Fire of the Wolf [The Gray Pack] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (2 page)

* * * *

Shit.
Damon looked down at the scrap of a woman he held in his arms. He had just felt her go completely limp, and knew that any second this building was coming down. He had to move fast. The other two people had been taken out of the building already, and she was the last one unaccounted for. For just a millisecond he hesitated, stunned by his reaction to this woman. He had to mentally shake himself to clear the lust that was burning in his brain from just having her near him, and the smell of smoke burning in his nose reminded him of where he was.

Turning quickly, he leapt forward, and just as his body reached the glass front door of the building, he felt and heard the groan of steel and creak of wood. The pressure of the collapse pushed him and his unconscious bundle out through the doorway, landing them about twelve feet down the sidewalk. The heat that blasted up his back brought tears to his eyes, and knocked all of the oxygen from his body. His lungs seemed to collapse into themselves, and the muscles in his shoulder where he had taken the brunt of the landing trying to protect her, were screaming at him.

In slow motion he rolled to the side to see if the woman was still alive under him, and felt his heart jump for joy when he saw her breasts rise and fall. They rose above her tank top, glorious swells of femininity that just looked like they needed to be set free. Someone helped to lift him to his feet, and he saw the EMTs lifting her onto a stretcher as they pressed an oxygen mask to her face. They wheeled her quickly to a waiting ambulance, and she was gone.

Please, Please. Let her be okay, I can’t lose her now.
He begged in his mind.

“What the hell was that?” the sharp voice at his side seemed angry and confused.

Damon glanced toward his brother’s dumbfounded stare. He realized that his twin had heard every word Damon was thinking as usual, and didn’t understand it one bit. Devin was almost his mirror image, and the only other person who shared all of his quirks and vices. How could he explain to Devin what had just happened to him in those few seconds when he didn’t completely understand it?

Bending over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath, Damon did the only thing he could do.

She’s my mate
,
he thought, and he heard Devin’s sharp intake of breath before they both headed for the hospital to find her.

“Are you sure, Damon? I mean there was a lot going on, and maybe all the smoke went to your brain.” Devin had spent the last two hours pacing the waiting room at the hospital, trying to convince Damon that he had lost his mind, and needed to go home and forget about this woman. Nothing seemed to work, and Damon wasn’t budging from the hard plastic chair he sat on.

“Devin, I know you are the Alpha, but I’m asking you not to doubt my instincts. I have to see her, talk to her. She is my mate, and I felt it to the bone as soon as I got near her. What am I going to do now?” Damon looked so pained that Devin almost laughed.

“I guess you’re just going to have to waltz into her hospital room, and tell this tiny hero that you are a werewolf, and she smells yummy. After which we can follow it up with a visit from her new Alpha brother-in-law, and I will welcome her to the pack.” Devin laughed so hard at the image that he had to sit down.

Damon just grimaced and slumped over with his elbows on his knees, his hands tangled in his thick black hair. He knew how crazy this whole thing sounded, but he wasn’t letting her get away from him now that he had found her.

He had already been through the emergency room himself to get checked out, because the fire chief wouldn’t take his word for it that he was fine after that rough landing back at the scene of the fire. As a werewolf, his body healed incredibly fast, and by the time he was released, his pains had gone. The doctor that saw him had reminded Damon how lucky he was that he made it out of the building at all—like he didn’t already know it.

According to Devin, the decision had been made to just let the fire burn itself out, so there were only ashes left of the building now. Thankfully everyone that was inside before the fire was accounted for, and had escaped serious injury. Only the last three people pulled out even needed to go to the hospital to get looked at.

His mind flashed back to the moment that he saw the first woman rolling down the stairs as he and the other guys were going back into the building to search one last time. As they reached the first one, a second woman had bounced down the steps to the floor, but she had held the small child, who was obviously out cold in her arms. For that couple of seconds the team’s plan to rescue the victims seemed to be working perfectly. They had found them, and they were alive, but then he had picked her up.

Damon came back to the present with the scent of his mate still filling his nostrils. It seemed to simmer in his brain, making everything but being near her seem unimportant. Just then a doctor came into the waiting room and stopped in front of the men.

“Are you the family of Caroline Trainor?” he asked in a soft voice.

“No—” Devin started.

“Yes!” Damon jumped to his feet, determined to get information from this doctor no matter what lies he had to tell him.

The doctor hesitated, looking from one man to the other. “Are you her husband?”

“Not exactly, ummm, I mean, uhhh…” Damon wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but he knew that he had to see his woman.

“What he means is that they are engaged, but not married yet.” Leave it to Devin to come to the rescue, and give him the right words. The brothers locked eyes and shared a silent agreement to get what they were here for. Damon breathed a sigh of relief as the doctor nodded and continued.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that Caroline was engaged. I’m Dr. Lou Jackson.” The doctor shook hands with both of the men. “I’m the doctor assigned to her. Caroline has some smoke inhalation, but is otherwise fine. She will have bruises because of the fall down the steps, but we couldn’t find any other injuries. She hasn’t regained consciousness, though we expect her to anytime. I’m absolutely amazed that a woman her size was able to help two people out of that fire without more injury.” He stood still, shaking his head with a slight smile on his face, until he realized that the men in front of him were impatiently waiting. “Would you like to go back and see her now?”

Devin and Damon followed the doctor down the sterile hospital hallway. Damon could hear his brother in his mind as they walked.

What if you’re losing it, little brother?

Just wait! She will feel the need to mate when she sees me. And then we can take her home, and I will claim her as soon as possible.

