73. Hurts Like Hell Part III

A/N: Bit of a longer chapter! Enjoy the sad! :)
______

A yelp rang with it.
*ZINNIA*!
And it was followed by cheering.
The door dropped and all but forgotten, Kiran ran.
*No no no no*.
Terror sluiced through his veins like ice water. The chanting *no no no no* synched in time with his heartbeat, the crunch of snow pounding at his eardrums.
Another shot.
Another yelp.
Kiran felt that pain tenfold. *Zinnia*!
There was no rush of water if the river was frozen, but he crested a small slope to see it and its frosted shore. Zinnia’s body lay prone on it. Her white fur…her pristine white fur…was soaked in deep red.
Zinnia. Kiran bounded toward her with nothing but panic. *Don’t be…don’t be*—
*BANG*—
Kiran’s body jerked back as the bullet slammed into his ribs. The hunters, only twenty feet away, started to cheer—until they realized he was still standing, and instead of running toward the river…he turned toward them.
Kiran snarled like he never snarled before. There were only three hunters, but as Kiran leapt on the first and dodged the shot of his rifle, a second shot hit his shoulder. He grunted as pain forked through his nerves like lightning but it didn’t deter him from deciding that ripping the first hunter’s arm off at the shoulder and fling it several feet away was perfect retaliation.
They weren’t cheering now. They were screaming and it was music to Kiran’s ears. How many years had it been since blood spurted hot into his mouth, into his eyes, onto his fur? How many years since he felt the rush of desire to obliterate anything in his path? How long had it been since he could take *revenge*?
Revenge wasn’t sweet. It was salty like blood.
No less delicious.
Leaving the first male hunter to bleed out, he lunged for the second who had abandoned his rifle and attempted to run. Kiran’s paws hit his back and he fell face-first into the snow. Kiran smashed his spine, cutting off the human’s shriek.
*Bang*!
Another bullet grazed his neck. Kiran’s head whipped around with a serendipitous meeting of eyes. The human was trembling harder than a leaf, dressed in white-gray with cloth covering the lower half of his face. The rifle he still had positioned was clinking as it shook in his grip. And his eyes? Kiran knew fear was a color, and indeed the hunter’s irises were gray.
He didn’t know which hunter shot Zinnia. Maybe this third one did or maybe he didn’t. The first two died too quickly, so he would need to take his time with this last one. Kiran started to prowl closer, pain numbing his injuries, curling his lips so blood and saliva could drip over his teeth and onto the snow.
“K-Kiran…s-stop.”
Kiran froze. His desire for revenge froze. *Zinnia*.
He whipped his head around; she had hers twisted to find him. Her heart was beating—but it was weak, and the breath from her lungs was rattling. “Zin—”
Bang!
Kiran roared when the bullet lodged into his left radius bone. Chips of it splintered into fragments. That leg gave out. “Zinnia,” he rasped.
She whimpered as if she felt the pain.
*Bang*!
That one skimmed Kiran’s cheek.
And that was the last chance for the hunter’s life.
Kiran was able to meet his love’s eyes. In them solidified an answer to his question: *Kill him*.
*It was him who shot me. It was him who laughed*.
Zinnia’s hate and agony and revenge reignited his, giving Kiran the energy to dodge the next shot the hunter fired. He grabbed, crushed, and threw the damn rifle in his jaws. The hunter screamed and fell on his ass, scrambling backward as a wolf almost three times the size of him looming over splattering foul liquid on his face.
What made Kiran almost laugh was his pleading. The “Please please please” sniveling was what Kiran liked to hear when he was torturing someone. But torturing was only truly satisfying if it took place over hours. While this death needed to be slow, Kiran’s time was limited.
He couldn’t take the revenge he wanted to inflict on Larkspur. This human would have to be enough.
Kiran shredded the human’s coat by grabbing it in his teeth and flinging him into a tree. Kiran’s jaws encompassed the human’s entire torso. With a horrible scream he was thrown again—this time the back of his head slamming into a tree. Now he was bleeding from his head. Good.
Kiran used his paw to get the rest of the fabric out of the way so his flabby belly was exposed. Meeting the hunter’s eyes one last time and grinning at his last prayer, Kiran’s thick teeth burrowed into his gut and *ripped*.
Skin, muscle, organs—they all came out with wonderful dissonant sucking and squelching noises. Kiran spat it all out on the human’s chest, admiring his handiwork with a sick kind of pride. Then—
*Zinnia*.
His battered body skidded to hers. She had Shifted to her human form and her skin was already turning blue, her lips caked with dried blood. Kiran Shifted automatically, eyes frantically scanning her body.
Only two bullet wounds: one in her thigh, but the other…her neck.
From it was gushing a waterfall of blood.
Werewolf healing could only go so far, it seemed.
“Fuck. Fuck. Zinnia.” Kiran’s voice was raw, rendered so with scalding blood. Tears leaking from his eyes froze the second they touched his cheeks. “Zinnia. Gods. Oh, my love—”
Zinnia’s lips moved but no sound came out, her eyelids fluttering weakly. The beautiful spring green…it was dying.
“No,” he snarled. “No. Fuck this. Wait here.”
Kiran hated to leave her, but he ran to the second hunter’s body and yanked off the thick fur-lined coat to run back and wrap her in it. She hissed through her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Each movement spouted more blood.
“Stay alive, my love,” Kiran ordered in a rasp. “Keep breathing. Hold—hold on.”
