by Anne Marsh
“I think you’ve been shot,” I tell him. Fuck. That sounds stupid, right? But I’m not a nurse or a doctor. I take a step toward him because it’s not so far-fetched, is it? We were shot at—and bullets hit their targets sometimes.
He gives me another long look. “I’ve had worse. No big deal.”
“Sit down before you fall down.” I push him back onto the bed. He lets me steer him, which is my first clue that something’s definitely not right. He falls back with a muttered curse. His gaze is a little bright, his face a little pale. I ease his jacket down his arm.
Oh. My. God. I’m giving him shit and he’s bleeding out.
“I’ll call 9-1-1.”
“I’ll be fine.” He wraps a big hand around my wrist.
I frown, not sure what to say to that piece of idiocy. Blade clearly is one of those guys who walks around with a leg hanging on by a thread while swearing it’s just a flesh wound and nothing a Band-Aid can’t fix.
“You need a doctor. Help.” Because honestly? I don’t know what to do, so I’m definitely not the woman for this repair job.
Something flickers in his eyes. “I heal real fast. It’s a wolf thing.”
“Wolf or not, you’re still not Superman.” I try inching his shirt up, looking for other injuries. When I have his shirt almost to his shoulders, I realize I have another problem. There’s no way I get it over his head without hurting him.
“No doctor. No call.” The tone of his voice warns me not to push—or to at least wait until he passes out before making the call.
Okay. So we’ll have to compromise. “Give me a knife.”
Of course he has to be stubborn. Instead of a blade, he gives me that half-smile that never fails to make my panties wet. “You’ll cut your fingers off, chère.”
He rolls up, the muscles in his stomach rippling. And then he peels the shirt over his head. Other than the faint hiss of breath through his teeth, he acts as if he’s one hundred percent right. That there’s nothing wrong.
His shoulder looks like raw hamburger, red and bloody. There is everything wrong with it. I bolt off the bed, fully intending to grab my phone and get help. Screw his He-Man, I’ve-got-this tendencies. He can ask for and accept help like everyone else in this world. It won’t kill him—but sticking this out on his own just might.
His hand shoots out and closes around my wrist. Not hard enough to hurt, but just firm enough that I know the no phone calls rule is still in effect. Damn him. That has to hurt—and watching him hurt does something to me. I want to cry for him. Wrap my arms around him. Clean him up and kiss it all better. Instead, I just stand there. My feet don’t care that I should be moving. Not so long as he’s reaching out to me, asking me to do this for him. To let him handle this his way.
He twists his head, looking down at the hole in his shoulder. “Did the bullet go through?”
I’ve got this. “How do I tell?”
He gives me a tight smile. “You look on the other side. If you see a hole, we’re good. If not—”
“Then what?”
“We make one,” he says a little too grimly.
“I’m not a surgeon.” Why can’t he pass out now so I can call someone who knows what she’s doing?
The look he gives me is assessing. “You’ve got this.”
No. No I don’t.
“Towels,” he says decisively. “I’ve got antiseptic spray in the bathroom, and a boatload of Band-Aids.”
He’s crazy. I mean, I kind of already knew that, but this just confirms it. He swings his legs over the side of the bed.
“You need to lie down.”
He shakes his head. “Gonna get stuff all messed up that way. Better if I’m on the floor.” He looks at me. “Sooner you get those towels, sooner we’re done here.”
He has a point. I can do this one last thing for him—and then that’s it. No more. The end. Game over.
I go. While I’m rummaging around in the bathroom, yanking out a stack of clean towels, I hear the bed creak, followed by a muffled thud. Blade curses, and then there’s silence. I let the water run hot while I soap and soap my hands and arms. Sterile has to be good, right? Then I raid his cabinets. Hydrogen peroxide, gauze, tweezers. I’m seriously undersupplied for performing surgery, but looks like we’re making do. When I finally step back out, as clean as I’m getting, he’s waiting for me. He’s got his back on the floor, his long legs stretched out in front of him as if he’s just working on his suntan or lounging in bed. He laces his hands over his stomach.
