“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I must have lost track,” I mumble, biting into my lip when he reaches out to touch my face.
“Are you well, bria? You look so pale.”
Clearing my throat, I nod, biting my lip as I look down to finish off the fruit for breakfast.
“Jules—”
“Can I ask you a question? I mean, you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to, but I kinda would like…to know some stuff, seeing as we’re going to…” I trail off, grabbing the bowl to take it to the dining room where the other food is waiting in warming platters.
Blain follows, and only when I’ve taken my seat does he take his and look back at me.
“Now would not be the time,” he says shortly, looking at Bee where she’s trying to do a crossword in the paper while balancing a piece of melon near her mouth.
“Yeah, probably not.”
Picking up my fork, I cut into the omelet and shiver delicately when another chill passes through me. Blain may have come back up to full speed thanks to Lync’s blood and the shift the other night, but I haven’t.
After he left me this morning, I took my shower, feeling like I had been drained. Even with my shift the other night, I expected my wolf to heal me fully, but it seems that I’ll have to give it more time.
I spend what’s left of the morning, after a silent breakfast, tidying everything away and sitting in the room at the back, the one with the grey couches, curled up and fast asleep until Hannah gives me a wakeup call for lunch.
You should tell him that you’re still not feeling well.
I’ll be fine, Hannah. I just need to sleep a little more and let the last of those drugs leave me.
It shouldn’t be taking this long! It’s a temporary formula. Something could be wrong.
Nothing is wrong. Althea went out of town to consult with a human doctor about your delivery, and I haven’t had blood, that’s all. I’ll be okay, it’ll just take longer. Another day.
She sighs, and I feel her fatigue through our link while I prepare a light lunch of lamb chops and a salad. Blain takes his in his office, barely sparing me a glance while Bee sits outside in the spring sunshine knitting something.
I’m all alone and staring down at another five hours of nothing much, so I decide to drop by Banner and Cass’s place to stave off the boredom. Muttering, as I grab a cardigan and leave the house, I take the back path that should be quicker but will have me skirting the edges of the Greyriver borders.
I like walking. In fact, it’s what Bear calls my hobby since it’s the only thing I ever do when I have free time. It’s peaceful, just me with my thoughts, and I don’t have to do anything but keep my feet moving as I look around and take in the new growth all around me.
The snow may be completely gone now, but Spring doesn’t come fast up here in the north. It’s a slow process that really lets you appreciate every change, even if it is chilly.
I’m about halfway to my destination when a scent hits me from somewhere to my left and I stop, turn, and hold completely still. Birds chirp in the trees, I can hear a mouse scurrying somewhere nearby, and then I hear a shuffle in the distance that has me tensing.
It’s nothing, Jules. Just the animals out here, I tell myself, shoving my hands into my pockets to keep them from trembling. The need to start running is so strong I feel my spine tingle and my skin crawl with panic.
I tamp it all down, forcing my wolf to settle, and pick up my pace. Running around the woods panicked is not something I think I could live down, even if I’m the only idiot who witnesses it.
I should just have walked through town and ignored people’s stares and nasty comments. It’s just that I know today is when Mom usually goes into town to do the weekly shopping for the next week, and I didn’t really want to chance going that route and seeing her.
It’s still really hard for me to get over her abandonment, and well, I can do without my own mother seeing just how people treat me after my fall from grace.
Breathing deeply, I reach into my pocket for my phone, the weight of it making me relax somewhat, even as I glance around and pick up my pace some more.
My phone rings right when I’m about to break into a jog, and I stop, searching around behind me before answering it with a quivery voice that is choked by panting.
“Bria, where are you?”
I almost cry. Well, my eyes fill with tears of relief the moment I hear his voice. It’s strange, yet true that in so short a time I have now become the female who trusts in Blain Seers. He’s my guy, and no matter what happens between us, I trust him with my life. Hasn’t he already proven it’s safe with him?
