Chapter 28

ELEANOR

Xavier let out an annoyed sigh before he walked toward me and gently lifted me up in his arms.

“Bring her inside, Xavier. I’ll treat her wounds,” Eliza said.

Xavier nodded his head and walked inside the store.

The moment we entered the room, my nostrils were bombarded with the scent of fresh roses and jasmine.

“Wow, your flowers smell really good, Miss Eliza,” I said.

She smiled.

“Thank you, dear. I think a little magic does the job pretty well,” she said.

Xavier placed me on the sofa likely used for waiting customers, while Eliza walked toward me with a medical box.

“Show me your arm first,” she said.

I showed her my elbow, which was covered in blood, mud, and dust.

After inspecting me and patching me up, Eliza said, “She’ll be fine. Especially with her wolf ability to heal fast. She’ll be good in no time.”

I saw a flash of relief cross Xavier’s face.

“What are you doing here, Eleanor?” Xavier questioned.

“I kind of panicked. I thought you might be going to sleep with someone. I didn’t take the serum you gave me, and I didn’t want to feel the pain again,” I mumbled. I didn’t bother to mention the emotional pain that I was hoping to avoid.

He raised an eyebrow at me.

“You know how dangerous it is to come out of pack territory, right?” Xavier asked me, and I saw a mix of worry and anger in his eyes.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Leave her alone, Xavier. People do crazy things sometimes, I imagine this is heightened when it comes to mates,” Eliza chimed in.

I expected Xavier to say something rude to her, but surprisingly, he kept his mouth shut.

“Who are you guys looking for, anyway?” I asked.

Eliza briefly looked at Xavier before she answered my question.

“A girl is missing from your pack, and I found her,” she answered.

“Let’s get going. Thank you,” Xavier said.

“Thank you for patching me up, Eliza,” I said, and she nodded her head as we walked out of her shop.

I was about to walk back to the place where I parked my car when Xavier held my hand.

“Where are you going now?”

“To the car. I left it down the street.”

“Forget it, I will send someone to get it later. Get in,” he said as he gently dragged me toward his car.

After I was settled, Xavier put the car into drive, and we were off.

The ride back to the pack was filled with tension.

“Don’t follow me like that again,” Xavier spoke after a while.

“It’s not my fault that I was afraid, Xavier,” I mumbled.

That comment must have angered him because he took his eyes off the road and onto me. “Listen here, Eleanor, it happened one time—”

“Xavier!” I screamed, interrupting his speech.

But it was too late. The car collided head-on with a trailer. Our vehicle rolled several times before finally crashing into a tree.

The airbags had deployed, and shattered glass was everywhere—some of it embedded deep in my skin.

My vision blurred as I drifted in and out of consciousness. I turned my head, struggling to focus, and saw Xavier slumped against his seat, completely unconscious.

“Xa…Xavier.” I tried touching his shoulder and shaking him awake.

I felt my entire body numb.

My hand slowly touched my neck. As I brought it to my line of sight, I saw that it was covered with blood.

A glass shard was embedded in my neck, and I was losing a lot of blood.

“X…Xavier.” My breathing became shallow, and I couldn’t hold my eyes open any longer. I succumbed to the darkness.

BETA XAVIER

I growled as I woke up.

My head pounded as I looked around my surroundings. My car was trashed.

I tried moving my right leg, but an excruciating pain shot through it.

A huge piece of glass was embedded in my thigh.

Taking a few deep breaths, I pulled the glass out and threw it into the back seat.

“~What happened to our mate?~” Kyle started to panic.

I turned around to see Eleanor. She was extremely pale.

I felt like all the blood in my body drained when I saw the state of her.

Her clothes were soaked with blood. There was a cut in her neck where blood was still flowing out of her.

“Eleanor.” I tried to shake her, but she didn’t move.

With great effort, I managed to climb out of the vehicle. That was when my eyes locked with a wolf standing on the other side of the road, watching me.

Every sense in my body snapped to attention as I stood frozen, waiting to see what it would do.

We stared at each other for what felt like forever, neither of us moving—until the wolf finally turned and disappeared into the trees.

I quickly hobbled my way to the passenger side and yanked the door open.

The moment the door came off its hinges, Eleanor fell toward me.

“Eleanor!” I tried feeling for a pulse, but it was very faint.

“~We have to remove the glass from her neck,~” Kyle said.

“~But wouldn’t that increase the blood flow?~”

“~It will, but we have a medical kit in the car, right?~” Kyle asked me, and I nodded my head.

I quickly took it out from the back and limped toward Eleanor again.

“I’m sorry, Eleanor. This is going to hurt,” I said. I stepped closer to her and gently pulled the glass piece out.

Even after I pulled it out, she still didn’t respond. The sight of her like that made my eyes sting with tears.

This was all my fault. I should have been paying attention to the road.

I cleaned the wound with disinfectant and started stitching it up.

Once I was done, I put a bandage around it and stepped back.

I looked up at the sky to see that it was starting to get dark, and I could tell it was about to rain.

“We need to call for help,” I mumbled to Kyle and mind-linked Marquez.