Free Alpha's Child by Aubrey Rose

yes, just ahead of him. Damien’s head swam with both excitement at the thought of finding Jordan and terror at the thought of what condition his best friend might be in. Damien moved forward quickly, the danger of other wolves forgotten.
    “Jordan?” Damien said.
    Yes, it was him, sprawled in the mud, his body radiating sickly heat. His breathing was so faint that Damien had to bend his head down to hear it. He moved his snout over Jordan’s matted fur, assessing the damage. Jordan’s body was shredded with long gashes from which blood was still leaking freely.
    “Jordan, we have to get you back,” Damien said. The tense quality of his own voice scared him even more. He heard Julia and Dee behind him but couldn’t smell anything. It was the blood, filling his nostrils so thickly that it blocked everything else out. “I’ll carry you back to the house. You can tell me what to do—”
    “Damien?” Jordan’s voice was strangled, weak.
    “I’m here, Jordan,” Damien said. “I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”
    “Damien, love,” Jordan breathed. “Leave now. I’m dying.”
    “No,” Damien said. “No.” He didn’t know what to do. He needed to stop the bleeding but didn’t know how, didn’t even know where to start. Jordan’s heartbeat was rapid and feeble, the flutter of sound coming muted through his wet pelt. Why were Julia and Dee not helping? Damien couldn’t sense them at all anymore. Everything was blood, blood.
    “So many of them,” Jordan said. “Run…you need to run…”
    “Wolves? How many?”
    “More than twenty.”
    “Twenty…” The word came out in a despairing, groaning exhale. Damien’s paws and snout were soaked, and his cheeks were wet, too, wet and hot with tears, and they ran down and mixed with the blood and he was pressing against Jordan’s body, what was left of it, trying to hold his dying friend together. Then for a single flashing second, he felt their connection, blazing between them like a supernova, and he felt the love emanating from Jordan and the pain, too.
    “Jordan, please…”
    “Run,” Jordan said, and Damien cringed at the fear in his whine. “Run.”
    “Jordan, no—”
    “Run! ”
    The raw terror in Jordan’s voice whipped through Damien’s wolf body and made him intensely aware of the sounds around him. A high wind whistled through the trees above, the air seething through the branches.
    Julia was in danger. He had to protect her. He had to protect them .
    He rose from Jordan’s body, the wind chilling his wet fur and sending shivers skittering down his limbs. He tried to think and sense clearly but Jordan’s fear intruded and he had to push it away. There were no other wolves around now, not that he could sense. Still…
    “Damien…” Jordan’s low growl was barely audible. The fear had dissipated, replaced by a peaceful ebbing of emotion.
    “I’ll always love you,” Damien said.
    Jordan’s emotions wrenched through Damien in one last surge, then faded into nothingness. It wasn’t a weakening of the connection. He was simply gone.
    “Jordan?” Damien rested his snout on the still body underneath him, turning to hear. Jordan’s heart was silent.
    Damien would not have been able to see even if he were not scarred, for tears filled his blind eyes and streamed down his cheeks. Jordan was gone . Jordan, the wolf who’d nipped his ears when they were both pups and had just learned how to shift. Jordan, who’d come with him after he lost the fight that cost him his eyes, who’d saved him from death time and again. Jordan, his best friend. Damien could never have imagined losing him, could not have fathomed it, and now…now he was gone.
    Damien raised his head and howled, the cry rising into the pines and twisting into the dissonant wind. The sound seemed like it might go on forever, but finally it faded.
    As he lowered his head, Julia called his name, a hushed, uncertain call. Strange—he could not feel the connection to her