It didn't take long to find her. We'd been around twenty miles away from the ruins of the camp and wolves could run when they needed to.

The place was nothing but a flat land with only a few tents remaining and multitude of metal poles driven into the hardened soil. Entering the place hidden inside the thickness of the forest, I counted over a hundred people chained to these posts amidst the debris of the place. Faces gaunt and pale, clothes shabby and layered with dirt from being worn for weeks long without a change, they were a horrifying sight to set your eyes upon.

Glowing shapes that looked human floated around the place in a frenzy of a constant motion. The further I went into the camp, the brighter the place became from the light radiating from the strange forms.

Following the pull to my mate I could feel in my every cell, I ran deeper into the place. Every once and then one of the glowing things would try to block my way and I would have to take a detour as they tried to attack me. What were these things, I wondered as my paws thundered with an urgency toward her. Why were they trying to stop me?

Several steps later, I saw her. The next moment, my body was fluid with motion as the wolf shifted into human. My heart dropped to the balls of my feet when I took a closer look at her.

In the very heart of the destruction she laid on her face. Several deep gashes on her back had her life bleed out of her and drench both the torn cloth she wore and the ground around her injured body.

A few feet ahead, there was what looked like a carved wooden altar. Lucas was passed out on top of it with a wound right in the middle of his bare chest as if someone had tried to open it up and see what was inside.

And by what Christine had told me about the soulless creatures I knew it was exactly what had happened.

Christine! I sent into the packlink, my voice a hoarse cry filled with the same urgency that had my body shaking as I ran toward my mate.

The motion of the glowing figures around me sped up, becoming a blur of swirling light. I couldn't move my limbs with them all around me, making me dizzy, not allowing me get to my mate.

Hurry up, Christine! She's barely holding on. She's dying! I screamed as they forced me to my knees.

She was at an arm's reach but I couldn't reach her. The things wouldn't let me reach her.

"Let me go!" I shouted at them, throwing my hands in front of me in an attempt to keep them away.

Ice cold, ghostly fingers dug into my skin.

Where are you? My sister's voice rang inside the link.

Instead of an answer I sent back flashes and directions.

Be there in a minute, was her answer as I tried to fend off the things of me.

"Please, let me go to her!" I screamed at the light shapes. "I'm her mate. She needs me!"

I didn't know if the things understood my words but the moment I spoke them, their ambush stopped and they floated away.

I crawled my way to her, kneeling next to her as my hands shot to the gashes on her back, putting pressure on the wounds. I counted the seconds as blood seeped beneath my hands. I felt like sinking, like drowning as I watched her, felt her grow colder and colder underneath my touch.

"Move away!" Christine's command startled me. She didn't wait for me but pushed me away and crouched next to my mate, placing her medical kit bag on the ground and I watched her rip the cloth from Scarlet's back then take out a bottle of antiseptic and pour all of its content over the wounds.

"Why don't you just heal her, Christine?"

"My healing doesn't work on her," she snapped then fished out a bandage and placed it on top of the gashes after ripping the packaging. "Come hold her up for me. On this side." She motioned opposite her.

I knelt on the opposite side of Scarlet and directed a look at my sister.

"I need you to lift her chest very slowly," she said, unwrapping a gauze roll. I did as told as several minutes later, the gashes were covered with the white fabric.

Once done, Christine turned her attention toward the other injured person. "Let's take a look at him and then we're going to figure our how to move them both to the camp."

Her healing worked on him just fine.

On the next day, the bleeding was less but still hadn't stopped. In addition to the wounds on her back, Scarlet had a few fractured ribs to heal. Scarlet's recovery rate was as slow as a human's when Lucas was already on his feet, my sister's healing allowing him to be right with us in Scarlet's tent.

Beside Christine, he had stayed by my mate' side along with me. And so did the glowing things that followed us back here. I had yet to find what they were exactly, but with my mate being in the condition she was it was not my top priority.

"We need to move her to a packhouse and give her a blood transfusion to help her recovery, Regan," my sister told me with a grim expression on her face. "I'm worried that she's healing so slowly," she added a moment later.

Her words stuck. A lump formed in my throat, Scarlet's hand in mine felt like a scorching iron that burned my skin.

I closed my eyes as a sigh ripped from my lungs. "Is it safe for us to move her? Will she be alright if we do?" I asked, a shudder running down my spine. With the corner of my eye I saw Lucas tensing, his body taking a defensive stance. He was acting like a mate would and that didn't sit right with me. No, that pissed me off.

"I'll make sure she's properly taken care of so she survives the journey, but I don't think we have much time or a choice for that matter. My healing abilities don't work on her and I don't have the equipment and medicine she needs. I'm worried she may go into shock if she loses more blood and she would if we don't prevent it." She pointed at the gauze that was already spotting crimson as the blood saturated the material.

I nodded. "I'll arrange it," I said and let go of my mate's hand. It was a torture to see her this way and be unable to help her.

I stood up from my seat on the camp chair and turned to Christine, pinning her underneath my gaze. "You promise you're going to do your best?"

"I will," she said softly, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry. I won't do anything to harm her."

Taking my sister's assurance, I turned toward the male who had acted like a caregiver before stealing my luna from me. "You're coming with me," I drew out.

"I'm staying with my mate," he said simply, no emotion in his voice as his eyes didn't move from Scarlet.

He was drinking her up. He was taking her in. He inched closer to her.

"Don't you dare lay a hand on her. She's not yours!" I growled, the beast clawing at me to let him out. He wanted to rip the guy to pieces.

He spun around to face me. "She left you for me," he pointed out.

"She left to protect me and the pack," I countered. I wanted to punch the guy so badly.

"She—"

"Alright!" Christine shouted coming to stand between us. "I think you both need to leave before you start a fight and harm my patient. And you" – she jabbed my chest with her finger – "get over your jealousy and go look for a place we can go."

I sighed. She was right.

My shoulders slumped with the burden on them. I had to do so many things when all I wanted was to stay next to Scarlet and just be close to her. A glance at my mate later, I spun around and exited the tent with the clear knowledge that I'd never let her go again.