Matthias was in my living room. Actually in my living room, bleeding steadily from multiple wounds while leaning against my coffee table. For a split second, pure relief flooded through me. He was alive. He was here. He was...
Breaking and entering?
“How did you - what are you -How?” The words tumbled out in an undignified shriek.
He looked up at me with those gray eyes, pupils blown wide with pain. Blood soaked through his torn shirt, and even from across the room I could see the damage. Claw marks across his ribs. What looked suspiciously similar to bite marks on his shoulder. Wounds that matched exactly what a beast might leave behind.
“Lina.” My name came out rough, desperate. “I’m sorry. I just... needed to know you were safe.”
“Bybreaking into my apartment?” I gestured wildly with the knife, probably looking more deranged than dangerous. “I have locks! On the first floor! How did you even-”
“Hospital,” I cut myself off, sanity kicking in as I catalogued the steady drip of blood onto my floor. “You need-”
“No hospitals.” He shook his head and immediately winced at the movement. “Can’t.”
“Can’t? You’re bleeding all over my rug!”
“Sorry about the rug.”
Was he trying to joke? While actively bleeding out on my furniture? The audacity of this man.
But I was already moving to get the first aid kit, because apparently I had no self-preservation instincts when it came to him. My feet carried me to the bathroom on autopilot while my brain screamed about stranger danger and breaking and entering and how normal people called 911 in these situations.
“Don’t move,” I called over my shoulder. “Don’t die. Don’t bleed on anything else.”
I grabbed the first aid kit, several towels, and the bottle of vodka I kept for emergencies. This definitely qualified as an emergency. When I returned to the living room, he was trying to stand.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I dropped everything on the coffee table with a clatter.
“Shouldn’t be here.” He swayed slightly, one hand pressed to his ribs. “You told me to stay away.”
“Youtoldmeto stay away,” I corrected, pushing him back down with one hand on his shoulder. He went without resistance, which worried me more than I wanted to admit. “There’s a difference. Now shut up and let me help.”
He was too hurt to fight much, breathing shallow and careful as I knelt in front of him. The position put me between his spread legs to get the right angle for the wounds on his ribs, and I tried very hard not to think about how compromising this looked. Or how the scent of pine and rain clung to him under the coppersmell of blood. Or how my torn, bloody clothes from earlier made me feel even more aware of every breath between us.
Professional. I was being professional. Like a very unlicensed, unqualified medical professional who treated mysterious men at three in the morning.
Up close, the wounds were obviously from claws and teeth. Beast marks. Exactly matching what the creature that attacked my shop might leave behind.
“You were out there,” I said quietly, peeling his ruined shirt away. The fabric stuck to the wounds, and he hissed through his teeth. “During the attack. These are from-”
“Don’t.” His hand caught my wrist through the fabric of his shirt I was holding, gentle but firm. “Please.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to demand answers about why he had wounds from mythical creatures and how he’d gotten into my locked apartment and why he’d come here instead of literally anywhere else. But the look in his eyes stopped me. Pain and desperation and fear. Not for himself, but for me.
I worked in silence after that, cleaning wounds through the torn fabric of his shirt, trying to be gentle as I worked around the edges. The wounds looked strangely better than they should for how much blood there was. Some were already starting to close at the edges, which made no medical sense but neither did werewolves, so I decided to stop questioning reality for the night.
He sat perfectly still except for the occasional intake of breath when I hit a tender spot. I focused on the work, on themechanical process of clean, disinfect, bandage. Not on the way his muscles tensed. Not on the way his eyes never left my face. Not on the way being this close made my skin feel electrified even though I was careful not to touch him directly.
“Why here?” I finally gave in and asked what I’d been wondering since I found him bleeding in my living room. “If no hospitals, why comehere?You have friends, presumably. Family. People who aren’t me. People you didn’t specifically tell to stay away from you. How did you even get in?”
He was quiet so long I thought he wouldn’t answer. I finished with the bandages on his ribs and moved to the bite on his shoulder, trying not to think about what kind of mouth had made those marks.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he said finally, voice low and raw. “After I left. During the attack. I kept wondering if you were safe. If those things had found you. If you were...”
He trailed off but I could fill in the blank. Dead. If I was dead.
My hands stilled on the bandages. “So you broke into my apartment?”