“Uh, I thought I’d walk to Cass’s,” I say, turning in a circle when the skin at my nape crawls.
I trust my instincts, I always have, and while the scent I caught earlier is gone, I know for a fact that someone is watching me. I can feel the stare physically, like a caress.
“Female, you should have said. You can’t just walk out of the house without telling someone where you’re going. It’s not smart, even in Greyriver,” he says and growls, cutting off my answering quip before I can make it.
“Sorry, I guess I’m not used to talking to other people about my movements, and well, I wanted to take a walk.”
Scanning the area, I start walking again and fight not to freak out when I pick up the crack of a twig. It could be a squirrel, a bird, hell, it could be some larger animal, I tell myself, as I walk faster and hunch in on myself. The tiredness hasn’t miraculously left me, and I should have considered driving to Cass’s but—
“Well, you have to do it now, bria. I looked everywhere for you before I realized you weren’t home.”
“Um, okay? Why were you looking for me? Did Bee have a shit fit about tomatoes in her salad again? She has to eat them, Blain; she needs the vitamin C after her long convalescence.”
“Convalescence? That is a bad week,” he mocks, making me giggle because he always refers to Bee’s breakdown as the week of the tantrum.
I almost agree, but for the sadness I see in her eyes at times when she talks about her husband.
“Stop teasing about her. You know she listens to every conversation you have. She hears all your insults.”
“Which is why I speak louder, bria. Now, I don’t like you walking to Cass’s alone, not after the last few days and the way the council has suspended me. I was relying on the protection of my position for you, but as it’s no longer there, I don’t want you out alone—”
I don’t hear the rest of what he says because no sooner do I catch a sound than something heavy slams into my back, taking me down to the ground.
I smell roses, the cloying, overpowering scent of roses. It hits me like a slap to the senses it’s so strong. Scent blending, I think, my chest going hot and tight when a hand shoves into my hair and pulls so hard my neck crunches near my windpipe.
Can’t breathe. My eyes water, the pain of hair ripping from the roots shooting through my scalp. It takes me precious seconds to snap out of shock, and when I do I reach back, scratching at the hands grasping my hair.
The weight on my back doesn’t make it easy though, and I cry out in pain when a knee digs into my spine and the hand pulls harder, so hard I bend almost double, my hips grinding into the ground beneath me.
“Stop!”
“Shut up, bitch!”
Oh God, oh God, I can’t move, I think frantically, clawing back only to have my fingers bite into heavy gloves. I’m not at my best, perhaps why someone thought to attack me this way, and the longer the seconds tick by the harder it becomes for me to fight.
I can’t breathe, not with my head wrenched back at this angle, and black dots are now popping up in my vision so badly I have to blink rapidly just to stay conscious.
“Do you know what happens to traitors in this town? We get rid of them before they infect the rest of our society. You spread your legs for that Seers prick and renounced your Alpha! We think it’s time the litt
le princess discovered what it means to—”
The words are cut off when I hear a howl in the distance, one I recognize well enough to feel my heart fill with relief.
“Christ! Hurry man, that bastard is coming!”
Another male? I hardly get to form the thought before the hand grasping my hair pulls me back and then slams my face into the dirt. I feel my cheek split and the crack of bone. Pain, agonizing pain spreads from the point where my face hits the ground, once, twice, a third time.
My nose isn’t spared, and I let out a silent cry when I feel it make contact and splinter with the force of the slams. I almost pass out then, but with the fourth hard slam into the dirt, this time catching my right eye I am on the verge of unconsciousness.
“Come on! I can hear him. We still need to get rid of the perfume!”
My assailant shoves my face into the earth then, mashing me into damp soil hard enough that I can’t breathe before heaving off me and releasing my spine from his weight.
I can’t cry. I would, if I had breath left in me. All I can manage as I fight against vomiting is a whimper before I drop back down and let myself float.