“Come on,” he says softly. “We’ve got this.”
We.
I just want him to be better. To be safe. Getting shot, biker wars, all that mindless violence? That’s not how I want to live my life, but right now I just want to be here with him. To be the person he trusts.
He extends the knife to me. It’s no crappy steak knife—more like a big-ass hunting knife. The blade has to be a good six inches long. Is it the same one he used on the biker? It’s clean, but how many knives can one man—wolf—carry?
“Careful. Edge is sharp.” His fingers brush over mine as he presses the handle into my palm. Okay. I’ve got this. God, I love the way he trusts me. No one else would hand me a knife, knowing I was about to use it on him.
“Okay,” I say softly. Not sure if I’m talking about the knife or what’s about to happen. He lifts up so I can tuck my stack of towels beneath his head and shoulders. I swab around the wound with hydrogen peroxide
The next few minutes suck. I verify that there’s no fortuitous exit hole on the back of his shoulder and then we start. He guides my hand, but I’m the one who eases the blade into the entry wound. He grunts and then eases the skin apart. I wipe away the blood and the bullet’s right there, so I drop the knife on a clean towel and go for the tweezers. A few long seconds later and it’s out. I spray him down with antiseptic and patch him up the best I can with some gauze pads.
He lies there, watching me. His color looks better, and I’d swear the bullet hole looked worse a few minutes ago, but maybe that’s wishful thinking. Right now, I’d kinda like to go after the guy who shot him. Poke a few holes in him and see how he likes it.
When I sit back, he gives me that small half-smile. “No more Florence Nightingale?”
“Still think you should see a real doctor,” I tell him. “That’s a bullet wound, not a scraped knee. You could get an infection or something.”
He shakes his head and sits up, resting his arms on his knees. His fingers graze my shoulders, but I don’t pull away. “Told you I heal fast. This isn’t gonna bother me for long.”
“Mind over matter?” As jokes go, my attempt is downright feeble.
He shakes his head slowly, as if he’s taking the time to think shit over. Honestly, the whole day feels surreal now. Bikers shifting into werewolves followed by a shoot-out with a chaser amateur surgery? Good times right there.
“How about you kiss it better?”
Blade
Leah would make one hell of an old lady—and a wolf.
Too fucking bad all those conversion myths are just that—myths. I can bite her all I want, but she won’t grow fur and a tail. Might bite me back though—I have to suppress a grin at that one. She’s cute when she’s riled, but she also means business. I shouldn’t have let her patch me up, but having her hands on me feels so fucking good that I didn’t even try to resist. Even her poking around my shoulder, first with the blade and then her goddamned tweezers, couldn’t completely deflate my dick. Stupid fucker just knew it was inches from her and bam. Instant hard-on.
I’m certain, however, that what went down today was the opposite of a turn on for Leah, seeing as how violence is on her no-fly list. The good news is that I could shift and heal the bullet wound in my shoulder. Wolves mend quickly, although that’s only one reason I didn’t want her calling for an EMT. Cops are also out. Wolves live on the down low. The human world doesn’t know we’re here. Keeping our secret is paramount—coming out
would be complicated. But Leah’s freaked out enough. If I shift now, I’ll just scare her more—and remind her of all the reasons she has to hate my world.
“Blade?” Leah’s hand strokes over my good shoulder, but she doesn’t answer my question. Guess she’s not in the mood to pony up kisses, and I can’t blame her. I put her in danger today. Despite the fact that I was able to stop this bullet from hurting her, I might not be so lucky another day, and putting her at risk is unacceptable.
But so is walking away. Nobody else makes me feel this way, as if I matter. As if I’m special for her. Maybe she’s not ready for more, maybe she never will be—but fuck if I’ll give up these moments with her. So I sit there, not shifting, not healing, just drinking her in. Feels like fucking heaven and hell, pleasure and pain rolled into one. I might never get another chance with her either. She was already planning on leaving when T.D.’s boys opened fire, and I’ll bet those bullets just sped her timeline up.
