The Werewolf Affair [DeWitt's Pack 14] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (13 page)

As for Isaac, well, Phillip would now owe him a personal debt of his own. Phillip was in debt to one former hunter and was going to have to start treating another with at least some measure of respect. Perhaps both of them. That was going to be hard to swallow once he was able to get his throat working.

“Can you get into human form? This might be easier,” Isaac said.

That was right. Phillip was beyond the ability to fight. There would be no more battles for him today, or even within the next month.

He managed to lift his head, and he saw the way Luke was being handled. The alphas still in their wolf forms were biting at Luke’s legs and paws and what remained of his tail. The ones in their human forms had climbed on top of his back with much more ease than Trevor had done earlier, and they were attacking Luke’s weak points with a ferociousness that he did not want to see.

He looked over for Trevor, and his heart squeezed when he did not see the bleeding black wolf lying where Phillip had last spotted him.

Perhaps he’d managed to get up and walk away while the alphas made Luke go completely insane with rage. He would have to get to a safe place, like the way Isaac and Everett had dragged Phillip away as Luke spun and snarled and kicked out, destroying many more trees in the circle he created for himself.

Phillip concentrated. He wasn’t going to be fast in wolf form, so at least if he put himself on two feet, it would be easier for the men above him to help him to Trevor.

The transformation was fast, surprisingly. Despite his injuries, he was naked and in human male form once more.

Isaac looked down at him and hissed. “Fuck, that wolf use you as a chew toy, or what?”

Everett clenched his neck and hissed as well. “You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

Then the former hunter looked over to where the many alphas were subduing their giant rogue wolf, his eyes wide. “Cole,” he whispered.

Phillip didn’t think the man had anything to worry about as far as his own mate was concerned. It looked pretty much like the alphas had everything under control. Luke was slowly tiring out, blood marred his white coat, and he was going down.

“Trevor,” Phillip said. He couldn’t sniff out his mate because of all the blood in his nose. Must’ve happened when he hit the tree. His nose wasn’t exactly clogged with it to the point where he was pronouncing everything like he had a cold, but he still couldn’t smell past it. “Where is Trevor?”

“We’ll take you to him. Come on,” Isaac said, and Phillip thought he might owe the man again for how quickly they moved him around the wreckage that the alphas were creating.

There was another group, a smaller one, all of whom were in human form, and to Phillip’s shock, some of them were even omegas.

There was one man kneeling down by Trevor’s side, comforting him by petting his coat, avoiding the bandages that had been placed and were being soaked through with blood.

They surrounded him and touched him as one would a dying dog. They didn’t expect him to survive.

Phillip broke away from Isaac’s hold him and all but burst through the small crowd that circled his mate. The omega to bandage and comfort Trevor had been the man with the multicolored eyes. One eye brown, the other blue. Chris.

In werewolf lore, such eyes meant good luck.

Maybe Chris’d been trying to give some of that luck to Trevor, hoping he would survive.

“Give him to me,” Phillip said, falling to his knees in front of the prone form. Trevor hardly had his mouth open and tongue lolling out, but as Phillip scooped his limp body into his arms, he had to admit that much of his own hope drained out of him.

He gently shook the wolf body in his arms, then smoothed the fur around the eyes and snout. It was hard to tell because of the black fur, but it seemed that the blood was coating mostly everywhere on him, making him sticky and wet all over. “Trevor. I got you. I’m here. You’re going to be okay.”

Trevor didn’t open his eyes, not at first. When he did, Phillip’s heart swelled right before deflating immediately again at the sight of how dull those once-bright irises looked.

There must have been some recognition there because Trevor’s tail wagged limply at the sight of him. Perhaps it was only the sound of his voice that Trevor recognized.

“I’m here. I’ve got you,” Phillip said again, just in case that was the situation.

“We need to get him in human form,” Chris, the man with the dual-colored eyes, said. “We can’t see his wounds properly under his coat of fur. If he’s human, we can see what needs to be stitched up.”

Chris suddenly looked at him up and down as well. “You’ll need stitches as well.”

Phillip had forgotten about himself while he held on to Trevor. He could already tell what the problem was, even with the fur blocking the way.

Phillip had been bitten, but his fur coat had acted as a shield to that, keeping Luke’s teeth from going any deeper in the time that Phillip had spent within those jaws. He was injured and bleeding, but he could hold out for a little longer.

Trevor, on the other hand, was a different case. Luke hadn’t bitten him. He’d slammed the weight of his entire body onto him again and again. Phillip was willing to bet that Trevor’s wounds were internal and that those bloody splotches were from places where his bones had poked through.

Still, getting him into human form might help with that. The bones had to break and realign themselves in order for the shift to be possible. Maybe they would be repaired when he had some human flesh on him.

“Trevor? Can you hear me?”

Trevor could do little but blink his eyes like he’d been drugged out or something.

“Trevor?”

“I hear you,”
he said through their mental link. Even his inner voice sounded bleary.

“I need you to try and shift into your human form. It might repair your broken bones.”

Whether or not it would repair any internal bleeding or whatever else was going on inside of him remained to be seen.

When he didn’t reply, Phillip felt his head go light.

He shook him again, hated the pained sound that Trevor made when he was too rough, but delighted in the fact that it meant he was still alive.

That fogginess in the back of his brain didn’t go away, however. Phillip was more injured than he thought he was.

“Did you hear me?”

“Heard you.”
Again, Trevor’s inner voice was weak, but his entire body shifted. The fur rippled, and then it started to slowly shed away.

Phillip’s eyes became hot, and his throat became pained and thick. “Good. Very good,” he said, petting Trevor’s fur until it became hair on top of his head.

