“Baby girl, why are you bleeding?”
She looks at me with those hazy eyes.
“Bite,” she whispers, her voice hoarse from all of her crying.
Bite.
“Bite?” I ask anyway.
I swing my gaze to my brother, fear stronger than anything else coursing through me. It’s then I see the nearly perfect bite along her left hipbone, still dripping blood. My heart drops to the fucking floor as all the air is knocked out of my body. Ohfuck. Paxton adjusts his hold, and I see the matching bite on the pad of his left thumb, a perfect crescent of puncture marks. The movement smears a bit more blood along her skin.
Jesus Christ. Billie’s going to be devastated.
I turn back to Ashton. He’s not on the phone anymore.
“They’re bonded. I need…” I swallow and try to shut down everything roiling through me. It feels weird as fuck to have a boner while despairing over the woman I’m dating just having sex with my brother—sex that neither of them could have possibly been able to consent to, not in the ways that matter. I close my eyes, trying to breathe through the ache of instincts trying to push me over the edge.
I need to get Carys out of here, get the blood and cum cleaned off of her before her heat demands to be sated again. I need to get Paxton into a safe place with someone else so he can come out of the rut and then come to terms with what’s happened. A bond is devastating enough, but it can be platonic. Lots of packs include platonic bonds to close the loop. But the fact he knotted her, too? Tears burn my eyes. This is a nightmare, and it hasn’t even gotten started, really. Not with Billie gone and the team leaving for a three day road trip tomorrow.
“I’ll take him with me,” Ashton says, his voice soft like he’s talking to a wild animal. “Both of you are scratched for tonight. He need someone with him?”
I nod, twisting a strand of Carys’s hair around my finger absentmindedly. “I don’t think he should be alone when he becomes lucid. He’s going to be distraught.”
“Where’s Billie?”
“California.”
Ashton’s curse is more colorful than anything I’ve managed so far.
“All right.” He sighs. “I’ll go down as a scratch, too, then. If you can get her to the car, her scent should clear decently fast. That’s a hell of a purifier. I’ll stay here with him until he regains himself and then will make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“I’m going to have to take her to her place.” She’s going to need another knot soon, probably only in a matter of minutes judging by the tears still streaming down her cheeks and onto my hand. Fuck, this is bad. “Mine’s too far from here with the way she is right now. I can’t let her be in that much pain.”
Ashton frowns. “Ares might show up. He was already pretty worried. She missed a call from him, and she doesn’t do that before games apparently.”
“Yeah, I know.” I’d had her hair tickling my cheek because of how she was splayed on my chest when she answered one of those calls last week. “I guess we’ll find out just how much being her scent match is going to impact my standing with him. I’m not making her sit through an hour of traffic right now.”
Carefully, I ease my arm under my brother’s so I can wrap it around Carys’s waist. She twists toward me, her cheek already pressed into my shoulder. Paxton’s breathing accelerates, his chest heaving as his hands tighten on Carys. She whimpers. His scent pulses in warning, edged with possessive rage. I freeze, keeping my eyes locked on him.
Ashton sighs and edges around the three of us.
“Get the hell out to your car as soon as I do this. He’s going to be pissed,” he instructs.
“Can you get that bucket of flowers into one of the coolers before you get him out of here? And check that the doors are locked, too?”
I have no idea what to do about the next couple days, all the orders and deliveries she had scheduled. Ashton purses his lips even as he frowns.
“Yeah, man, I’ll make sure the place is locked up.”
Then, quick as a snake, he loops his arm around Paxton’s neck, pushing hard enough his eyes widen in alarm. His hands drop from around Carys, scrabbling at Ashton’s hold on him. I don’t hesitate, banding my arm under her knees and pulling her into my chest. She shivers, her scent pulses once, and then she cries again.
“It’s okay, baby girl,” I croon.
I cross to the back counter, gently setting her on an empty portion of it. I pull my shirt off and guide it over her head—covering the worst of the blood and mess—grab her purse and her phone, and then pull her back into my arms. Paxton snarls behind me and then there’s the clear sound of a punch landing, but I don’t dare hesitate, practically running to the back door. Carys’s eyes slip closed as I get her in the passenger seat and then ease the Supra toward her apartment.
Chapter Twenty-Three
RHETT
