by Dakota West
“I’m really uncomfortable,” she said. “And I already got blood all over your table. I don’t want to make it worse.”
Daniel almost smiled, then stood, considering the problem.
Charlie put her hands under her shoulders and tried to push herself up, the muscles tensing, but she sucked air in between her teeth and collapsed back onto the table, a sheen of fresh sweat blossoming across her face.
“I can’t do anything,” she said, speaking between her teeth, frustrated. “Maybe if you could — I don’t know, grab my legs and sit me up?”
Daniel narrowed his eyes.
“Daniel?”
“Sorry,” he said. Sometimes I forget to talk, he thought.
No, say that out loud.
“Sometimes I forget to talk,” he said, out loud this time. “Try rolling onto your right side just a little, and I’ll slide my arms under you and just lift you off.”
“I’m pretty heavy,” she said, sounding worried, even as she looked at his arms.
Daniel grinned.
“Trust me,” he said, feeling confident for the first time all day.
Charlie took a deep breath, gritting her teeth again. Daniel felt that deep down twinge again, and the urge to smash something — the wolves who had messed her up, even the pain itself. He hated feeling so helpless.
Slowly, she managed to roll onto her side, slightly, exposing her entire body to him. Any other time Daniel would have been nearly knocked over, he knew. She was one of the most gorgeous, stunning women he’d ever seen, mind-blowing curves and all, and here she was, naked on his table.
The grimace of pain on her face was kind of a turn off, though.
Quickly, he slid his hands beneath her ribcage and her hips.
“Try to relax,” he said. “This is probably going to hurt.”
“Go ahead,” she gasped.
In one motion, he lifted her and stepped away from the table, hearing her grunt of pain through her teeth. Her legs fell as he stepped back and he lowered her, slowly, until she had both feet on the ground and he was just supporting her torso.
“Told you I was heavy,” she said. He could see the sweat beading down the back of her neck, and he fought to keep her steady without just lifting her again.
He snorted.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Trust me.”
Even with her feet on the ground, she was bent over, her back still flat, and she grabbed Daniel’s upper arm with one hand.
He swallowed. Warmth blossomed through him at her touch.
It’s nothing, he reminded himself. She’s just trying to stand.
Her other hand caught at his and he grabbed onto her tightly, moving to stand in front of her. Charlie’s eyes had gone unfocused, and he could see that she was fighting down sobs of pain, biting her lip as she did.
Gradually, she straightened up, pushing herself against his arms. She was strong, stronger than he’d thought at first. Sweat ran down her face, over her chest and between her breasts and her face went pale, but finally, she was standing.
Her hands were still in his, and she took a long, shuddering breath. Daniel glanced at her body quickly, fighting against the heat he felt rising inside him.
This is the wrong time, he thought. The wrongest possible time.
Charlie’s eyes opened, and finally they focused on him.
“Thanks,” she said, sounding slightly embarrassed.
“Of course,” he murmured.
He fought the urge to brush the sweat off of her face, or to move her hair out of her eyes, or to kiss her on the forehead.
“Could I have that quilt back?” she asked.
“Right. Yeah, of course,” Daniel said, looking at her hands still holding his, tightly. “You okay?”
Charlie took a deep breath and then released him, swaying a little and then standing on her own.
“I’m okay,” she said.
He draped the quilt around her shoulders. She had goosebumps, and Daniel remembered that it was starting to get cold — not only was he dressed while she wasn’t, but shifters tended to run hot.
“Hold on for a second,” he said, and left the room.
He went to their bedroom. Half was perfectly tidy — Kade’s military precision coming out — and the other half was his, socks and pants strewn across the floor.
Daniel stepped over two flannel shirts, a towel, and one shoe to get to the closet on his side, then yanked the door open.
After about a minute of rummaging, he found what he was after, the faded blue soft in his hands.
Really? He thought, rubbing the material with his fingers for a moment.
Then he thought of Charlie, her eyes with the gold fleck, and the deep stir she caused in him.
Really, he thought, then stood and shut the closet door.
Chapter Five
Charlie
As soon as Daniel stepped out of the room, Charlie wished he hadn’t left. He’d had a look in his eye like he’d suddenly remembered something marvelous, and then scampered off.
She swayed on her feet, just a little. She wanted to sit but didn’t quite trust herself to walk the few feet to the chair. Standing was hard enough, but walking required balance and core strength and at the moment, she didn’t have much of either.
So she stood in the middle of the room, a kitchen table behind her and the fireplace in front, shivering, wishing that Daniel would come back.
“Dinner!” Kade shouted from the kitchen.
“Okay!” Charlie said.
She looked down at herself, and tears rose to her eyes. She hadn’t felt this helpless or, well, naked for years.
At last Daniel came back, something blue and flannel in his hands, just as Kade came out of the kitchen, carrying a soup ladle like he might be about to stab someone with it.
She could feel his eyes on her body, just for a moment, and she turned her head away.
It didn’t matter how hot he was. He was a gruff weirdo, stern to the point of being mean.
Also, he’d killed two wolves. Charlie didn’t think for a moment that the wolves had killed two of their own.
