#Chapter 91 – Near Miss
Ella
I’m so focused on Sinclair, I don’t even see the car until it’s almost upon me. I’m too stunned to move, not that there’s time to get out of the way. The only thing I can do it try to turn my body away from the vehicle, to shield my unborn child from the inevitable crash.
Time itself seems to slow down, and there’s a dull roaring in my ears. My thoughts fly by, and I’m amazed at the logical clarity I’m able to find in a single, split second. I tell myself to go limp, the impact won’t be as terrible if my body isn’t tense with fear. Isn’t that why drunk people often survive car accidents that would be fatal otherwise?
Unfortunately I don’t have time to unwind my tight muscles, as soon as I’ve had the thought a huge weight collides with my back, slamming into me with so much force the breath is knocked from my lungs. I’m spinning, twisting as the wall of iron surrounds me, forcing my feet off the ground. A deafening crash fills the air, though it seems delayed. Haven’t I already been hit?
Then I’m being thrust forward, or is it backwards? I’m moving, flying through the air and yet my limbs are completely constrained. My eyes are clenched shut, and the sound of wrending metal and shattering glass explodes around me. It’s all so sudden, I don’t have time to be afraid, to say prayers for my baby, if not for myself.
I wait for the pain, but it doesn’t come. After a few moments of holding my breath I realize I’m not moving anymore. Am I dead? Was it so sudden that I didn’t feel it?
I peek open one eye, and sunlight blinds me. Is there a sun in the afterlife? I know shifters have a version of heaven, but I didn’t imagine humans got to go there..
There’s a click, like a car door opening, and then the sound of racing footsteps. “Catch them!” Sinclair’s deep voice snarls, so loud that I think he must be yelling in my ear.
Hope courses through my veins. If he’s here then I must not be dead. And why am I so warm? I wonder belatedly, imagining myself sprawled over the hood of a vehicle, in too much shock to feel the impact on my broken body. Shouldn’t a car that’s been sitting in the snow be cold?
“Ella – Ella, are you alright?” Sinclair is talking again, and I open my other eye, anxious to see him. Instead I see the empty street in front of me. “Please say something.” He begs, his gentle hands moving over my body from behind. “Are you hurt? Talk to me baby.”
Behind me. I think dazedly. But that means… I sit up, truly looking around for the first time. We’re sitting on the hood of the car – at least what used to be the hood. Sinclair’s huge body has completely totaled the vehicle. Slowly – infuriatingly slowly, my brain pieces together what must have happened. Sinclair had been fast enough to reach me, but he hadn’t had time to push me out of the way.
Instead he’d turned me away from the car and wrapped his own body around me, shielding me from the impact of the car. He’d taken the full force of the crash, and his back had crumpled the bumper and hood beyond recognition, shattering the windshield into a thousand pieces.
I feel nauseous at once, and my body is shaking with fear and adrenaline. “I… I .” I clamber off the crumpled metal surface, my knees giving out as soon as my feet hit the ground. I vomit into the pristine white snow, feeling Sinclair follow me at a pace much too slow for his supernatural strength. I’m afraid to: look at him, but he’s hovering beside me, surreptitiously running his hands over my body, searching for signs of injury yet trying not to disturb. “Stop.” I choke, “I’m alright… it’s you -“” I finally turn to face him, horror and guilt washing over me as I take in the damage.
Sinclair is bleeding, and his body must be covered with bruises. The impact would have killed me, and his shifter strength might have kept him alive, but not even an Alpha wolf can walk away from such an accident unharmed. His handsome face is a tight grimace of pain, but I’m not sure he’s even registering the sensations. His attention is focused on me, his green eyes scouring my body for signs of harm.
“Oh Dominic,” I choke, my voice thick with emotion as I reach towards his battered body. His shirt has been torn to shreds by glass from the windshield, and I can only imagine how mangled his flesh is underneath. Before I can touch him, I’m distracted by sounds of a struggle in the distance.
I follow the sound with my eyes, catching our chauffeur wrestling the homicidal driver to the ground a few meters down the road. He must have tried to make a run for it when the car stalled, unable to simply plow through Sinclair’s iron body the way it would have my own. I immediately recognize the driver as one of the rogues who attacked me in the alley, and suddenly my vision turns completely red.
I forget my concern for myself and the baby, I even forget my worry for Dominic. I feel only a flood of vengeful fury, more violent and feral than any I’ve known before. That rogue hurt Sinclair. He wanted to end my baby’s life and would have taken mine in the process, but he actually did hurt Sinclair. He might have taken my baby’s father from us both – from the pack that needs him.
“I’ll kill him!” I snarl, pushing myself up on shaky legs and lunging towards the rogue. A steely bar catches me around the waist, pulling me back. “Woah Ella, come here, let me look at you.” “No, I want to kill him!” I insist, not recognizing this bloodthirsty woman I’ve apparently become.
“I do too, trouble, but right now you’re more important.” Sinclair murmurs in my ear. I can already hear sirens in the distance, loud, shrill, and drawing closer with every moment that passes.
“I’m fine!” I cry, tears spilling from my overflowing lashes. “He hurt you! Let me go so I can make him pay.”
Sinclair is purring, but the sound keeps stuttering in his chest, as if the internal engine that fuels his rumbles and growls has been damaged. “I know little one, we’ll make him pay, just take it easy.”
Sniffling, I stop fighting, turning to face him once he returns my feet to the ground. “You’re all bloody.” I observe pitifully, wishing I knew how to heal his wounds. “I want to make him bloody too.”
I sound like a petulant toddler, though admittedly a very violent one. Still, Sinclair isn’t listening, the stubborn man has his palm pressed to my belly, his eyes scouring me for the hundredth time. “The baby’s okay.” He sighs, but I need you to tell me where you’re hurt, Ella.”
Before I can answer, an ambulance skitters to a stop behind the wreckage, and EMT’s leap from the back of the vehicle, sprinting over to us. They slow down as they draw near, warily
approaching us as Sinclair holds me tightly and begins to growl protectively. “Alpha,” One of the EMT’s has his hands up, to show he means no harm. Belatedly I realize the Moon Valley pack’s symbol is blazing on the side of the ambulance, marking it as part of a shifter institution.
Of course the shifters got here faster than the humans. I think with relief. And thank goodness, Sinclair’s animalistic aggression would have terrified a human – it terrifies the other wolves already. “It’s okay.” The EMT continues. “We just want to help, we won’t hurt her.”
Sinclair scents the air, drawing in their aromas and apparently determining them friendly. Gradually he loosens his hold on me, though I can sense how difficult it is for him to do so. Eventually he offers me up for their examination, delivering a menacing warning in the process, “I’m watching you, beta. One wrong move and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”
The EMT approaches me, still keeping his hands up in clear view. Sinclair paces behind us like an enraged bear, and I try to get my breathing under control. “Luna, where are you bleeding?”
“I’m not!” I exclaim, half-sobbing.” It’s all his blood. I’m fine, he’s the one who was hit.” The EMT look up at Sinclair, searching for confirmation and starting to approach him instead.
“No! Look at her first.” He growls, putting all his Alpha authority into the words and making us all shiver in response. “Dominic, please!” I beg, moving back towards him. “I’m not hurt because you protected me.” I press my palms to his chest, gazing up at him with a pleading expression.
“You did your job, we’re safe.” I continue, praying he’ll listen to reason, or at least be triggered into action by my words. “Rafe and I need you to be okay so you can continue keeping us safe. So we need you to go to the hospital now. We need you to let them help you.”
Sinclair gazes down at me with glowing, uncertain eyes, and I ask one final time. “Please, Dominic.”
