A Second Chance ✔ (The Alpha's Mate)

Chapter 15

"Hold on, I still want you. Come back I still need you. Let me take your hand, I'll make it right." -Hold on, Chord Overstreet.

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Zach was still paralyzed as his mind took a few seconds to register what had just happened. Kat. The thought of his Kat in such pain had caused him an unbearable amount of agony, one he had never thought possible.

Nick barked at Zach, shaking him back to his senses as they ran to where the howl sounded from.

Zach's heart was beating inhumanely fast at the thought and possibility of Kat being hurt, as he finally caught her scent. Passing the rest of his company, Zach rushed to where his mate's scent had led him only to freeze once again at the sight before him.

Ella had never felt so scared in her life. There, between her arms, lied Katie with blood oozing from her wounds. They were both back in human form, and Katie's wounds were so deep that she wasn't healing. Ella understood that Katie had chosen to save her instead of saving herself, and her guilt and fear had pushed her tears to fall down her face.

Unlike Zach, Jessica and Jared didn't stop when they saw Katie's unmoving figure on the ground. They rushed their way to her in a hurry, their speed hightened by their fear for their best friend. Yet just before they reached her, Alpha Zach let out the loudest most agony-filled roar his members had ever heard. It was so powerful that even the ground they stood on shook beneath their paws.

The scene before him was one he knew he could never erase from his mind. The sight of his Kat bleeding and still. So still that Zach's heart was twisted inside his chest. He had promised to protect her, and there she was, dying before his eyes.

Nick rushed to Ella and once Zach's eyes adjusted that his sister was indeed covered in blood but was still steady on both legs, he made his way to Kat, every step closer to her bloodied figure more painful than the one before. Until he reached her and the sight of her blood beneath his paws broke him at last. He had never felt so petrified in his life, so shaken.

His wolf's face traveled to her neck to push her head to the other side, in a weak attempt to gently shake her into consciousness or at least get any kind of reaction to calm down his aching heart, but when her head fell against the ground once again he couldn't stop his wolf from howling in agonizing pain.

Jessica and Jared ran to the nearest tree and shifted before running back to Katie and Zach. Carefully, Jared stepped closer to Katie with a shirt in his hands, his eyes on her bloodied body, but his words were directed at his alpha. "We need to carry her back to safety and we need to get to my parents right now. Dad will know what to do. He always knows what to do. He will fix her. He will fix this."

Zach appreciated how Jared covered Kat's naked form with a shirt, but couldn't bare the thought of leaving her for a single moment, so he shifted back into a human right there next to her.

"The medics are on their way with an ambulance. They'll carry her back to the pack house steadier than we could, Alpha." Nick showed up from beside Zack carefully and handed him some shorts. For the first time in a long time, Nick had actually felt scared of Zach. One wrong move, one wrong word and he might snap. The sight before them was not an easy one to take in.

Eyes never leaving Katie's angelic face, Zach put on the shorts in silence.

"It's all my fault. She saved me. It's all my fault." Ella repeated multiple times between hiccups, her tears never drying from her face as Jessica handed her something to wear.

"We need to know what happened." Nick asked and Ella filled them in, her eyes looking at Katie for a second and at her brother the next.

"She took down five of them. Instead of ending the last one on her tail she chose to save me. I killed him, but I was too late. By the time I was back on my feet he had already bitten her." Ella cried harder.