It feels like hours later when I hear running and then the howl of Blain’s wolf. I must go blank for a moment because when I next blink into awareness I feel hands on me, hear snarling, a whimpered whine that expresses impotent rage and then Blain’s choked voice as he cradles me against his chest.
“Bria…”
I try to speak, but all I can manage is a burbling croak when blood from my broken teeth pours down my throat. My face feels like it just took a hammer, repeatedly and my eyes are already swollen shut to the point that all I can see when I turn my head is a tiny sliver of Blain’s bare chest.
I want to tell him they could still be here. I can’t smell anymore, so I wouldn’t know if that were true, but I am terrified, so panicked he has to grasp me tightly to him to stop me from falling out of his arms because I’m shaking so badly.
“It’s okay, bria. Hush. I have you.”
I know, I think, letting the pain take me and carry me away. He has me. He just doesn’t want to. Not forever, not how I need him to.
Chapter Eleven
Jules
“I don’t fucking care! You find them, and when you do I want a shot at them.”
I hear yelling and try to open my eyes only to realize they’re so swollen it’s impossible. My face feels like that steak you leave out on the counter for a few hours before pounding it to death with a tenderizer and then pushing it through a meat grinder.
I can’t pinpoint any one spot because it is all so smashed up and swollen I feel as if someone injected liquid beneath my skin. After heating it to boiling point.
I don’t think I have ever felt this amount of pain, not even when Grill Bylan missed the target with his arrow and it ended up in my foot. We were six, and he stole his father’s bow and arrow. One of the few times I had snuck out of the house to avoid studying and look how that turned out.
This pain though; it’s something else. Every part of my face is swollen and hurts, the way a tooth does when the nerve is exposed and something hot touches it. My head is killing me and by that, I mean that my brain physically hurts inside my skull.
Considering it slammed against my skull more than once, it’s not that surprising at all, but heck, I wish I could do something about it because my stomach also feels like it could release in a pukefest any minute.
“Blain, I told you. We went through that section of the woods for two hours and followed that scent trail as far as the lake. We couldn’t identify the male.”
“Males! There were two of them. I told you. Mother took the phone as soon as I ran out of here, and she distinctly remembers hearing two. One was panicked after I howled and started running. The other one was threatening Jules and slamming her fucking face into the ground!” he screams.
A pick axe splits through my skull with the volume, and I whimper, wanting to just roll over and die to escape the pain.
“Bria? Oh Jesus.”
His hand touches me, stroking over my battered cheek in a trembling caress that makes me want to cry. I hear the horror in his voice and tell myself that—for this moment—I will take it as him caring for me. I have to think it, because right now, he’s the only one who really does.
And I need that.
“Bria.”
“Roses,” I mumble, grimacing when the movement hurts, and I feel my lip split where it’s already swollen and bloody.
“Hush. Don’t speak if it hurts you, malina. I’m right here, baby,” he rasps, taking my hand firmly in his and bringing it up to his face.
I manage to crack a lid, just a sliver, but I see a tiny part of his eyes and it makes my chest ache anew with longing. Oh God, I wish he’d look at me that way without all the injuries.
I want to take his advice. Hell, I think I could happily pass out right now and not give a shit, just for the escape. But I can’t, and not just because that would be a cop out, but because I can’t stand to hear the impotent rage in Blain’s voice.
“Hey, Jules. Honey, are you okay?”
I hear the hesitance, the anger in Logan’s voice, and try to smile. When I let out a whimper because my teeth hurt where they’ve been broken and cut into my mouth, Blain snarls and strokes a finger across my lips.
“Malina, don’t speak. It pains you.”
“No, need to tell you. My assailant about six one, two twenty,” I whisper, grimacing when I taste blood and feel something dab at my lower lip.
“Anything else, Jules? Voice? Scent? Any tiny thing that you can think of,” Logan pushes, his voice close enough that I think he’s standing at the foot of the bed.
“The…other guy was taller. He sounded higher up? Had a bit of a deeper voice that whistled a little. As if he has a gap in his teeth?”
