“Yeah, but that’s not important.” He winced as she pressed on the wounds as best she could. “Faye, honey, please stop and listen to me.” Placing his hand over hers, he stopped her frantic movements. “I will heal, and I’ll heal quick. I just need an hour or two.”
She frowned down at him. “What the hell are you talking about? You won’t. You need a doctor. You probably have internal damage.”
“Probably. But that’ll heal too.”
“You’re wrong, Adam. I think you’re hurt worse than you think.”
“Faye, I’m a shifter. I’ll heal.”
She heard the words, but she was so caught up in keeping the idiot alive that they didn’t register at first.
“Faye.” His voice was stronger, more insistent. His grip stronger. “Faye!”
He finally cut through the state of panic. Her eyes flashed up to his face.
“I’m a shifter,” he repeated. “What you just saw. I’m a shifter. I’ll heal. I’m not going to die.”
“I don’t understand.” And she didn’t. It all felt like some kind of weird dream.
He struggled to sit up more, and she quickly reached out to help him. Between the two of them, they managed to get him propped up against the cabinets. Rocky whined again and started licking his face. “It’s okay, boy. I’m okay.” His eyes found hers. “I’m sorry. This isn’t the way I wanted to tell you.”
“I know what I saw,” she whispered. “But I feel like I’m going crazy. Am I going crazy?”
“No, honey. You’re not crazy. You saw exactly what you saw. I’m a man who shifts into a wolf.”
She barely managed to keep from laughing hysterically in his face. “But that’s not possible,” she told him uneasily. Because she knew he wasn’t joking at all. She’d seen it with her own eyes. She’d watched him go from a man to a wolf, and now he was a man again.
And he was bleeding to death in her house.
“I’m not going to bleed to death.” He smiled as she gave him a look that told him she didn’t quite believe him. Had she said that out loud? “I’m a shifter, Faye. And I’m not the only one in this town.”
“Why don’t we get you to a doctor?” she suggested shakily. “And then you can tell me more about how you howl at the full moon, huh?”
“Why don’t you lift that towel and see for yourself?” He nodded to where she was still pressing the towel to the worst of his wounds on his stomach. “Go ahead.”
“I can’t. I have to try to stop the bleeding.”
“Faye.”
Something in his tone had her raising her eyes to his.
“Just look.” Placing his hand on top of one of hers, he helped her lift the towel.
Faye begged him with her eyes not to make her do it. She knew without a doubt that as soon as she lifted the towel away, he was going to bleed out and die right there on her kitchen floor. And then she would have to sell her RV that she’d worked so hard to make into her home because there was no way in hell she’d be able to keep living there.
“Faye, look.”
She shook her head, her eyes glued to her face. “No. I can’t.”
“Honey. Look.”
Reluctantly, she dropped her eyes down to his stomach. At first, she couldn’t quite comprehend what she was seeing. “How is this possible?” The open gashes that were bleeding so profusely just a few minutes before were slowly but surely fusing back together. Some of the shallower ones looked like wounds that had happened weeks before and were already shiny scars. “What the hell is happening?” As she watched, the skin on either side of the worst wound pulled together. Like invisible fingers pressed on either side so an invisible needle could stitch it closed.
Adam didn’t say anything, except to groan when she reached out to touch his newly healed skin. She pulled her hand back, afraid she’d hurt him. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he told her. “I love the way it feels when you touch me.”
Flashes of the night before flew through her head, heating her blood despite the crazy things she was hearing and seeing. But the more she thought about it, the more there were things—just little things—that she hadn’t really thought about, but which made sense now. Like the way he could lift her like she weighed next to nothing. Not to mention his stamina. Faye hadn’t been with many men, but she’d heard enough stories from her friends to know that most of them were usually snoring the night away after one orgasm. Maybe two if they were younger. And yet Adam had woken her up throughout the night, taking her over and over again until the sun came up over the horizon and he’d had to leave for work, leaving her to get a few hours of sleep until she had to go to the coffee shop for the afternoon shift. “This isn’t possible.”
