered wood of the carriage, looking up at the sky. Her fingers clutched her naked stomach as blood pooled around her.
“What the hell!” I shrieked, glancing back at Walsh, who gasped, taking in a deep breath as if he’d just been shocked back to life. My gaze flicked to his stomach…completely healed. Not even a pink mark or scar to show where he had once been injured.
How was that possible?
I grabbed the young girl—she looked barely sixteen—and took her into my arms, shaking her. “What happened!” What was that invisible force that had pushed her back? Why was she now bleeding where Walsh had just been injured? I had more questions than answers.
She looked up at the sky, smiling as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
“How do I help you?” I whimpered.
Her eyes found mine and I was struck by the deepest turquoise-blue eyes I’d ever seen. They were threaded through with shafts of yellow, making them look like they contained lightning. Reaching up, she stroked my face. “Alpha.”
Something stirred inside of me. My wolf? I inhaled. No.It was… something else. The scent of magic filled the air and my chest constricted. What was the point of saving one life just to take another? Had this girl just given her life for Walsh?
“Claim me,” she muttered.
What?
I didn’t know jack shit about the regular wolf world, even less the Paladin one! What did that even mean?
Sage knelt beside me, looking over at me with wonder in her eyes. “Demi… was your Paladin father… an alpha?”
I swallowed hard, nodding once.
“Holy shit.” Sage shook her head. “Quick, nip her wrist. I read that the Paladin alphas are old school. They bite their members to claim them and tie their soul to their people so that they can share power. I think… you could save her?” Sage sounded unsure, but definitely looked heartbroken at the sight of the innocent dying sixteen-year-old girl.
Alpha. Bite her? Tie my soul? What the hell was happening?
The girl blinked up at me, a single tear running down her cheek. “It’s okay. Father will take me now.”
Fatheras in theheavenlyfather? Hell no, I wasn’t letting her die.
“Not yet,” I growled, a need to save this girl surging within me.