I can’t be one hundred percent sure about it all since half of it happened while I was having my face smashed in, but it’s all I have, and right now, from the way Blain is all but killing the circulation in my hand I need to do something.
“So, I’m looking for two males, around six one and taller, one with a gap in his teeth and the other…”
“Had a rasp in his voice. I caught the scent of toffee on his breath, but I can’t be sure since the roses were so overpowering.”
I would say more, but I hear yelling, pounding feet, and then the door ricocheting off the wall.
“Hannah, you shouldn’t be—”
“Shut it, Logan! Oh Jesus, oh God. Juju, honey…”
I know I must look worse than awful when Hannah starts sniffling and Logan doesn’t yell at her for being here. Hannah can’t walk right now, not with the weight of the young she carries, and I’m still trying to figure out just how she got her fat ass here when I hear a feral snarl.
Aaah, Lync.
“What the ever-loving fuck!”
This comes from Beeber, who is followed by a gasp, and then a wail I identify as Cass. Not long after that I hear an honest roar, and then Bear is on me, his hands shaking as he croons to me and kisses all over my face.
“Baby doll. Oh Jesus. Oh God. Who the fuck did this?!”
Tears leak from my eyes when I hear a sob, Bear’s sob, and feel his hand shake so hard within mine it quakes up my arm.
“We don’t know. Blain was on the phone with her when she was attacked from behind by a male. He pinned her with his knee in her spine, pulled her head back, and slammed her face into the ground!” Logan snarls.
I can feel everyone in the room, even if I can’t see or scent them and what I feel is, family. I feel my family here, and it makes this ordeal okay in a way, because now I know, I am not alone, even if I feel it most of the time.
Cass is still crying though, and I hear Banner snarl while someone paces up and down somewhere in the background.
“Lync, chill out, man. She’s gonna be okay.”
“Kill.”
I laugh when that raspy growl r
eaches my ears and moan when my neck pulls, the bruising there making me struggle to swallow. I should not in any way be laughing though because I have chipped front teeth, that is where there are front teeth, and I can’t imagine the way I must look.
Blain doesn’t seem to give a shit though when he leans down to place a soft kiss on my lips.
“I am so angry, malina.”
“It’s okay, Blay. You’ll get them,” I whisper, closing the hand Bear finally drops around the one that is holding onto me for dear life.
Blain shudders, his body shaking the bed before someone comes forward and touches my brow. Mika. Yeah, I think it’s Mika. God, I wish I could see or smell. It feels like I’ve been stripped and left floundering in the wind without the senses I rely on so much.
“She’s gonna need blood. I think Bear can—”
“I’ll blood my female. Please step outside while I look after her, and I'll call you back when we’re done.”
I hear the growl in his voice and listen as everyone files out of the room before his hand strokes over my cheek again, the calloused tips sending pain through me even from that small touch. I’d die before I mention it though because despite the pain it also feels so good I would gladly grit my teeth to get more.
“You don’t have to…I know blooding isn’t what you…Lync or Bear could…?” I stammer, moaning when I try to lick my lips and I can’t.
Speaking isn’t easy since my lips are so swollen I feel like I’ve shoved them full of that stuff humans used to achieve a trout pout.
“I will care for you as a male should care for his female, Julia. Never doubt that, malina. Now hush, baby. I can’t blood you traditionally, so I’ll have to use one of the tubes for now, okay? Just relax and don’t overtax yourself.”
I do as he says, not because I want to, but because I don’t have any strength to jump up and tap dance in defiance. It strikes me that this isn’t ideal, not the way I wanted him to blood me at all, and as tradition goes, I feel short changed that I don’t get to taste his blood and watch his eyes as he fills me.
I also hate that he’s doing this because he has to, not because he wants to. As sweet as it is though, I am more than aware that it’s male, this posturing thing that all males have whereby it would shame him to see another blood me.
Greyriver Shifters Page 105
