For a long time, I do nothing but cover my face and cry.
I cry for so many reasons. I cry for Marshall, at my inability to help him, in fear that the wolves will come back, and I'll be powerless to stop them from hurting or even killing Marshall because I'm too weak, too useless to do anything but cry.
"Jellybean…"
The pain-filled whisper has me peeling my face from my hands.
"Please don't cry," Marshall murmurs, almost too low for me to hear. "It always breaks my heart when you do."
I didn't hear him shift, and I probably would have if I'd been spending more time looking after him instead of focusing on my own needs.
At the sight of his bruised and battered body, the gaping wounds in his throat and his belly, my heart lurches, even as I scramble over to him.
I place a hand on his cheek because it's the only place that doesn't look like it'd hurt him to touch, and the moment I do, his eyes flicker closed, and he releases a soft sigh as his body relaxes under my touch.
He woke just long enough to tell me to stop crying.
I will never love anyone as much as I do this moment, and I know with utter certainty that he deserves someone so much better than me.
Swallowing back my tears, I bend my head to press my lips against his forehead. "But first, I have to save you. First, you have to survive this," I murmur against his skin. "And then maybe you'll get the mate you deserve."
Once I feel I've gotten a handle on my tears, at least for the time being, I sit up so I can examine the one-room cabin Marshall brought us too.
How he knew it was here is a mystery. But since Marshall has a workshop in town, just beside the gas station, it wouldn't surprise me if he'd had to tow a broken-down tourist from one of Hardin's back roads before.
Although we don't get a lot of tourists here, certainly nothing like the crowds I glimpsed in Dawley, Hardin's proximity to the Rockies, and the area's rural beauty invites more than a few. It also invites a lot of hunters, which is why Dayne has always enforced a strict no running as wolves off Blackshaw land rule, a rule we've all stuck to.
Until now. A rule not just broken by me, because if Marshall drove to come after me, there's no reason he wouldn't have led us to his car. That he didn't, can only mean he must've seen Dayne's truck with the hazard lights on and known there was a problem with it. Maybe he even shifted and saw the gas was empty, leaving him with no other option but to lead us away from the one person in the area who could help us-Kier.
But none of that matters right now, I tell myself. Those are all questions that can be answered later. Right now, my priority is caring for Marshall. That means taking stock of what I can find to help him.
At first glance, it doesn't look like there's anything in this cabin other than a single pallet bed, an empty fireplace, and a small table with no chairs in the corner kitchen.
The dust covering the square table in front of a rustic sink and wooden counter tells me it's been a while since anyone has been here.
I get up from beside Marshall in case there's anything I'm missing. At a bare minimum, I know I'm going to need bandages, or at least something that can function as one, water, wood for a fire, and food. But food can come later when Marshall wakes up.
If he wakes up.
That he still hasn't healed is concerning because it means there may be even more damage, internal damage that his body is working through before it can start on the gaping wound in his belly and his throat. Since those injuries are bad, it makes me wonder just how bad those injuries are that I can't see.
"No, Jenna, don't think of that. Not when there's nothing you can do about it. Focus on the things you can control and not on those you can't," I murmur under my breath as I cross over to the kitchen area.
Not even halfway there, I realize I didn't miss much from my position on the floor just in front of the door. There's so little here that my brief flare of hope flickers like a candle about to go out.
"Candles would be nice," I say.
If those shifters don't come and kill us in the next few hours, it's going to get dark in a cabin with one window and no shutters, no light switches, which means no electricity.
Other than the wooden table that wobbles when I nudge it, a faucet that doesn't gush with water or even rattle as a sign that something is happening in the pipes, and a couple of open cupboards over the single counter, there's nothing else.
My confidence plummets even further.
I tell myself we can do without candles. We're shifters so our eyesight is good, so while it's still daylight, we're okay, and we'll sleep during the night, so we don't really need them. But the lack of water and the lack of anything I can use as bandages are things I can't do without.
With the kitchen area fully explored, I turn to the other side of the room and take in the single wooden bed with an old mattress that looks hard and uncomfortable. But it's a bed, which is something. The only something, but it's better than nothing.
My eyes scan the rest of the room and encounter nothing else other than a fireplace filled with ash and a black metal poker lying abandoned on the floor beside it. I try to be positive. "It could serve as a weapon… maybe."
But then reality intrudes.
There's no wood, no candles, no food, water, nothing to make bandages with, and there's a door with a latch that I'm sure a kick by an ordinary human would get it open, let alone two determined shifters.
I try not to get despondent, I really do, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, or how I'm going to keep Marshall alive long enough for Dayne and the rest of the pack to come after us.
If neither of us returns, then the pack will suspect something must've happened and come to investigate, just as Marshall must have done. Once they spot Dayne's truck at the side of the road, all they'll have to do is follow their nose, which will lead them to the fight, and then the scent of Marshall's blood leading to this cabin.
I just have to hold out until then.
Somehow.
My gaze returns to Marshall, who is still lying bleeding on the floor, except now I'm sure he's shivering. He needs a fire because he's going to get even colder, at least until his body isn't working so hard to heal itself, which could be anything from several hours to several days.
A fire means wood, which means me going out to get some. I force myself to go to the door and open it, even though I would love nothing more than to keep the door closed forever.
Once I have the door open, I realize at once there's going to be no point in me even venturing outside because although the rain has eased a little, it's still raining, which means any twig or branch or anything I could use for a fire is wet.
I close the door again and lean against it. "Even if the wood was dry, just how did you intend on starting a fire, Jenna? Rubbing two twigs together?"
As I take in Marshall's body, the slight shiver is no longer slight.
He's cold and I have no way of warming him.
If we were close to town, even knowing how much it would hurt, I would quickly shift again and go for help. Or I would go back to Kier's cabin, but the probability of meeting those shifters along the way is just too high. That's the direction they were heading in. What if they were on their way to kill Kier?
No matter where I went, that would mean leaving Marshall alone, badly injured, unconscious and vulnerable to attack. He woke once because I was crying, but there's no guarantee he would wake if he were in danger, and even if he could, he's in no fit state to fight off any kind of attack.
And he still might die.
Not knowing what else to do, I do the only thing I can. I drop to the floor beside him. Trying to avoid the worst of his injuries, I wrap my arms around him and burrow as close as I can, pressing every inch of my body against his. Trying to share my warmth with him.
As the sky darkens from gray to black, I don't sleep. I stay wrapped around Marshall, wide awake, too afraid I'll go to sleep and either wake with him dead in my arms, or with the two shifters standing over me.