[Carmen]The first Saturday in November, Rock took me out to the forests surrounding the fae lands for a picnic. It was a little chilly, but he told me he also wanted me to go for a run. I’d been on a run with a few of the shapeshifting fae, but I liked the idea of exploring in my wolf form. We went to a meadow Rock told me Forrest showed him. It must have been the one Forrest took Pyla to. I was excited to see the place he took her. After we ate, Rock helped me strip and I shifted into Blanche. He scratched me behind the ears and kissed the top of my head. I ran around him a few times and he shooed me off. The surrounding forest was beautiful. I followed a stream that was starting to dry up as it went into the woods. I found the mountain spring it came from and had a drink from the fresh, cool water that trickled from the rocks. Using my nose, I followed the trail of some ground squirrels who I scented near the spring. While I was tracking them down, a rabbit jumped out from some nearby bushes and saw me. It froze for a moment, Blanche gave a low ‘woof’, and the rabbit took off with my wolf hot on its heels. I loved this freedom. I never got to run on my own in the pack lands. My mother and father always insisted that I stay with them and their wolves were very overprotective of Blanche. Thoughts like that rarely occurred to me now that things had started getting better with my mom. No one had seen my dad since September, but I was sure he was somewhere around. Rhett told me my dad found some friends in the fringe of the supernatural community. All the hope I had for him changing like mom did was long gone. I wouldn’t trust him even if it seemed like he did. He wasn’t the man I knew before. When the rabbit dove into some briars, I gave up the chase. I wasn’t planning to eat it, anyway. I just wanted to chase it for a while. Blanche and I wandered more, sniffing things, chasing animals, and rolling around in things we probably shouldn’t have. I would definitely need a bath when I got home with how cold and damp everything was. Even with Blanche’s fur, I could feel the cold leeching in. We found another stream and stopped for a drink. It was refreshing after all the running, but I was almost ready to go home. I wanted to have a bath and dinner. Rock had started some meat in the large roaster he had. It was huge, bigger than the oven. As I turned around to head back, I heard a whimper. It was a human sound, not an animal. I looked around and held still, waiting to see if I could hear it again. The sound came soon after and I headed in the direction it came from. I would stop from time to time to get my bearings again, but I could hear it louder the closer I got. When I went over a ridge, I saw something pale in the valley below. I stopped and heard a sob come from the pale lump in the valley. The whimpering sound happened when I saw it move and I heard a metallic rattling at the same time. I ducked down and looked around, to see if I saw anything else. There was no other movement, no glint, nothing to indicate that this was a trap. That didn’t mean a lot. There were a lot of traps that didn’t seem like traps.Carefully, I stayed low as I made my way to the sobbing lump in the valley. With every movement closer, I looked around again. When I got close enough, I could see the lump was a man. Sniffing the air, I could tell two things. He was a werewolf and he was an ex-pack rogue. We were allied with Queen Bellamy’s collective, so I knew that I should try to help him. As I got closer, I realized he was caught in a trap, and completely naked. It had to be a hunter trap because if it were a human trap he would have been able to open it. A hunter trap was like a human trap, but it had silver-tipped teeth. That would weaken a werewolf enough that they couldn’t open it. He must have been running in his wolf form and triggered the trap. How long had he been there? I inched closer to him, eventually having to expose myself so I could get closer. The man was trapped by his left leg. He looked emaciated and near death, but he still put up a little struggle from time to time. If the silver hadn’t forced him to shift into his human form, he could have chewed his leg off if he needed to. It would have grown back. I crept forward. He was on his stomach and didn’t see me. There was no real muscle on him. He must not have been a warrior before he left his pack. It looked like he hadn’t eaten properly in months. He turned his head to look at me and the look in his eyes sent a shiver through me. He wasn’t afraid or even hopeful. It was as if he was accepting that he was going to die and was grateful for it. That was when I realized, he had probably been like that for days. I shifted into my human form and pushed out my magic so I could see him and the trap. I examined the place where the trap dug into his skin. I was right, it had been a couple of days and there was silver stopping him from healing. I didn’t see a release on the trap, but I wasn’t familiar with them. It probably wouldn’t be obvious. “Can you understand me?” I asked. “Yes,” came the raspy, whispered reply. “I’m going to pull the two sides apart and I need you to move your leg. I know it will be tough, but you need to move it out of the way as fast as you can. Do you understand?” “Yes.” That was probably the best I was going to get. I grabbed either side of the trap. The teeth were tipped with silver, but the rest of it was steel or iron. Either way, I was the only hope for this. Rock might be able to pull it apart, but it would depend on how much of his strength was lost when he touched the iron.I pulled the sides apart. At first, I didn’t think they were going to move. It seemed like the teeth were lodged in his bone. The sooner we got it off the better. My brother told me once that traps like this had hidden trackers, so I knew I couldn’t keep it on. I wished I had some sort of cloth I could use to tie off the wound, but carrying a cloth while running wasn’t a great idea. It was a struggle, but I managed to get it wide enough that he could slip his foot out of the trap. I tossed it aside and went up to where his head was. “I know it’s probably been a while, but do you think you can climb on my wolf? I know, I’m not as big as a ranked wolf, but I think I can carry you. I’ll get you somewhere we can treat your wounds and I can get you some food and water,” I said. He only tried to curl up in a ball. I put