“Royal,”Kerrianne whispers, waking me up from a fitful sleep. “Grandma says I’m not supposed to wake you up, only see if you’re awake to offer you pancakes.”
“Yes, please,” I whisper back without opening my eyes. “With chocolate chips.”
Kerrianne flops down over the top of me in a hug before darting up the stairs, yelling, “He wants pancakes and chocolate chips. I want chocolate chips too.”
With a groan, I climb out of bed. My leg is stiff, and I struggle to throw it over the side of the bed. Valor’s job of packing and wrapping the wound held through the night, but it doesn’t stop blood from soaking through the bandage.
It takes a monumental effort, and I hobble to my bathroom. I don’t remember coming home last night. I don’t remember anything after Dad set a bowl of soup in front of me.
I take a piss standing, luckily managing not to fall over. But when I’m done, I close the lid and grab the tablet off its charger from the cupboard above the toilet. After snagging the wound caddy from the shelf above that, I sit down to sort out my life.
Maybe I should take care of my wound first, but even without my wolf awake, there’s one thing I need to do.
My phone is backed up to the cloud in six places, and I pull aclone onto the tablet. I ignore the fifty million notifications and home in on the only person I can’t take care of in person today.
Leticia sent me seven total messages.
Leticia:
Ready to call?
Ope, did you miss my text? My food is hot, I’m going to eat.
Those two were sentfifteen minutes apart.
An hour later, I got two more.
Leticia:
I really wish you would have told me we couldn’t call today if you hadn’t meant to be here.
In the event you still want to be friends, I’m turning my phone to silent so I don’t get distracted while studying.
I deservea whole lot worse than those two messages. So much worse. There are only two more from last night.
Leticia:
All done studying for my final.
Proof of life. At least let me know something bad didn’t happen to you?
My chest aches,and I rub at the spot before reading the last one.
Leticia:
Good morning. Please don’t be dead.
No reply is betterthan what I can tell her right now. I don’t even know what my world looks like, and it isn’t fair to beg forgiveness and swear I’ll be better behaved, only to have that crushed by what Dad and Valor may have to say today.
Bloodied mess containedto my bathroom with the door closed to hide it away from Kerrianne, I get myself and my tablet up the stairs one painfully irritating step at a time.
Who thought a lair in the basement was a good idea? Why couldn’t it be on the main level of the house?
My wolf wakes up, the painkillers or sedatives Valor gave me last night slowly wearing off, and he reminds me of that time in high school. I came home, missing baseball practice, to find Mom and Dad getting handsy on the kitchen counter.
Fair enough. Lair in the basement is safer most of the time.
“I told her not to wake you up.” Mom sighs, looking me over. “How’s the leg?”
