He’s alive now and I have to believe he’ll stay that way until I can rescue him. Any other outcome is unacceptable.
“We just gonna do nothing?” Jet snaps, teeth bared as he stalks over to me, hands clenching and unclenching, shoulders rippling as he fights the urge to shift. I get it, with every fibre of my fucking being, but I can’t leave Cal like this, and I won’t send Jet after five FBs alone.
“We have pack to take care of.”
“Fuck,” Jet curses, hands gripping his hair as he looks at Cal. “Sorry, I?—”
“I know.”
“Get these off me so I can help.” Flint holds his wrists out, careful not to jostle Beth. His skin is raw and angry where the aconite-coated metal rubs against it, and I want to kill Birch so badly. Wolfsbane is a hunter’s weapon of choice. He has no right using it against his own kind.
I leave Jet to help the others and concentrate on Callum.
Aconite poisoning requires an antidote to counteract the effects, but if the first dose isn’t administered quickly, it won’t work. We’re more than an hour away from home and I don’t know where else to get it from.
Ten bikes crash into the clearing either side of us, and I’ve never been so glad to see the red Honda Fireblade that belongs to Corey Holt. He rips his helmet off, letting his bike fall to the ground as he races over to his brother.
I stand and address the remaining nine members of my pack. “Birch and four FBs took Morgan.” I point in the direction they ran. “Find them.” They disappear down the dirt track in a cloud of dust and I drop down next to Corey.
“What happened?” he asks, fingers trembling as he inspects the area around the knife. Black lines are already forming at the edges of the wound.
“Birch threw an aconite blade intended for me.”
“Fuck.” He’s already shrugging the small rucksack off his back. “How long ago?”
“Five minutes, tops.”
“Lynx?”
I look up to see Jet and Flint standing over us, Beth now conscious on the floor behind them.
“Go.”
Jet’s vibrating with the need to chase them down, but he bites his lip, torn. Injured brothers are hard to walk away from. Flint doesn’t look much better.
“We’ve got this,” I tell them, hoping to fuck I’m right.
“I’ll stay.” Beth moves to crouch beside Mal as he starts to rouse. “Go get those bastards.”
“Here, take my bike.” Corey tosses Jet the keys.
It’s a testament to how fucking enraged they are when Flint doesn’t even argue about getting on the back of it. “Keep in touch,” I yell as Jet revs the engine. A raised hand from Flint is all the answer I get as they speed off after the others.
“Hold him down,” Corey instructs, snapping my attention back to the syringe in his hand. “Beth,” he calls, cupping his brother’s cheek. “We’re gonna need you over here a second.”
She rushes over and takes Cal’s other side, gripping his arm and shoulder like I am.
“I’m sorry, Cal,” Corey whispers, then injects him with the antidote.
Nothing happens for a count of three, and then Cal’s body jerks, his scream ripping through the air a second later.
Beth and I hold him down as he struggles against the pain racking his body.
It seems like forever until he finally falls limp. I relax, thinking the worst is over, but one look at Corey tells a different fucking story. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s not working.”
“But—”