“You sure you’re okay?” she says softly.
“I’m fine.” Oui, I growl at her. I’m not the nicest person in the fucking world and my shoulder hurts. “How are you?”
Just because she’s not bleeding doesn’t mean she’s not hurt. I still can’t believe those fuckers opened fire on us. Takes a death wish to ride on the Breed MC, and Jace has to be making plans for retaliation. Bothers me some that I’m here when I should have my Alpha’s back, but here is where Leah is and that makes all the difference.
She smiles, but it’s not a happy smile. “Today seems surreal.”
“You don’t get hurt again.” Her breath hitches and I can almost hear the question forming—and the moment when she decides she doesn’t want to know the answer after all. Smart girl. The Breed doesn’t leave its enemies alive, and that wolf shot at Leah. Sealed his own fucking death warrant right there. I run a hand down her hair. Fucking softest stuff ever.
“This isn’t a good idea,” she whispers.
Once again, I know what she means. Doesn’t mean I like it, hearing her shut me down. I want inside her, and not just her pussy. Her hair tickles my nose when I inhale. Smells like strawberries and something sweet and fruity. I wrap a lock around my finger and tug her closer.
“We shouldn’t,” she whispers.
“Not wrong,” I agree, but I keep pulling her closer, winding that rebellious, beautiful, too pretty hair around my fingers. The need for her lights up my body. It starts with my dick, an ache that makes me want to be deep inside her, but then it spreads. Pretty sure she’s not gonna leave any inch of me untouched, and that’s scary as fuck. So I pull her closer instead of thinking, until her cheek rests against my mouth, and then I kiss her.
“I can’t do this,” she says. “I can’t live with you knifing someone in cold blood or the whole ‘hail of bullets’ thing.”
“Those bullets have to go through me,” I promise her and kiss her neck. Her pulse bangs against her skin, like her body’s just a prison for all that fear and it’s about to break free any moment now. I should stay the fuck away from her, should let her go. Keeping his lady safe was always a knight’s responsibility, but he was also bound by his vows to not put her in harm’s way in the first place. I can rescue Leah over and over, but she shouldn’t be in danger. Ever. Her man should be a doctor or a lawyer or a CEO. Someone with the money and the power to make sure shit goes smoothly for her. I solve my problems with my fists and my blades, and that’s never bothered me before.
Leah needs a different kind of man. Someone who’s not me.
But I don’t let her go. I don’t know how.
“I can’t,” she says and her voice sounds all wet. As if she’s trying and failing to hold back tears. Whatever’s broken here, I can’t fix it. She takes a stumbling step toward the door. “I’m going.”
“Stay.” I put everything I am, everything I feel for Leah into that one word. It’s not enough. I know that even before she starts walking away from me. One word can’t ever be enough, but fuck me if there are enough words in any dictionary to explain how she makes me feel. It’s the truth, though. I want her with me. I want all of her, body, soul, and heart.
She goddamn pauses. I’ll give her that. And then she sort of turns her head and gives me a once over. I don’t have the first fucking clue what she sees. Whatever it is, it’s not enough.
“Goodbye, Blade.”
She’s breaking up with me.
She’s walking out that door, out of my life, and this isn’t a fight I can win with my fists or even by being bigger, faster, quicker. We won’t have a later or more words or anything together. It’s my last chance to convince her to stay, and I stand there and watch her go. She’s already made up her mind. She’s already gone and I feel her absence before the door shuts behind her.
Leah
Without Blade, I feel… lost. Empty. I’m not nearly as happy as I’d thought I’d be once I was shed of his lying, shape-shifting ass. It’s not as if I’d planned to plunge into dating or open accounts on a dozen different hook up sites, but I’d somehow expected my life would head in a better direction. I’d flip on that turn signal and ease myself into a faster lane on the road of life, a lane that was going somewhere happier, safer, more right…
I was an idiot.
