Free Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) by Hailey Edwards Page B

got magic hands.”
    “Save him if you can.” I swallowed the lump clogging my throat. “Run and don’t look back if you can’t.”
    Failure was not an option. The feral awareness growing in my middle, warped by sorrow, vowed blood would answer for blood.
    “Understood.” His rough hand clapped me on the back as he shared a deep look with Dell. “Get her out of here and don’t let her peek until I give the all clear, okay?”
    “You got it, Doc.” Dell’s hands bruised my arms with the strength she used to contain me while helping me to my feet, as though not quite trusting I would leave in peace. She was wise to doubt. Her iron grip was all that kept me from snapping my teeth at Abram before she turned me on my heel and marched me in the direction of the RV park. “Focus, and you can keep tabs on Graeson through the bond.” She urged me past two men wobbling to their feet while more wolves struggled to find their human skins. “For now you’ve got to keep calm, or your panic will seep into the pack bond. If Graeson picks up on your distress, he’ll fight Abram’s healing to get to you. Right now you need to send him peaceful vibes, okay? Let him know you’re okay. Can you do that?”
    Several steps into the cool darkness of the woods, I faltered at the keening wail of a heart shattering into a million infinitesimal pieces.
    “Jensen,” Bianca screamed until her voice quit. “Jensen.”
    “Oh gods,” I murmured. “He stayed behind with her. I couldn’t locate him through the bond and then—” She’d attacked Graeson, and Jensen became the least of my worries. “We have to find him.”
    “Are you up for this?” Dell’s fingers dug into the meat of my upper arms. “Tell me the truth.”
    “I can do this.” I owed it to Bianca to find her mate. “I need to do this.”
    The hunt for Jensen lasted all of five minutes.
    We found him, what was left of him, behind a moss-covered boulder. He had been ripped into glistening strips of meat with the apparent ease of a child shredding tissue paper. Teeth and claw marks, most interchangeable on such a devastating scale, left no doubt he had met his end at the jaws of a fellow warg.
    Part of me mourned that I had seen so much death that more didn’t gut me the way I wanted it too. The way this should have. I hated being able to analyze the scene when a normal person would have fallen to their knees weeping and retching as Dell had beside me.
    “Alpha?” Haden’s voice rang in my head. “Are you all right? The bond feels…wrong.”
    “Leave Bianca with Nathalie.” For the sake of her baby, and her own mental health, she could never see this free of the blinding fog of Charybdis’s influence. “Bring the others, and come find us.”
    We had kin to mourn and defenses to ready.

Chapter 7
    I did what I could to minimize the trauma by organizing the pack meeting on the far side of the boulder. It wasn’t much, but it kept a barrier between the pack and Jensen’s remains so that those unable to face the horror of his brutal murder were protected from carrying gruesome mental pictures that would haunt them.
    Either my disquiet as I struggled for the appropriate words attracted the wargs to me, or they were in need of physical comfort after the events of the night. By the time I’d mentally exhausted myself with openings, the pack had drifted into my orbit. Nathalie leaned her weight against my left side and Haden brushed his right elbow against mine. The remaining three men I hadn’t met milled around, heads down and shoulders hunched.
    Instinct told me they were waiting for my acknowledgment. We had been tiptoeing around one another for long enough. That ended tonight. Starting with the shortest and least intimidating of the three.
    “We haven’t been introduced.” I used the loud, clear voice Graeson adapted when addressing the pack. The slight man with his feathered bangs and sprinkling of freckles sensed my attention and lifted his head.