The Alpha's Saviour

Chapter 3

Cooper POV

Beep, beep, beep. The slow steady noise beside my head drags me from my sleep and into what feels like the worst hangover ever. I open my eyes slowly and it takes me a couple of seconds to get my bearings and realize that I am in a hospital bed. I try to sit up but a sharp stabbing pain in my stomach makes me lie back flat on the bed. I wince at my splitting headache and the agony I feel everywhere as I try to move my arms and legs. I hurt everywhere. I growl to myself, not liking this feeling of weakness one little bit, and lower my head back to the pillow. As a wolf shifter and an Alpha at that, I pride myself on being strong and nearly indestructible.

"You're going to be a terrible patient, aren't you?" My sister Leila is standing in the doorway with her hand on her hips, chuckling to herself. I ignore her and close my eyes tight against the pain. She lifts the chart at the end of the bed and scans down over it, dark brows pulled together in a frown as she switches from annoying sister into serious doctor mode, reading out some of the litany of injuries cataloged on the clipboard in her hands. Fractured skull, cheekbone, and jaw. Dislocated shoulder, broken collarbone, arm and wrist, broken ribs, ruptured spleen, shattered ankle, and multiple deep lacerations. I wish she'd stop because I don't want to hear this. I can already tell that I'm a mess by how much it hurts. She shakes her head, dark chestnut brown hair falling forwards over her shoulders and whistles softly.

"You...you were very, very lucky. This...." she pauses, blinking hard, and shakes the chart at me before continuing in a wobbly voice, "this would be enough to kill most people. Even you Cooper. If that girl hadn't dragged you out of the river... I can't even think about it, it's too scary."

She keeps talking to me, well lecturing me really, about what a close call this was. As if she needs to tell me that getting hit by a van was a bad idea, but I've stopped listening. As soon as she mentioned the girl, flashbacks of what happened start running through my mind. But not of the bad stuff, there is something else that my wolf is pushing me to remember. That amazing scent that I smelled just before the crash, I can remember it vividly and it's making my mouth water just thinking about it. Then the tingles I felt all over my face and body as she gently touched me, the feeling of calm and contentment that washed over me, despite my pain, as she whispered comforting words in my ear, her warm breath touching my neck.

My mate. She was there.

Another flashback of long tanned legs, a toned stomach, drips of water running down a slender neck and into a tight sports bra as she stands just a few feet away from me. A curtain of long wavy wet hair hid her face from view. A much less pleasant image of her cradled in Ethan's arms, her face buried into his shoulder and her hand resting on his chest pops into my brain. I clench my fists tight and grit my teeth, a growl building in my chest.

"Cooper? What the hell was that? Are you in pain?" my sister asks, looking at me with concern as the heart monitor starts to beep rapidly and my blood pressure shoots up. The thought of another man having his hands on her is making the blood boil in my veins and a jealously unlike anything I have ever experienced flares up inside me. I have heard stories about the possessiveness that comes with finding your mate, but this intensity is shocking.

Agitated, I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the metal hospital bed, ignoring the searing pain in my abdomen where I have probably pulled open some stitches. I blink away the dark spots that appear in front of my eyes making my head swim and my vision cloudy. I grab at the tubes and wires attached to my arms and chest, trying to rip them out.

I have to find her.

It's a primal need like nothing I have ever known, and the thought just keeps repeating over and over in my brain as my wolf pushes me to get moving.