Page 48 of Brandon’s Mate

And he’d already been cut up from his fight with the Hermit. Plus he had the remnants of his bruises from yesterday. He needed to fight, but this was starting to be too much of a good thing.

The water didn’t drown out the sound of voices in the other room, though it smoothed away the words and left him with only the sounds. After all these years, how the hell had he ended up with a kitchen full of Bad Blood kids?

Not that he hadn’t imagined it sometimes—but not like this.

He’d always been the oldest, the smartest, the one who was going to be an alpha someday. Successful. Settled. Leader of his own crew.

Even now he’d been thinking if he could just handle this one mission, maybe he’d start believing again that he could be all those things.

But not if he had to be fucking rescued by the little kids.

From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a glimpse of translucent gray. He whirled around, looking for a panther ghost behind him, but there was nothing there.

He wet a washcloth and wiped off some of the blood. Damn. He was going to need some butterfly bandages, and half his wounds were in places where he couldn’t put them on without help.

He stepped in the shower and let the hot water rinse away the rest of the blood. He could still hear them all talking in the kitchen, but he couldn’t make himself move, so he just leaned against the tiled wall and listened to the familiar cadence of their conversation. Bickering, insults, complaining, but with an undercurrent of love.

Gradually, the snarl on his face smoothed out, and his cat went quiet.

Chapter 19

Kitty was just about to go check on Brandon when he came out of the bathroom. He’d Changed back to human, and was wearing nothing but a low-slung pair of jeans.

Yum. For a minute all she could see was muscles and abs as memories of last night flooded her. Then she got a good look at him. There were deep slashes across one shoulder that were still oozing blood, and a crap-ton more damage than she’d been able to see earlier.

What the hell had Colt been thinking? She opened her mouth to yell at him, but Brandon spoke before she could.

“I’m out of butterfly bandages,” he said. “You guys got any?”

Remy, who was busy patching up Colt, silently tossed a package over to him. Brandon winced as he caught it. Kitty walked over, grabbing up a dishtowel to wipe the fresh blood off his back and arm.

“That needs more than a couple of butterfly bandages. It needs stitches.”

“No it doesn’t.”

It totally did. And even if it didn’t, he couldn’t reach it with butterfly bandages either. “Shut up,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

She went over to raid the twins’ first aid box for needles and sutures. “What the hell were you thinking?” she hissed at Colt under her breath. “I thought you were here to have his back, not tear it to shreds.”

Colt’s leopard was still riled up, and he didn’t bother to keep his voice down.

“What about the shredding our ex-friend over there did? And anyway, I didn’t do all that. Some of it’s from another fight.”

He was right, she realized she went back to Brandon. There were half-healed knife cuts and yellowing bruises, on top of the almost-healed bruises from yesterday’s brawl with the Talons.

Sometime last night he’d gotten out of bed with her and gone to pick a fight with someone. So much for the amazing power of her veejay. Or their bond. Which probably only existed in her mind.

A real mating bond was healing to body and soul, and she clearly hadn’t helped him at all.

He’d just gone out and damaged himself more.

“When the hell did the rest of this happen?” she demanded.

He just shook his head. “Let it go.”

Kitty tightened her lips and stabbed the needle into his back, making him wince. “I should just let you fucking bleed,” she muttered, sewing up the wound with careful stitches. “I should let you all bleed, with your stupid fucking testosterone bullshit. What the hell is wrong with you all?”

“He attacked us,” Colt said.