“I’m fine,” I sniffle, hiding my emotions as quickly as they’d emerged out of nowhere. Curiosity has me glancing off to the side where he stands, and I catch the way he limps off further into the room.
“But you’re not…” The words leave my lips without thinking, and I immediately spring up to my feet when I realize that Brooks had been injured during the attack. It’s evident in the way he’s limping, and by the hand he has pressed to his side.
“I’m fine,” he murmurs as he approaches the bed, throwing himself on the edge with a wince that betrays his assuring words.
Conflicted by the hatred I feel toward him and my instinctive urge to care for the sub-alpha of the werewolf pack I belong to, I blow out a breath through puckered lips and roll my eyes before marching forward. The tight space means it’s impossible to ignore Brooks’s scent that soon becomes overpowered by the metallic smell of blood when he lifts his T-shirt to expose his brutally slashed ribs. I suck in a breath through my teeth, sensing his pain almost as if it’s my own.
I flinch as I move around the room, knowing that the small space houses a few supplies that will help me tend to his injuries.
“What are you doing?” Brooks asks, and I can feel his frown boring into the back of my neck as I open the cabinet.
“That needs to be stitched,” I murmur, taking out a first-aid kit from the cabinet, left in case of emergencies like this.
I know my way around, even though I haven’t been to this hut before. I’d even contributed to packing the medical kits that would be left behind in these safehouses; that’s just how close I was to the lunas of the pack.
And that’s why it remains the biggest blow that they didn’t come to me about Yvonne’s vision. Before turning, I shrug diffidently so I don’t have to think about the betrayal right now.
It doesn’t help that I’m angry at my so-called friends as well as the alpha bleeding out on the bed.
Composing myself, I turn to find Alpha Brooks tearing the rest of his T-shirt away, exposing the ghastly injury on his torso. Blood trickles from the gashes made by the demon’s ruthless talons, and Brooks’s flesh is torn too close to his ribs.
I push aside my anger and march toward him, crouching at the foot of the bed and unzipping the medical kit that contains everything I need to make the mending a breeze. I prepare the suturing needle with thread and gather the ointment that will stop the bleeding and speed up his recovery time. It’s an ointment I mixed myself after boiling a range of herbs from the gardens behind the clinic in Girdwood.
I never thought that my natural talent for the healing arts meant that I possessed mystical gifts. It’s not magic that compels me to heal the alpha, but instead, the compassion I’ve always shown toward the members of our pack whenever I was needed.
Keeping my eyes pinned to Brooks’s wounds, I hear the way he winces and see the way he squirms when I dab a cottonball to his ribs, but I refuse to look up. It’s easier to keep my focus on the task at hand, so I don’t hate him too much and leave him to bleed out instead.
It’s a tempting idea, since it’s not like he’ll die from this. It might just give me a unique chance to escape him if I left him like this…
“Why are you so quiet?” Brooks asks, to my surprise.
I look up with a frown, lifting the suturing needle in front of my face. “I’m about to stitch your wounds. Do you need me to sing you a lullaby through it?”
Brooks scoffs and shakes his head while I go back to my work.
“Since when did you become so feisty?” he snickers.
“Since I was forced into this whole scheme,” I murmur before pressing my tongue into my cheek, my eyes narrowing before I pierce the needle through a good spot in his flesh.
Brooks winces lightly, but it extends into a dry chuckle. “Scheme? Is that what you think this is?”
“I don’t know what to think of it, Alpha Brooks. I told you already, I don’t want any of this.”
“You saw what you’re capable of out there. Luna Yvonne’s vision was right. You are a witch.”
“It proves nothing. What about free will?”
“Free will?” Brooks scoffs. “Do you honestly believe that you have free will when it comes to this? Do you think Aurora or Yvonne had any free will when they discovered they were witches?”
I pull the thread deliberately taut in a show of retribution. “The difference is that both of them didn’t hate their alphas,” Iremark with a bitter scoff as I pull the needle away and seal the wound with a gauze strip that sticks to his skin. “I’m done,” I announce as I pick up the first-aid kit and rise to my feet.
“Oh, so that’s what this is about, huh?” Brooks sneers as he shuffles uncomfortably on the bed. “You hate me?”
I narrow my eyes at him, barely moving my lips when I say, “Can you blame me? You—” I cut my speech off abruptly, not wanting to go down the list of reasons why I hate him. He doesn’t need to know my weaknesses or that the way he treated me in the past left a scar on me that cannot be seen, unlike his wounds.
Brooks huffs and struggles to his feet, turning his face aside before he staggers to the narrow closet beside the bed.
“I did what, Rissa?” he asks nonchalantly as he pulls out a black T-shirt from the closet. As he pulls it over his head, he turns slyly, his cocked to one side as he regards me. “What did I do that makes you hate me so much?”
