His questing fingers met the edge of something strange on her side. It was filmy, almost rubbery, like one of those special m-bandages hospitals used to quickly stop blood loss. He ran his thumb over the edge again, his mind stalling. A budding sense of dread began to burn away the delicious arousal coursing through his veins.
Brows furrowing, he reluctantly lifted his head to peer down at Camille’s body.
Itwasa bandage. A big one.
Awareness spread like ice through his mind, pricking him until it felt like his insides were nothing more than a frozen mass of thorns.
The beach. The way she looked at me. The firelight in her eyes. The gunshots.
Viktor began to shake. Terrified he’d wake her, he gently extracted his arm from her hold and sat up against the headboard. He lifted one trembling hand to his injured shoulder, but found it undamaged, the skin taut but otherwise unharmed.
Margot was there,he recalled, staring down at the slumbering form of his mate with wide eyes.I was shot, and Cam…
Camille ran after the shooter.
He felt his gorge rise as he remembered the sight of her slim back getting smaller, running away from him. He remembered watching from behind the boulder as bolts whistled by her head. He remembered the visceral terror of seeing her scale the cliff with her claws. He remembered the exact moment his excellent night vision failed him and he lost sight of his mate as she vaulted over the cliff’s edge.
Sweat broke out over his bare chest as he raked his fingers through his tangled, salt-crusted hair. This was no leisurely wake-up after a sultry evening. This was the morning after what was very nearly the greatest tragedy of his life.
Gods, I almost lost her.
Not to another man. Not because he’d done something stupid. He almost lost her because she’d fought todefendhim.
A lump grew in his throat until it felt like he couldn’t breathe, let alone swallow, around it.
No one had ever defended him before. That was an alpha’s job. He was the one who defended his pack, not the other way around. While they took his safety seriously — he was their leader, after all — no one had ever gone so far as Camille had. Not even when his father was at his worst, his most cruel to his vulnerable cub and mate, did someone risk their life to protect him. He was grateful that since his father’s death, there had been little opportunity.
Viktor’s eyes watered as he traced the edge of the bandage again. Remorse and pride and tenderness and horror waged a war in his chest. He was gutted, and yet he felt stretched too far; his strong, shifter’s heart rendered brittle by the love he felt for her.
Camille shifted and rolled onto her back, one arm thrown up to rest on the pillow above her head. His blankets were tangled around her hips and long, lithe legs.
Gods.
Viktor held his breath as he took her in. His mate was so beautifully wrought it made himhurt.
Lavender skin stretched over trim muscle and elegant, sloping bone. Her waist was a neat dip above lean hips. Her ribs, moving slowly with every deep breath, were a divine arch. Her breasts were soft swells tipped with dark nipples. Her neck was long and bare, stretched in a way that tempted the coyote into a frenzy — triggering that deep, instinctive compulsion to lick and kiss andbite.
It was the most arresting sight he’d ever had the privilege of seeing, and it was utterly spoiled by the clear bandage carefully applied over the wound in her side.
It was a series of jagged lines, five in total, that split her beautiful skin to reveal the yellow fat and pale blue flesh beneath.
Claw marks.
He ground his teeth as he probed at his own healed shoulder. Why hadn’t Margot tended to Camille? Why was he fully healed and his matewasn’t?
Camille was no fighter. She was born elvish-strong and trained like all of her kind were, but he was certain she hadn’t been in a real fight before that moment on the beach.
For all that her mother was a spiteful, self-centered woman, she did her best to shield her twins from violence. Whisking them away to Napa did more than keep them out of the Solbourne family’s reach. It also kept them away from potential squabbles and that oh-so-elvish need for dominance and territory.
Camille had been inadvertently cosseted by her mother and had likely run on nothing more than instinct and adrenaline when she fought the shooter. For all her spine, she was delicate, breakable.
And she still risked her life to protect me.
Viktor pressed his palm against his chest, as if that small gesture could contain a heart that had never belonged to him.
The sound of someone walking barefoot through his den snapped him out of his staggering realization. Too quick for the average eye to follow, he had the sheets pulled up over Camille’s shoulders and his body between her and the door.
In a voice so low only a shifter’s ears could pick it up, Benny called out through the door, “Vik, you awake in there?” He paused, waiting for an answer, before he continued, “I thought I heard you moving. If you’re awake, come out soon. The pack’s worried sick and I’ve got a pushy sovereign incoming.”