a hand on his shoulder and he flinched. No one had ever flinched when I touched them. “It’s okay. My pack has a treaty with the rogue collective here. I’m not going to hurt you. We’ll go to the fae lands, then I can reach out to the Queen to find out what she wants done. Until then, you can stay with my mate and me in the fae lands. I promise I won’t take you to a pack,” I told him. “Promise?” he rasped. “Yes, and I’m mated to a fae, so promises are something I take very seriously. I’m going to shift and lick your wounds until they stop bleeding. It should help your wolf to start healing. After that, I’ll lay down so you can get on me, okay?” “Yes.”I shifted and went to his leg. I started licking his icy skin. The blood told me something else important. He was an omega. I could taste it. Omegas didn’t leave their packs if they could avoid it. Something serious had to have happened to make him think abandoning his pack was the best option. What had this poor man endured?Once the bleeding stopped, I went back up to lay next to him and gave a soft bark to let him know he could climb on me. His movements were stiff. When he finally managed to get on my back, he held on as tightly as he could. I’d never had anyone ride me, but Beta blood wolves were stronger than other wolves so we could help our pack. Even if I was a little smaller than a Beta blood wolf should be. One of the good things about that, though, was he probably thought I was just a common wolf. If an omega left, it was because they couldn’t trust the ranked and ranked blood wolves in their pack to take care of them. I didn’t want him to be scared of me. Because I used Blanche’s eyes to learn layouts, I was able to remember the path we took, even when we were chasing the rabbit. As quickly as I could, I followed a mix of my memory and my scent to get back to where Rock was waiting for me.When I reached the edge of the meadow, I started making noise. I barked and howled to let Rock know I was incoming. He stood and saw me with a man on my back. Quickly, he ran over to me. Rock reached down to the man and tried to pull him off, but he held tightly to my fur, making me yelp. “Let go of my mate. She can’t shift back with you on her. I’m not going to hurt you, wolf,” Rock growled. The man shuddered, and then let me go. Rock picked him up and tucked him under his arm. The man hung limply there. I shifted back and Rock picked me up with his other arm. He carried us both back to the blanket where we’d had our picnic. Rock put me down and I used my magic to see the area where the blanket was. He put the man down. I quickly dressed and dug into the bag we brought for some of the food we didn’t eat. Rock over-packed just in case I was hungry after my run. I opened a container and moved to where the man was. Rock took off his light jacket and put it on the man. “I’m Carmen. This is my mate, Rock. He’s a troll. We’re not going to hurt you. Here, eat this.” The omega accepted the container and started eating as he shivered under Rock’s jacket. I got him a bottle of water and opened it for him before handing it off. He accepted it and drank greedily. That seemed to help his appetite. “Slow down or you’ll hurt your stomach,” Rock told him. The man nodded and slowed down. I pulled out a handkerchief from my pocket and started tying it around his leg. I wanted to get him home and clean him up. His body would start fighting infection, but any help we provided would make it easier on him. “What happened?” Rock asked. “I was running when I heard a whine. I started looking for it and found him stuck in a hunter’s trap. It had silver tipped teeth and he couldn’t open it. It was iron or steel, so I didn’t come get you first. I didn’t want to leave him alone,” I replied. “We’ll take him home and tend his wounds there. I can carry him. That leg doesn’t look good and Goddess only knows how long he’s been out there. She led you to him. We can’t ignore her guidance.” I smiled at my mate. He believed in the goddess as much as I did. I was glad he and I shared that. It meant we were on the same page. We packed up the bag once the omega was finished eating. Rock put it on my back. He wrapped the man up in the blanket, then picked him up like a sleeping child. He knelt down. “Climb on my back. I can’t look after you on the way back and the path isn’t great if you can’t see. I don’t want you wearing yourself out by using your magic,” Rock told me. “I can do that.” I climbed on his back and hung on as tightly as I could with my arms and legs. Luckily, months of our bedroom activities had strengthened my limbs. Rock walked as quickly as he could to the edge of the forest. When we reached the entrance to the neighborhood, Rock let me down again. I held his arm as we walked back to the house. No one stopped us or questioned the man we were taking home. I knew this was not the strangest thing going on in the fae lands. There was always something weirder going on. At home, I held the man, awkwardly, while Rock opened the door. He took him back after he took off his shoes and I took mine off. I went into the guest bathroom and ran a bath for the man, then returned to where Rock was standing with him. “He fell asleep. If we’re careful, we can clean him up without waking him,” Rock said. “He needs to wake up. He’s icy cold and a hot bath will help.” “I’ll get him up and help him bathe. Can you make up the guest room? There are pillows in the closet in there and sheets and blankets in the linen closet. There are some thick comforters in a bag at the bottom. Get him something to wear out of my side of the closet, too. I don’t want him roaming around naked.” “Got it,” I replied. While I took care of the guest room, Rock woke the omega and helped him get cleaned up and dried off. We made a great team. I found some of Rock’s sweatpants for him. They weren’t perfect, but they had a drawstring to tighten them. We got the pants on the man and got him into bed. I tucked him in and smiled at him. “We’re going to help you as much as we can. Rest for now. We’ll wake you up when dinner’s ready. Will you tell me your name?” I asked. “A-Austin,” he replied. “Welcome to the fae lands, Austin. Get some sleep,” I told him gently. Rock took my hand and we left the guest room, closing the door behind us. We’d take care of Austin for now and let Queen Bellamy know about him. It wasn’t safe for an omega to be without a pack or someone to care for them.