Page 52 of Remington’s Mate

He touched her again, and the clamminess faded.

What the—

He moved away from the couch, his eyes on her wound. After a minute or two, it started oozing blood again.

He rushed back and knelt by the couch, putting his hand on her skin.

The bleeding trickled to a stop once more.

“Fuck. Me,” Remy murmured.

Jaeda didn’t have shifter healing. Or at least, she didn’t have it unless he was touching her.

Remy covered the wound with a bandage and then sat on the floor by the couch, his head resting against Jaeda’s back, his hand in hers where it dangled from the couch.

“I’m here,” he murmured to her. “Fight. I’ll help you.”

That’s where he was when Brandon and the others got there ten minutes later. Colt and Callie were minutes behind them. They barreled in, full of questions and exclamations, until they saw the state Jaeda was in.

“Fuck,” Brandon said savagely. “If we’d been ten seconds sooner…”

“You and me both,” Remy said. “Can you do anything?”

Brandon had some medic training from his days working for the Agency, a clandestine shifter organization. He tried to get Remy out of the way, but he refused.

“Work around me,” he said. “She’s got some kind of shifter healing, but only when I’m touching her. If I walk away, that happens.” He pointed to the stain on the couch cushion.

They all stared at him except Brandon, who just shrugged and went to the fridge. In a minute he was back with a bag of plasma and was setting up an IV.

Damn. He’d prepared for pretty much everything.

“How the hell does that healing thing even work?” Kitty said.

“How the fuck should I know?” Remy snapped. “All I know is I’m not letting go of her until I’m sure she won’t die. And if the rest of you can’t do anything useful, get the fuck out of here.”

He knew he shouldn’t yell at them, but all his energy was focused on Jaeda. Brandon turned Jaeda to check her entry wound, and then had Colt sit on the couch with Jaeda’s upper body in his lap while he worked on the exit wound.

“Sorry I didn’t let you know where we were.”

Brandon snorted. “Judging by the amount of blood you’re sitting in, you did the right thing,” he said. “I got the alert on my phone when you keyed in the house entry code.”

“I figured you would.”

Brandon rigged a light and then did some minor surgery, pulling out a few bone fragments and stitching up some of the tissues deep inside the wound, before bandaging Jaeda up.

“If she can replenish the blood she lost, she’ll be okay,” he said, checking her vitals.

Remy stayed where he was. He wasn’t taking any chances.

Kitty and Callie came with bowls of warm water and washcloths, trying to get the worst of the blood off Jaeda. When they were done, Remy carried her into one of the bedrooms, where Colt had made up the bed with fresh sheets.

Remy laid Jaeda down carefully on her stomach, since the exit wound on her back was the worst. He pulled on a pair of cut-off sweats that Colt had laid on the bed for him, pulled the covers over Jaeda, and then eased in next to her, his thigh touching her arm, his back against the headboard.

He rested his hand lightly on her good shoulder, and prepared for a long night.

Colt came in just after he got settled, with a sandwich and a bottle of water. “You need to eat,” he said. Remy started to shake his head, but Colt said, “Don’t be an idiot. Do it for her. She needs your strength.”

Remy picked up the sandwich, and Colt opened the water bottle for him so he didn’t have to take his hand off Jaeda.