Alexei watched me a moment. I was rinsing my battered knuckles at the sink.
He ghosted closer and peered at them, gesturing for me to show him.
I obeyed. “Saint already checked them.”
“Saint does not have X-ray vision.”
“Do you?”
“I do not need it to see your ring finger is dislocated.”
“Where?”
Alexei pointed to the joint still mostly hidden by blood from my broken skin. “Get clean and I will fix it for you. I’ll be in Cam’s room.”
He evaporated as abruptly as he’d arrived, and his destination made me miss Embry more. Cam, Saint, and Alexei were staying at the compound tonight. Together. In one bed. They’d go to sleep knowing they were all there and wake up knowing they still were.
I had nothing and no one. Just a fucked-up finger for company.
Call him.
My hands twitched for the phone in my pocket. I finished washing them and reached for a towel instead. I missed Embry’s voice as much as I missed him. That low, wise rumble. How smooth it was as he wrapped his tongue around my name.
But I was hanging by a fucking thread. If he blanked my call like he had my messages or told me to go fuck myself, I wasn’t sure I could take it.
I left the bathroom and ventured down the hall to Cam’s room.
Alexei waited by the window. He was alone and surveying the yard as it quietened down for the night. “If you did not know him, what would you think he was doing?”
I followed his gaze to Saint, who was pacing around, stopping from time to time to frown between the gates, Embry’s bedroom window, and the fucking sky. “I’d think he was tapped, and I’d be right.”
Alexei didn’t argue. “He’s agitated.”
“Why?”
“I do not know. I am trying to decipher if he even knows himself.”
“Let him sleep on it. Sometimes it goes away on its own.”
“You know him well.” Alexei turned away from the glass and took my wrist in his cool hand. “And you are good at managing difficult people.”
“Am I?”
“All except yourself.” Alexei twisted my injured finger, slotting the bone back into place with a vicious, efficient tug. “It is your strength, perhaps more so than the chaplain.”
I waited for the throb of pain to hit my joint, for the welcome, radiating burn to spread up my arm.
Nothing happened.
I wasn’t that lucky.
Irritated, I reclaimed my hand from Alexei. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to know how strong you are before I tell you something else.”
Panic flooded me, instant and sharp.
Alexei held up his hands. “They are fine, they are safe. Is not that. Maybe sit down, though.”