Damon had never really seen either one of them settling down. He had always pictured them as forever bachelors, loving the ladies and enjoying their freedom together. They liked the setup that they had. Devin was the Alpha of the pack, and was capable of facing any danger with Damon as his second. They were surrounded by their closest friends and pack members at the firehouse, and the rest were a few miles outside of town at the den. They worked hard, and played harder, so how was a mate going to fit into his world?

Nuts. Taking a mate at this stage in your life is nuts, Damon.

Damon threw a backward glare at him over his shoulder at Devin’s input. Devin just smiled, acknowledging that his brother meant no disrespect. Damon knew that, if asked, Devin would do everything in his power to help him, and to make her transition to wolf easier.

As they reached the doorway of a room, the doctor slipped the chart in his hands into the file holder on the door and said, “Be patient. Your fiancée has been through quite an ordeal, and may need some time to readjust. We’re going to keep her here overnight for observation, and then we will let her go home.” He stumbled for a moment like he just couldn’t find the right words. She didn’t have a home after the fire had destroyed the apartment building. “I mean, well, we will discharge her tomorrow.”

Damon nodded at him in silent understanding, and shook his hand again. “Don’t worry. I will take care of her.”

Turning away as the doctor walked away back down the hallway, he reached for the door handle, but Devin stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“You know that if she IS your mate, there is no turning back?” Devin stared into his identical twin’s eyes, and took a breath. Whatever he saw made him drop his hand, and shrug. Damon hoped that meant he understood his need to go to his mate, and then together the brothers pushed through the door and past a privacy curtain.

His eyes burned as he stared at her lying in the hospital bed surrounded by machines that beeped out her heartbeat and pushed air into her nose. All of the breath left his lungs for the third time that night, and he froze.

She was stunning. Her soft mahogany-colored hair was thick and wavy, but was currently pulled up in a terrible ponytail on top of her head. Her skin was a golden-caramel color, but currently much paler than it should be, making the faint freckles that dotted the bridge of her tiny nose that much more prominent. Her face was a heart shape that ended in a soft point at her chin, and her eyebrows were perfectly sculpted arches above her mile-long eyelashes. Her lips were slightly too large to balance her other features, but damn they sure were a pretty soft-pink color, and just begged to be kissed.

Perfect
was the word that came to Damon’s mind as he ate up the vision of his destiny. She was about five foot four and considering he had already held her in his arms he knew she couldn’t weigh in at more than 115 pounds. She had felt curvy in his arms, and her breasts were fairly large on her petite frame. Her hands were small, but her fingers were long and feminine. He frowned when he saw her finger nails, because where they were probably once delicately manicured, now they were chipped, broken, and had soot underneath them.

Reality rushed through his brain like ice water. His woman had almost given her life to save a neighbor and her six-year-old son from a burning building. Damon felt pride fill his chest that this angel could be his true mate. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and shake her until she told him why she had risked her life, and then kiss her until she promised to never do something so dangerous again.

Damon turned around, realizing his brother hadn’t said anything since they came into the room. He found Devin standing in the doorway looking like he had seen a ghost.

She’s my mate, too
.

Damon growled under his breath as he heard the thought from Devin clear as day in his mind. “What?”

“I don’t like it either, Damon, but she’s my mate. I smell her, and feel her here,” he whispered, and then Devin put his hand on his chest over his heart. “She was born for us, and she will accept both of us as her mates.”

“That can’t be! What are you talking about? I don’t want to share my mate.” Damon’s mind raced as he struggled to grasp what was happening. He knew that twins were a special case when it came to werewolves and mating. More often than not they would end up with one mate for the pair of them, but now that Damon had found her, he just didn’t particularly want to have to share her. Not even with his Alpha twin brother!

His wolf came angrily to the surface, and he could feel his claws just under his human skin aching to break free and tear his brother’s tongue out for even daring to look at his woman. And then he saw the connection. It was in Devin’s face and in the tension in his muscles. Damon accepted it in that moment. He accepted that his Alpha brother also had a claim on this woman, but he sure as hell didn’t know how they were going to make Caroline accept it.

The beautiful woman in question suddenly took a deep breath, moaning loudly, and then opened her eyes. The blank stare of her soft chocolate-brown eyes told the brothers that she hadn’t yet completely become aware of her surroundings, so they waited silently as she got her bearings. Damon stood as still as possible, staring at his mate with a powerful need to protect and comfort her. He could sense Devin just behind him to his left, tense and on edge as his wolf fought to come forward and claim its mate.

When she focused in on Damon, a small wrinkle appeared between her brows, and questions filled her eyes. He could sense her disorientation, and wanted her to read the answers in his eyes, but being human and not wolf, this was an unrealistic hope. Her intense gaze ate him up. Slowly her eyes drifted down from his dark hair past his muscular chest, lean hips, and all the way to his booted feet and back up to meet his dark, ivy-green eyes. His wolf growled in his head at the interest he saw in her eyes when they met his.

“Hey, beautiful, I’m glad to see you’re awake.” He smiled his most charming smile, flashing the dimple in his right cheek at her, and moved closer to her side. He just barely kept from reaching out to touch her or hold her hand, but somehow he just knew that this woman wouldn’t appreciate it just yet.

* * * *

Caroline was so confused. This wasn’t her apartment, and it wasn’t the hospital staff room, so where was she? She tried to focus in on her surroundings only to have her stomach tighten when she saw the stranger next to her.

“Who…who are you?” She winced at the pain in her throat and the rough sound of her voice as she tried to scoot higher in the bed. Her muscles fought against her as she moved slowly. She felt like she had been bulldozed by a truck, and her vision blurred for just a moment.