by Dawn Kirby
“I can’t hear a thing besides us.”
He nodded his thanks and turned to Declan. “Get this lovely lady home, Declan. I am sure all will be fine here.”
Raine lifted me off the couch and carried me outside. A brown Navigator was already waiting in the driveway. Kale tossed Declan the keys before he took me from Raine’s arms. Once the seat was laid back, they carefully eased me inside. I covered my eyes the instant the light from the headlamp shined in them.
“What’s wrong?” Raine asked alarmed.
“My eyes,” I answered.
“Cut out the light,” Raine hollered at Declan. “Leah’s eyes can’t take it.”
Kale crawled in and gently lifted my legs onto the seat. Raine gingerly laid my head in his lap. His body shaking though I had a feeling his was from anger. I looked up into his beautiful face and smiled.
“Next time you decide to sacrifice yourself,” Kale choked. The pain in his voice said it all. “Just don’t, okay?”
“If I had tried to get to the car, you would have all been caught,” I said weakly. “I’m safe now and I want to go home.”
Now that I was with people I knew I could trust, I let myself go. All my pain and frustration melted into relief and appreciation. David said Raine would come back for me and he had. He came in the most revealing way possible. For me, he’d exposed his true nature for the entire world to see.
“You were great,” I said quietly to Raine. “The grizzly was a nice touch.”
“I did it for you,” he whispered.
His fingertips gently stroked the side of my face. Whenever he came across a cut or bruise, his touch was barely noticeable and his jaw clenched. Had I been able to distinguish the haze surrounding him, I’m positive it would have been jet black.
Kale dug around in the back until he found a blanket to cover me up with and then got in. Raine draped it over my body as Declan pulled away. Finally, we headed back home. Kale called ahead to let May know we were on our way back and I needed help. After a barrage of questions from both her and Drew, he hung up. Nobody else spoke after that. There really wasn’t anything to say.
Both May and Drew were waiting in the driveway when we got home. Kale jumped out of the car before it was in park to help Raine. Together they worked as gently and as quickly as possible to get me out of the back seat. Declan hurried around and shielded my eyes from the floodlight a motion sensor had tripped when we arrived. The headlamp in the Navigator was nothing compared to the light that thing put out.
Raine and Kale did their best to handle me gently; but even the few clothes I had left were beginning to hurt. I squeezed the blanket tightly just so I could take the pain out on something. The slow, shallow breaths that had been my norm for the last several hours weren’t easing it at all now.
“Where do you want her?” Kale asked Drew.
“I’m taking her to my room,” Raine said decisively. “You can work on her there.”
Nobody argued with him. Drew took my hand and squeezed. She was so mad; I could feel the heat in her hand. Never before has her citric scent been so strong.
“I hope you got in few licks in too,” she said angrily.
“Don’t worry, she did,” Kale told her. “She took out Michael. Course, he got her back.”
“What do you mean?” May whispered.
“The stick she used on him ended up in her,” he clarified.
Declan moved his hands from my eyes when I hid my face in Raine’s chest. He had me cradled in his arms, repeatedly kissing the top of my head. I let his steady heartbeat lull me into a painless trance. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. The second he started up the stairs pain ripped through my body again. Every movement felt like a thousand knives cutting through me. He felt me tense up and sprinted to his room.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, when he laid me down on the bed. “How is your arm?”
“It’s healed. Changing always heals me,” he said in a whisper.
“Why didn’t you do it before then?” I asked curiously.
“I wasn’t worried about it,” he answered. He cupped my cheek in his hand and kissed my forehead. “I am so sorry, Leah. I should have fought Declan harder.”
“It’s alright, Raine. You came back for me.”
“Always,” he smiled and kissed me gently on the lips.
Drew came in with a cold wet rag in her hand and laid it across my eyes. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world.
Thank goodness for Drew.
“Alright, big guy, as much as I don’t want to see what’s under that blanket, I need too.” The light clicked on and the blanket came off. A collective gasp traveled through the room. Apparently, I had a big audience. “You better get rid of her shirt,” Drew said flatly.
She wasn’t my friend now she was my doctor. Whatever anger she felt was pushed away so she could help me. What was left of my shirt was torn away. I barely felt her soft hands as she ran them over each rib individually. Her examination revealed all but two were broken.
“I’ll go get the pain pills,” May’s cracking voice said quietly. “Poor thing’s gonna need them for awhile.”
“How are you still conscious, little sister?” Kale asked. “You look like you’ve gone twelve rounds in the wrong weight division.”
“At least I still have most of my hair,” I teased weakly, referring to his Mohawk.
“Hey! After the stitches, I was halfway there. Might as well go all the way, right?” he joked. I couldn’t see his face, but the minty smell in the air told me he was grinning. “I thought it made me look rather dashing.”
May came back and placed two pills in my mouth. Raine helped me sit up for a drink to wash them down and then eased me back. The minute my head was on the pillow, Drew went to work.
“Okay, sweetie, tell me exactly where it hurts and you can sleep while I fix it.”
“Eyes, face, head, chest, ribs, both legs, stomach and back,” I said quickly. Sleep sounded so good, I wanted to get there fast. “Just start at the top and work your way down.”