So instead of meditating on where I took that particular wrong turn, I’m standing outside a small, beat up ranch house in northern Louisiana because if I’m not moving ahead with the story of my life, I kind of want to revisit the beginning. After I left, my sister stayed. She’d pulled me out of the shed, done something to the dog, and then she’d patched me up the best she could. We hadn’t had health insurance or the money for a doctor—plus there would have been questions—so she’d gone to Walmart and come back with a plastic bag for some DIY repairs. And after she’d covered me with antibiotic creams and bandages, I’d hugged her, taken the cash she offered, and left.
She’d stayed. See the pattern there?
We’d exchanged a few brief emails over the years, but what could I really say? You still with the asshole? You still breathing? He still being a dick? I’d known without asking that the answers had been yes, yes, and yes. She either couldn’t change or didn’t know how to—and he was too much of a bastard to die. That left me in a bind because while I understood that she was broken, I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t fix her shit if she wasn’t willing to take that first step.
The house looks the same and yet different. It’s smaller, the paint more worn and the steps more defeated. But the front yard is tidy. Scraggly grass has replaced the graveyard of car parts. Some people like to plant plastic gnomes and flamingoes between the street and their front doors; Rick had specialized in unidentifiable, rusted out chunks of metal. Now, however, pink and white geraniums bloom in pots that line the walkway. Looking at them gets me from my rental car to the door. As I stab the doorbell with my finger, I mull the advantages of running back to the car, getting in and driving away.
And then Carys opens the door. Somehow, I lose the next handful of minutes. Her other half, the dick, is nowhere in sight, and we fall into each other’s arms, laughing, crying, cursing (okay, I curse and she cries, but we’ve always had our roles). Eventually, she drags me through the house and out into the backyard so we can catch up somewhere we can breathe. The house is too closed, too hot, too familiar, and I’m glad to be back outside.
It looks different. I’m older now, but Carys has definitely made some landscaping changes. The shed is gone and in its place is a bed of roses. They’re not the most romantic roses I’ve ever seen. Somebody should have pruned them months ago because they’re slightly weedy and the leaves are yellow in places, but they smell good and I like to think she made that one change deliberately. Beyond the roses is a small RV.
Carys follows my gaze and nods as if we’ve been having a conversation with words. “When Rick got sent away, I tore it down.”
Now I look at her. “He’s not here?”
It’s difficult not to be happy beca
use I know she cares for him. There’s no accounting for taste, and somehow he’s all twisted up in her heart.
“He got busted moving drugs for his MC,” she says quietly. “And since he had a trunkful of weapons, he got twenty years. Guess I picked a guy just like dad.”
Dead would be better, but gone works for me, too. As long as there are walls and guards and the promise of time, I feel better. “You still see him?”
She shakes her head. “Got a divorce after he got convicted.”
“That’s good.” I won’t have to pretend that I feel bad about his current accommodations. Not sure what to say next, I glance at the roses and then the RV. Maybe she’s taken up camping?
“Are you in town for long?” she asks. Carys knows me. Even when I was little, I couldn’t stay put for long. I always had to be on the move and I haven’t changed that much.
“I’ve got a houseboat,” I tell her. “And I’m here for as long as I need to be.”
She gives me a rueful smile. “Fixing me?”
“You want help?” I ask.
She opens her mouth, but I don’t have a chance to find out what her answer would be. Yes or no, it doesn’t matter because the RV’s door pops open and a small, yapping puppy tumbles out. I freeze instinctively, but the real threat isn’t the small ball of fur. It’s the man who saunters down the steps behind the dog. He’s built like a mountain, his hair pulled back in a rough ponytail and his shoulders stretching the patch-covered leather vest he wears. I take in the faded T-shirt, the blue jeans, the motorcycle boots. My sister has a new biker in her life. Pretty sure my mouth just hangs open.
He looks at Carys. “Thought I heard voices.”
This is the first time I’ve seen my sister in years. Here’s hoping she’s picked better this time because based on the packaging, this guy’s not an upgrade. Rick had barely patched into his club when I left. He was a small time player, the guy who ran errands and picked up shit for the others. This man is bad news. He glances my way briefly and then bends down to scoop up the puppy.
