Free Suck It Up by Emma Hillman Page A

screamed so high the whole room froze.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Thirteen
     
     
    “Get it off! Get it off me! Oh God, it hurts. Please, make it stop. Make it stop! ”
    There was so much pain in his mate’s voice that Nathan instantly reacted. He knew he needed to stop that woman first. His hands were already partially shifted, and so he simply grabbed her neck and squeezed. It didn’t take long for her eyes to close, and her body to become limp. He kicked her off the bed, and seconds later, the tool that had marred Kellie’s skin joined the woman on the floor.
    “Are you okay, baby? Kellie? Answer me!” He slashed the ties holding her down with his claws and retracted them before turning her around. He winced when she gasped in pain as soon as her back hit the coverlet. “Open your eyes for me. Let me see you,” he said as he lowered himself so he was lying beside her. “Please, honey. Let me see you’re okay.”
    Her eyelids fluttered open, her gaze swimming in tears.
    “Oh, baby.” He brushed tendrils of hair away from her sweaty forehead.
    “Nathan?”
    “I’m here,” he replied, bending his head to drop a soft kiss on her lips. “Where does it hurt?”
    “Back. Butt. It…burns.”
    Shit . Slowly, making sure not to hurt her any further, he pushed her onto her stomach and peered at the reddened skin. Welts had formed on the small of her back and ass, marking her, branding her.
    Rage unlike anything he’d felt before burst forth inside him. He slid off the bed and grabbed the other woman, shaking her with everything he had. He wanted her to wake up and face the music. He would hurt her as much as she’d hurt his mate. He would…
    “Nate?”
    He looked down at Kellie, only coming back to himself when he noticed her wide, wide eyes. “What is it, baby?”
    “She’s not moving.” She’d paled even more, as impossible as that should have been.
    He blinked. “What?”
    “You…you killed her. I think.”
    He stared down at the woman hanging lifelessly in his arms. Kneeling down, he watched as her body flopped to the carpeted floor. He took her pulse and felt nothing. He checked her nose, but no air came forward. Her heartbeat was nonexistent, silence the only thing he could hear when he bent over her chest.
    He’d killed her.
    He’d spent his whole life saving people, had taken an oath as a doctor, and one second had changed everything he’d built for himself.
    He couldn’t even remember killing her. Sure, he’d used his claws, but he hadn’t been that forceful. Right? He’d been so worried about Kellie though, so angry that someone had dared hurt his mate…
    “Shit.” He closed the woman’s eyelids and hung down his head.
    “Nate?”
    He couldn’t stay here and wallow. He had to treat Kellie’s wounds before they got infected. He should really get up now and go to her, comfort her as best he could. He also needed to call his dad and ask him to come here. Their Alpha would need to know exactly what’d happened.
    Instead, he sat there and thought of the life he’d taken…and of the life he’d just lost.
    * * * *
    The pain had been too much for her, and Kellie had let go, letting her lioness take over, forcing the shift that would mean getting better. When fur started to cover the skin of her back, it hurt so much she cried out and fell into the dark abyss calling out her name.
    She came back to herself minutes or hours later, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that her bedroom had been invaded by men while she’d been out of it. She blinked and turned around, the blanket that had been covering her sliding down. She quickly grasped it and held it to her bare chest as she observed her surroundings.
    Nathan was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands, looking as if the world had collapsed around him. She wanted to reach for him, yearned to snuggle into his embrace and let the rest of them deal with whatever needed to be done.
    She watched as a tall, bald man knelt in front of