She giggled and patted my hand. “Point taken. You can go to sleep now.”
I was impressed how commanding her voice sounded when she was in work mode. She had everybody doing something. May was sent after clean clothes. Kale was in the bathroom running a tub of hot water. Declan had been sent to every bathroom in the house for all the first aid supplies he could find. She allowed Raine to stay beside me and help her look me over as long as he promised not to get in her way.
“We’ll have to set her leg, but it’s gonna hurt,” Drew whispered as softly as she could. “Let’s wait until she’s asleep.”
Chapter Twenty
My world was perfect when I woke up. I lay comfortably in a big fluffy bed, surrounded by soft, silk sheets. I was clean and safe. Raine sat in his corner no doubt working on another beautiful home. The sun was shining. Everything was as it should be. Then, I moved.
A shiver of pain swept through my body. My perfect world came to a halt. I felt the bandages wrapped tightly around my ribs. There was a splint holding the lower half of my right leg in place. My head started to pound when I tried to lift it off the pillow.
“Don’t you move, Leah,” Raine ordered. “Drew wants you to stay still a little longer. She’s guessing the reason your body didn’t heal the way it usually does is because you’ve experienced a lot of trauma. Both mentally and physically.”
“A lot of good I’ll be laying here.” My voice was so raspy it sounded like I hadn’t spoken in days. “What if something happens?”
He put his pencil down and came to lie down on the bed beside me. I rolled my head over so I could see his face. There was a happy blue light shining in his eyes. I loved seeing the dark blue glow around him again.
“What day is it?” I asked. The only other time my eyes had been hurt, it had taken two or three days for them to heal. Surely he hadn’t let me sleep that long. Everything still hurt as bad as it had before I went to sl
eep. Well, everything except my eyes. They felt fine.
“It’s Thursday afternoon,” he said. He put his hand gently on my shoulder to keep me still. “And for now, everything is fine. Dane will be out of commission for awhile.”
“What do you mean?” The last time I saw him; he and Mark were trying to kill each other.
“Dane was found Tuesday afternoon at his house with a bullet in his brain,” he said. His fingers eased through the hair lying on my shoulder. “He’s not dead. The damn bullet can’t be removed without killing him. Right now he’s in a coma on life support.”
“Did Mark do it?” I croaked.
Raine tensed up the second Mark’s name crossed my lips. They may be brothers, but I knew first hand that they were nothing alike. It would be a long time before Raine would be able to hear his name without wanting to kill him.
“He swears up and down it wasn’t,” he said stiffly.
“So who do they think did it?”
“Declan thinks Raif had something to do with it. He has been in the double-crossing mood lately. The police think it was just a burglary gone bad.”
“What does Donovan’s friend say?” I had to search my pounding head for the name. “Detective Turner, right?”
“He agrees with the police. Since the house was ransacked and there were a few valuables missing, it’s logical. They have yet to explain the injuries on his chest.”
I saw a glint of satisfaction flash through his eyes at that. Frankly, I couldn’t blame him. If Mark really was sincere in his loyalty to Dane, he might still come after Raine to avenge his father. In a way Mark scared me more the Dane did. At least he knew how to control his anger. Mark couldn’t and wouldn’t.
“Will Mark come after you now?” I asked him.
“Kale isn’t gonna give him the chance.”
Pride twinkled in his gorgeous eyes as brightly as the stars in the night sky. The stormy scent I loved to smell so much permeated the room. Whatever Kale had come up with made his little brother very proud.
“How is he gonna do that?” I asked, smiling at the look in his eyes.
“He’s challenged Mark for control of the pack. Since Dane can’t fight, as his only known son, Mark assumes control. The only way to stop him is to challenge him.” My smile vanished. A challenge was the last thing I expected. “Of course, everything will have to come out. Who we are and what I am.”
He looked into my eyes. Doubt in himself replaced the pride he’d felt in Kale. I knew revealing what he was to the pack worried him.
“Does it bother you for people to know?”
“Not really. It would be a relief not to have to hide what I am anymore. Once the pack finds out that Dane isn’t a werewolf, they’ll want to know why we didn’t come clean sooner.”
I squeezed his hand tightly. I felt a tug and let go. A small line of tiny stitches ran from the middle of my palm down to my wrist. He traced the row of stitches with his fingertips.
“Donovan said a rope cut into your hand.”
“It was silver,” I said absentmindedly.
“Why would anyone want to hurt you?” he whispered to himself.
“Judith did it because she hated David. When she set fire to Mom’s casket, she was ecstatic.” Tears started to fall. “Since she disobeyed Michael and hurt me, he personally staked her.”
His eyes opened wide. “Judith is dead?”
“He killed her before the sun came up that day,” I told him. “Just before David died, he said you’d come back for me. Since Dane had been left in charge of me, he didn’t use your name. Of course he wanted to know who David was talking about. When I wouldn’t tell him, it set him off. After that he tried everything to get me to tell him where y’all were, but I didn’t let him break me.”
“What kind of man can do something like this?”
