When he stood, the room shrank around him, and I marveled at this massive, scary-ass shifter finally showing me a sliver of his vulnerability. I was starting to comprehend the true disconnect between Slade and his dragon, and I wondered if this was partly the reason for his coldly calculating need to control the world around him. Was it all a means to help with the internal chaos he could not repair?
Or maybe I was pretending to be a pseudo-therapist and should stick with serving drinks at Luxuria.
When Slade sat, he kept a small distance between us, but we were close enough for me to feel his heat. It reminded me of his comforting presence in the prison house, and how he’d saved our lives when said house exploded. And then again with the witch.
“This is not your fault,” I repeated, firmer this time. “As I told Hunter when he killed Jones, if your instinct is to protect your pack, and there was every chance that witch could have used killing magic on the rest of us, then you did the right thing by destroying her. You protected us and made the hard choices so the rest of us didn’t have to.”
Slade’s gaze was intense, trapping me in what felt like a beam of green light. I couldn’t look away, even as I struggled to conveyall my feelings. “You are not a monster, Slade Riverson. You are a protector. Your dragon saved us from the blast. Don’t tell me that wasn’t pure instinct. Not even you could have premeditated and moved that quickly.”
He tilted his head to the side and lifted his hand. There was a breath of sensation against my cheek, and my eyes closed involuntarily. I heard a whispered, “Thank you,” and by the time I opened my eyes again, Slade was gone and all that remained was his scent. His scent and the sense—hope—that maybe I’d finally gotten through to him.
Even in my dazed state, my bladder reminded me that I needed the bathroom, and after brushing my hand gently down Kellan’s chest, I swung my legs off the bed and picked up the stained towel to take with me. I hadn’t paid attention to which room we were in, but as I glanced around at the light blue walls, one of which was completely covered in mounted weapons, combined with the caramel scent, I knew it was Kellan’s.
I’d had no idea he wasthisinto weapons, and it hurt me that we’d had such a short amount of time together. There was so much more to learn… Ineededmore. I needed forever.
As I moved toward his bathroom, I heard footsteps which were followed by Finley’s scent. I paused, bundling the towel up tighter as I debated hurrying away or remaining where I was. In the end, I let Finley decide what he wanted.
When he froze in the doorway, his broken stare took me in as I hovered and bled all over myself. Eventually my patience ran out. “I’m going to shower. Can you stay with Kel? I don’t want him to be alone.”
He responded with a deep, bear-like rumble, and then a grunt. Ah, lovely. “Great, thank you.”
I forced myself to calmly stride around the bed and toward the exit, my legs aching as the last few days took its toll on my body. It went back even longer than that, really, if youconsidered the first attempted kidnapping. Or getting dragged to Golden Claw and meeting my scent matches?—
You know what, it had been a fucked-up month, while also one of the best in my life.
As I passed Finley, I held my breath, not emotionally ready for a full hit of his scent. In my room I closed the door and breathed in the clean, cool air. Florence had been in to tidy, and she’d opened my blinds and shutters, letting in the crisp afternoon breeze.
After dropping the towel into my laundry hamper, I was heading for the bathroom when I noticed a large basket sitting on the end of the bed. Upon closer inspection I found it was filled with an array of period related products, including underwear, cups, discs, tampons, pads, painkillers, a hot water bottle, chocolate, and snacks.
I blinked and stared, wondering how they’d managed to get all of this in the short time since we’d returned from Silver City. My throat grew unbearably tight and my eyes watered, my emotionally fragile state unable to hold the tears at bay.
With plans to sob my guts out in the shower, I took a second to sniff the basket, surprised to find Slade’s scent was the most prominent. With just a hint of Hunter’s too. Our entitled alpha took the care of his pack very seriously, and I’d anticipated this would have come from him, but the dragon was unexpected.
Piece by piece, day by day, these alphas chipped away at the protective barriers I’d been erecting around my heart—rewiring the parts of my brain that had been determined to never rely on or feel attached to this pack.
At this stage, if I had to leave them for any reason, it would be akin to an addict weaning off their drug of choice. Mine was apparently dominant, possessive alpha males.
Leaving the basket for after my shower, I entered the bathroom and cranked the water as hot as I could. My skinitched, and I couldn’t wait to scrub myself clean. When I stepped under the stream of water, heat engulfed me, and trails of red ran down the drain. Not all of that was from my period; that witch’s blood had remained in my hair, and it was somewhat cathartic to watch the last of her disappear.
Fuck her. How dare she hurt my Kellan.
The first sob was loud, ripping from my chest as I curled in on myself. Fuck her.FUCK HER!She needed to be here so I could kill her again, tear her to pieces to assuage this pain crippling me. My knees buckled, and I would have crumpled to the tiled floor, but strong arms caught me as I went down.
More sobs burst from me, gut-wrenching in their intensity, and my tears fell so fast that I was blinded. Not that I needed to see to know who was with me. Both logic and scent told me it was Hunter, the one who held me in the shower when my world destructed.
“I’ve got you, baby girl,” he whispered. “Fall apart. Fall all the fucking way apart and trust me to hold the pieces. Until I put you back together.”
My scream was guttural, and I didn’t restrain myself as I raged and cried and hated on the world. My stomach heaved, and I would have vomited if there’d been anything in my gut. I hadn’t been able to eat a single thing on the plane, too focused on Kellan.
Hunter’s hold never wavered as he wrapped me tighter, both of us pressed against the shower wall, as I screamed against his chest. He did exactly as he said and held my pieces, until eventually I quietly sobbed through my pain.
Without letting me go, Hunter reached out for my washcloth, added some of the peach-scented bodywash, and gently dragged it over my skin. He washed away blood I’d missed, and down my thighs where new blood slid, and not even once did he show any reaction to my period or my brokenness.
If anything, he was gentler than ever as he caressed my stomach, the slow soothing swirls of the cloth feeling like heaven, and as my eyes fluttered closed, I realized that Hunter was putting me back together. Another promise he’d kept.
“Kellan is going to be okay,” he murmured as he continued to soothe and clean me. I was too wrecked to do more than trace my fingernails gently up and down his biceps, moving over the geometric pattern of his tattoo, while listening to his calming and reassuring words. “I refuse to ever lose a member of my pack. I’ve kept you all alive up to this point, and that’s not going to change with our Golden Boy. Do you understand, Emmeline? Kellan has no choice but to recover, because I never admit defeat.”
My chest tightened. “He took that blast for me. He sacrif—” I couldn’t finish.