He carefully lifted her too-light body in his arms, one under her knees, keeping her head from lolling by tucking it under his chin. Gods, she was freezing.
“Keep—stay—Gods, I’m a blubbering idiot. Zinnia, stay with me. I’m going to take you to the town. There’s a doctor—there’s—there’s gotta be a doctor.”
He broke into a run. Every step was a radiating burst of pain. But he didn’t have time to count his wounds. All that mattered was saving Zinnia, even if that meant asking for the help of his newly crowned enemies.
“Zinnia,” he panted. “Talk—no. No, don’t talk.”
He’d never been so panicked before. *Ever*. He wanted to hear her voice, keep her talking to know she was alive, but what were they to do if that bullet was so close to the vein keeping her alive in the first place?
She understood. She made a hum in her chest and touched his face with her palm. Though he held her as tightly as he could to keep her warm and in place, he was still bouncing her. The white coat was stained through pink and red.
“Stay with me, Zinnia. Stay with me. I’ll get help. I see it—it’s right there. Just—just *please*—”
The town was downhill. Kiran panted and struggled to keep upright, but he managed to get through the snow and keep his pace straight onto the cobblestone. Houses and shops lined the street, humans working even in the cold. Some shrieked and ran, herding their children inside at the sudden sight of two bloody and naked strangers. He also saw more rifles whip out as the men immediately registered a potential enemy.
“Please,” he shouted. “Please, my mate—my wife! My wife is dying! *Please*, someone help!”
Men started demanding questions, advancing. Kiran, for the first time ever,* didn’t know what to do*. His soulmate was dying and he couldn’t do shit about it.
“Stop!”
The shout made the men spin. A woman emerged from one of the buildings. “Don’t shoot! I’m a doctor. Come inside.”
Kiran didn’t need to be told twice. He jogged past the men and ducked inside the doorframe into a small, warm space lit faintly with candles. It took a few moments for his eyesight to adjust from the brilliant sun.
“Put her on here,” the doctor instructed, pointing to a white-sheeted bed.
Carefully he set Zinnia down. She was shivering violently and her eyes were closed. But her heart was still beating. He fell to his knees beside her. “What do I do?” he croaked.
“Bullets?” she asked instead, bustling around grabbing instruments he’d never seen before.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Her—her neck and thigh. *What are you doing*?”
Kiran’s hand shot out when the woman aimed a pair of scissors right toward Zinnia’s throat. She winced at the power of his grip, not missing the fact that there was a hole nearly ripped through his palm. “I need to take the bullet out, sir.”
“Oh.” He released her. As she looked closer, however, they both noticed that Zinnia’s skin was closing over the bullet. *No*. Her self-healing wasn’t able to push the bullet out first.
“Strange. I’ll have to open it back up a little. Go bring me that lantern. We have to warm her up.”
Kiran Cyrus, the immortal Alpha werewolf of the mighty Sun pack…taking orders from an old human woman.
For the next half hour, Kiran did everything she asked, and for a while, he thought everything would be fine. Zinnia’s skin was returning to normal color if slowly and her thigh wound was starting to heal after the doctor’s assistant came in, pulling *that* bullet out easily, cleaning and bandaging it. Zinnia was given wool socks and a blanket to cover all but her neck.
The amount of blood was atrocious.
Kiran held her hand and kept whispering to her. Whispering how much he loved her, how greatly she saved him. He tried to joke and tell her how much of a blessing *he* was and that she owed him big time for this.
“You’re injured too,” the male assistant noticed belatedly.
“I’m fine,” snapped Kiran. It was half true. He’d taken bullets to the back of his shoulder, ribs, neck, leg, and hand. The ones that neared his face had only been scrapes and healed swiftly. But, like Zinnia, some of the wounds were healing around the metal. Which meant they needed to be dug out as well.
“No you’re not,” the doctor snapped back. Her hands were steadfast as she worked and she didn’t even need to look up. “She’ll be okay if you lay down next to her. Let my assistant fix you up.”
“I’m not leaving her.”
“K-Kir…”
Kiran touched his forehead to Zinnia’s as she stirred. “I’m here, my love, I’m right here.”
Her lips barely moved, her voice fainter than a whisper. “Get fixed, knothead.”
His mate’s word was law. “Yes, my love.”
It pained him physically and emotionally, but he got onto his back on the table placed against hers. They clasped hands, Kiran’s injured one lying palm-up at his side. The assistant went to work on whichever he thought was more urgent while Kiran kept whispering.
“Keep your eyes open,” he pleaded.
Zinnia’s eyelids fluttered, but she struggled to retain them focused on him. “I’m sorry,” she rasped.
The doctor ordered sharply, “Don’t talk.”
“What’s taking so long?” he barked, startling the assistant.
She started to give an explanation, but Zinnia’s fingers squeezed his. “Be…nice.”
“I am nice.”
His love’s lower lip split when she smiled. Kiran smiled too. Her grip loosened when she tried to breathe in.
The doctor swore and retracted. “The skin…it keeps healing the second I cut into it.”
“Odd. Keep working. She needs to *live*, doctor,” Kiran threatened.
Finally she looked at him—and then to her assistant. “Knock him out.”
Whatever the mix of terror and outrage was called, it erupted inside him. But the damn assistant was ready. Before Kiran could even get a single thrash in, a disgusting-smelling cloth covered his nose. He didn’t think any chemical could take him down so swiftly, but…
The last thing Kiran saw before his eyes closed was Zinnia’s.