Runaway Rogue

Chapter Twenty Four: Caspian's POV

Caspian knew something was wrong almost immediately. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Everyone said it was a wild, heady experience that could never be replicated. It was supposed to be bliss and ecstasy.

His wolf, the beast that had been so desperate to find her, felt like it was rearing back within him the second his teeth pressed against her flesh. There was no sweetness here, no lust, no satisfaction. Something sour and wrong filled his mouth, filled his mind. Her body was stiff beneath his touch. He almost wanted to press on convinced this was a mistake, that the feeling would pass. He jerked back instead.

Indigo was in his arms still. Her body seemed to be frozen, but it wasn't a look of pleasure and passion on her face. Her eyes were jammed shut, her lower lip bleeding a little. For a second, he was terrified that she wasn't breathing, then saw her chest rattle with an inhale.

"Indie?" he croaked. The wolf who had been so desperate to track her down, so demanding to claim her, was now pacing and whimpering.

Indigo only nodded her head once in response, but the motion caused all her features to tighten further.

"Fuck, Indigo, what happened? What hurts?" he asked.

She feebly raised her hand to the wound on her neck, whimpering a little when she touched it. Blood coated her fingers. She wasn't supposed to bleed. Markings weren't supposed to be any more bloody and gory than a common engagement between humans.

"It'll get better. It just needs time," she choked out. "It happened last time, too."

Caspian tried not to think about what that meant, tried not to think about the fact that her neck was covered in marks, that he had now added his own to the mix. He would have been sick if he didn't have an immediate need to help her. "Can you move? Is it okay if I carry you? Once we get you in the car--"

"Movement is fine, but the truck--"

"Fuck the truck, Indie," he snarled, his arms around winding around her. She let out a strangled noise when he lifted her up and it felt like a blow to the gut. He had hurt her. He was still hurting her. He tried to move as quickly and as smoothly as he possibly could to load her up in Anabelle's car.

He wanted to say something, anything, when he drove her back toward home. He wanted to tell her that he had been terrified and hurt when she had left. He wanted to say that he never meant to hurt her, that he thought she wanted him to mark her. She had come towards him so willingly, whispered his name as if he had been lost at sea for years and had just come home to her. He didn't understand. And he had harmed her. She was in so much pain, she had bitten her lip hard enough to make it bleed.

He drove as fast as he dared, hating himself, so angry, and so fucking confused. She left. She wanted him. She stole his truck. She offered herself up to him. She fell into his arms. She rejected his mark.

"Where are we going?" she asked when he turned the car away from his own packlands.

"To Bentley," he said. Because their own pack healer had been slaughtered so long ago and the pack had no funding to train a new one. Because he needed help now and there was a chance he wasn't thinking entirely straight. Especially not when he glanced over and saw her clutching tissues to her neck, the white material soaked with red.

As soon as he reached the main area, three wolves were trailing his car and a couple men and women had moseyed out of their homes. A small show of force, but there was power here regardless. Caspian didn't care.

"Please, show me where your healer is," he begged as he got out of the car. He met the eyes of each and every person around the car. "Please, I need help."