His skin was a pale shade just on the other side of gray. His entire body trembled, and now that his bandages that had been wrapped around him had either gotten too loose or fallen away altogether, Phillip could better see the damage for himself.

There had definitely been broken bones, and some that had spiked through his skin. The bloody holes here and there that hadn’t healed, mostly around his ribs, were a testament to that.

At least there were no bones sticking out of them. Phillip had been right. The transformation had righted his bones, but it hadn’t healed the other injuries.

Phillip quickly looked behind him to where Luke was down. He was down and bloody and not moving. They’d gotten him.

He looked back down at his lover. “You kept him from getting to the pack. You bought these guys time to get here.”

“Wasn’t gonna leave you behind,” Trevor said. Phillip would have thought it was a good sign the way he didn’t stumble over his words, but his voice was so small and his eyes weren’t open.

“Open your eyes for me. You need to stay awake.”

Trevor nodded, but he didn’t do as he was told.

Phillip looked up and around him to the other werewolves who were just standing there. He reached out and grabbed Chris by the wrist, his grip was so tight that the man’s eyes went wide.

“Can you help him?”

The men around him seemed to snap out of it when Chris shook his head. “I’m not a…I can’t do anything beyond first aid.”

“We can try and get him to the pond,” Isaac was the one to say this as he stepped forward into the crowd. Though the threat of the giant wolf was down, he still kept his hands on his guns, which were resting in their holsters. “That’s helped us before.”

Right. Phillip had forgotten about that. Even he’d drank the water from that strange and spiritual place and had felt more sane when he was going through his time healing after being wild.

Phillip brushed the sweaty hair away from Trevor’s eyes. He didn’t know if it was a good thing that the man wasn’t reacting to him. Not shivering at his touch, not opening his eyes. Nothing.

“Hear that? We’ll get you there, baby, don’t you worry. You’ll be fine.”

Isaac and Everett seemed to take control of the group while the other alphas were still making sure that Luke was dead. They arranged everyone to gather up as many branches as they could, long ones and preferably from the pine trees, with instructions to make sure the needles were soft before breaking anything off.

They made a makeshift stretcher in record time. It was such a good idea that Phillip couldn’t even grumble about how useful the former hunters were being. He no longer cared where the help was coming from. He just wanted Trevor to be alive.

He’d taken a firm hold of Trevor’s hand while the other alphas started weaving together the branches. He firmly ordered Trevor to squeeze it every five seconds. He hoped it would force the man to remain aware of himself, not fall asleep on him, and not die.

“You’re not going to die,” Phillip said, reassuring himself mostly. “I won’t let you.”

To his surprise, Trevor’s lips actually twitched, as though he were about to smile.

He didn’t use his mouth to speak to him. He used the mental link they had shared since claiming each other as mates.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Shut up. It’s not okay,” Phillip said, and his head spun again as he nearly yelled the words. Then his eyes swam and his vision blurred. “You need to live.”

“No, I don’t. It’ll be okay,”
Trevor said.
“You’re going to be fine and so is the pack. You can go back to your son.”

Phillip didn’t like the way he was talking, as though everything would soon be moving on without him.

“Couldn’t leave you behind.”

“Trevor, stay alive for me, and I’ll give you hell for being an idiot later.”

Trevor didn’t move or reply. The makeshift stretcher was ready, and Phillip helped to move Trevor onto it. Phillip got to his feet, and though his body screamed with every step he took, he kept pace with the alphas who carried Trevor between them, and he never let go of his mate’s hand.

“You were telling me about your family before. I’ll help you remember them. I’ll take you to go see them,” he said, squeezing Trevor’s hand when he didn’t squeeze back after fifteen seconds. “You’re too young to die, so don’t even think about it.”

“I’m with my family, Phillip. Don’t need anything else.”

“Well, I need you,”
Phillip said, using their link this time. Whereas before he wanted nothing more than to learn how to keep his thoughts private, now he deliberately sought out the inward presence of Trevor’s mind. He needed proof that the other man was there.

Trevor didn’t shake his head, and he didn’t move a muscle in his body, but Phillip could feel the coming negative response.

“No, you don’t. You’ll be fine,”
Trevor said.
“Promise you’ll be fine.”

He couldn’t let him go. He couldn’t let Trevor die. Trevor was allowing his injuries to take over because he didn’t think he had something to come back to. He was thinking that Phillip didn’t love him, so that it would somehow be easier for Phillip to move on with his life after he was gone.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“Stop talking like that. I do need you. Trevor, listen to me. I love you. I do. I promise I do. So you need to pull through, all right? Stay conscious and don’t die.”

Trevor’s eyes were still closed, but Phillip saw through his own blurry vision the moisture that built up beneath his lids.

“Do you hear me? Don’t you dare die on me,” Phillip demanded. “Who the hell else am I supposed to talk to around here? Or watch old movies with? I love you, Trevor. Please don’t die.”

Phillip was sobbing now, and that only made the hazy pain in his head all the worse. It wasn’t until Trevor’s grip on his hand went entirely lax that his heart flared, and then his own injuries got to him and he passed out.

* * * *

He was in a bed when he woke up. Not his own. He could already smell all of the things from outside of the door to the room. There was James’s scent, Corey, Old Maggie, Mick, and all the baby smells that came with having Sammy in the house.

He was in the guest room of the main house in DeWitt’s pack.

His eyes still felt cloudy, but Phillip was immediately aware of the lack of Trevor’s scent, from both the bedroom and in the house. There was no warmth on the other side of the bed either, suggesting that he hadn’t been lying next to him and never was there.