“You already know that, Raine. Only hate and a mean spirit could do all this,” I said, looking down at my body. “It’s funny. Michael? The one who scared me the most? He never laid one hand on me in anger.”
A horrible, sharp pain caught me by surprise. It radiated from one side of my body to the other. My ribs felt like they were pushing out at the bindings that were holding them in place. I held my breath until it finally passed. By that time, tears of pain were streaming down my face.
“I’m getting you some more pain pills,” he said flatly.
“I’ll be fine, really.”
The truth was it hurt like hell, but I didn’t want to lose any more time. Two days had already passed without me ever being awake to see them. Since my experience at Michael’s, I wanted to be present for every single day I could get.
“Don’t argue, you’re taking them,” he said firmly. “If it takes you sleeping for a month to get better, you’ll do it.”
He gave me a “that’s final” look and left the room. I really wasn’t in any shape to fight with him anyway. It was exhausting just to talk for as long as we had.
Raine came back upstairs with a glass of water in his hand. May trailed in behind him, a transparent light pink haze surrounding her. That shade was another new one for me. I still hadn’t had time to figure out the purple one I’d seen around Kale. Now there was a new one.
“Don’t say a word. I just came up here to help Raine and make sure you’re okay,” she said quickly. She wore a painfully sad smile on her soft face.
I did what she said and let Raine help me sit up. May handed me the two pills and then the glass of water Raine had left on the nightstand.
“Honey, I want to tell you how grateful I am to you,” She said her voice cracking slightly. “You did the most unselfish thing you could have done to protect my boys.”
“If I had tried to run-” I started, but she put her hand up to stop me.
“Declan told me you sensed her. He also told me that you never once thought of yourself. All you cared about was keeping them safe.”
“Raine was bleeding again and Kale was unconscious. I couldn’t let anything else happen to them. Anybody else would have done the same thing.”
“No dear, they wouldn’t.”
She took my hand in hers. Her thumb ran across several tiny bruises. I could only imagine what had gone through her mind that night. She loves them unconditionally and had already protected them from so much.
“Granny, she protected us the whole time,” he said gently. “Dane and Mark beat the hell out of her because she wouldn’t give us up.”
“I’d do it again if it meant keeping everyone safe,” I said. “I couldn’t help Mom or David, but I’ll be damned if I lose anyone else I love.”
May leaned forward and locked her sad eyes on mine. “When you came home I was so relieved to see that you were alive, I didn’t even notice your jeans were gone and your shirt was ripped. When Raine had to tear it off, I thought it was because of your ribs.” Her soft voice began to strain. “I never thought-”
“Granny, it’s okay,” he said, trying to reassure her.
“I smelled him, Raine. I saw the bite marks!”
“What bite marks?” I asked, beginning to panic.
“They’re all over your neck and chest,” she croaked. “That man took you. He forced himself on you, didn’t he?”
“I’ll admit he tried, but I fought him off as hard as I could. He only bit me because I made his lip bleed. I brought that on myself.”
Raine was on his feet in a second. His eyes went stone gray and his scent was stronger than I’ve ever smelled it before. I couldn’t believe how fast his color changed.
“You defended yourself,” he said furiously. “He never should have been on you!”
“Dane called him off, May. Nothing more happened,” I said firmly. I wanted there to be no doubt in her mind. “I would have died first.”
She kissed my forehead and left the room without saying another word. Raine shook his head and lay back down beside me. He didn’t speak again until he had completely calmed down.
“I’m sorry she as
ked you, Leah. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. She’s barely spoke since you came home.”
“It’s okay. I’m just glad I could tell her what she needed to hear.”
He rolled over on his side and looked at me. “I guess, if it happened again, she was ready to take it all on her shoulders.”
“If what happened again?”
“Biologically, May isn’t my grandmother,” he confessed. Admitting this was painful; I could see the strain in his face. “My mom-Dane’s first wife- was gonna marry her son, Mason. That was the plan anyway until Dane showed up.”
“Why didn’t they get married?” I asked. “I’m sure he was a much better man than Dane ever could be.”
“Dane wanted her so he took her,” he said, disgust in his face. “What better way to get close to the leader than to marry his only daughter?”
“So, Dane told her dad he wanted to marry her and he made her?”
“No, Leah. Dane raped her.”
“That didn’t mean she had to marry him,” I said stunned. “The police should have done something.”
He took a deep breath. “You don’t understand. The pack leader handles everything, including things like that. My grandfather loved Dane. Thought he was strong. The way he saw it, both Dane and Mason had a claim to her. They’d both been with her. It didn’t matter to him that Dane had forced it on her.”
“Didn’t he care what she wanted? Sex, forced or not, doesn’t give a man a claim on any woman.”
“He made them agree to fight for her. Whoever won the fight, won her. As far as everyone knew, Dane was a werewolf –one of them. Before the fight could take place, Mason was shot in the head leaving work. Dane was declared the winner by default, and Mom was forced to marry him. Seven months later Kale was born.”
“But he raped her.” How on earth can an act like that be acceptable to any father?
“He didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, Dane was a go-getter. The fact that he took my mom, forced or not, proved it to him. That one action showed strength and determination.”