It had taken the wildlife coroner — another new job that only existed in the shifter states — about thirty seconds to point out that the claw and bite marks were much too large to be anything but a grizzly bear.
Daniel didn’t say anything as he unfurled the fabric in his hands. It was a long flannel robe, so big that it fell to the floor and probably could have wrapped around her twice, and Charlie was no twig.
She inhaled sharply as the material brushed over her back, but then Daniel was there, his hand on hers, holding her upright.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
He didn’t say anything, but he straightened the neck of the robe, then tied it around her as best he could without the belt digging into her back. The flannel was warmer than Charlie expected, and she finally felt herself begin to relax.
I still wish they’d talk more, she thought. This is a little weird.
“Dinner,” Kade said again, his voice lower this time.
“What is it?” Charlie managed to ask.
“My mom’s rabbit stew,” Kade said. Then he turned his back to her and walked back into the kitchen, the line of his shoulders straight and hard.
Charlie closed her eyes.
Don’t cry, she told herself. No matter how much it fucking hurts and how mean you think he is, don’t you fucking cry.
“Will you help me?” she asked Daniel. “Walking is kind of hard right now.”
“Of course,” he said, and took her hand.
Then something crossed his face, and he looked over at the table.
“Sit down,” he said. “I’ll bring you stew. I think that’s easier?”
Charlie just nodded, totally exhausted from standing on her own for a few minutes. Daniel walked her to the table, still stained with her blood, and she sat down, practically hanging on his arm for support.
She didn’t even say a
nything about the blood. At that point, she felt utterly beyond caring if her own blood was on the table where she ate.
Hell, she was alive. What else even mattered?
Daniel caught her looking, and frowned for a moment.
“Hunter cleaned everything up pretty good while you were out,” he started.
“How long was I out?”
“A couple hours,” Daniel said. “It’s pretty late now. Almost midnight.”
Learning that only made Charlie even more tired.
“Oh,” was all she said.
“I’ll be right back,” Daniel told her, and left the room again.
Charlie managed to prop her elbows on the table, staring around the room while they were gone.
For the first time, she really took the place in.
Then she began to wonder where on earth she’d found herself.
At one end of the room, which seemed to be some sort of combination dining room and sitting room, was the big, stone fireplace. It was beautiful and well-made, at least as far as she could tell, but she wasn’t an expert on fireplaces. There was something homemade about it, though. It wasn’t exactly uniform, the stones a little unevenly spaced, the whole thing not exactly symmetrical.
As she looked around, Charlie realized that everything in the room was like that: the wooden table she’d been on was beautiful, but the edges flowed with the natural grain of the wood, rather than being perfectly straight.
The walls themselves had the same quality, giving the cabin the impression that it had grown, rather than been constructed. The furniture was mostly wood and had the same organic, flowing, beautiful quality to it.
Whoever made this is very, very good at it, she thought. Well, maybe not at fireplaces, but who cares.
Opposite the fireplace were huge bay windows, looking out onto a small clearing, though it was too dark to see anything outside. Still, Charlie stared.
There could be wolves, she thought. Don’t their eyes glow yellow?
Her skin crawled.
Just in time, Daniel and Kade emerged from the kitchen, Daniel carrying two bowls of stew, Kade carrying one and a handful of spoons.
“We even got silverware,” Daniel said proudly.
It was kind of an odd thing to say, but Charlie barely noticed by that point. The moment that the bowl was in front of her, she grabbed a spoon and started shoveling the stew into her mouth, one shaking hand gripping the spoon in her fist.
She knew she probably looked like an animal, but if anyone was going to be okay with that, it was these guys.
They, on the other hand, seemed to be making an effort to be polite in front of her. Kade in particular was spooning stew into his mouth very delicately, making an exaggerated face every time he opened his mouth, doing his best not to get the soup all over himself.
“It’s really good,” she said as her spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.
“Want more?” offered Daniel.
She did, but she shook her head.
“I better not.”
“Why?” asked Kade, bewilderment in his voice as he looked her up and down.
“I don’t want to get nauseous,” she said. “Remember?”
Kade just nodded.
Too tired to do anything else, Charlie leaned on her hands, her eyes beginning to slide closed almost instantly.
“Hey,” said Daniel. He touched her shoulder gently, and she came awake. “Not yet. Kade made you a bed in the back bedroom.”
Kade did? She wondered, flicking her glance over to the other man, who was still determinedly eating soup.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll help you there.”
He had to practically lift her out of her chair, and Charlie got the impression that it would have been easier for Daniel just to carry her, but she walked stubbornly, putting one foot in front of the other over and over again until, at last, she was in front of an army cot with blankets and pillows on it.
Daniel pulled the blankets over her, then went to the kitchen and returned with a straw in a glass of water and two bottles of pills.
“Come on,” he said. “Drink up.”
Charlie hesitated for a moment, then opened her fist and tossed the pills into her mouth.
If they were trying to kill me, they’d never have saved me, she reminded herself.
The moment the pills hit her stomach, she felt herself being pulled under, like she was slowly sinking into a sea of drowsiness and blankets.
“Daniel,” she murmured, her eyes already closed. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”
She felt fingertips trace across her forehead, sweaty hair moving out of her face.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
Charlie tried to concentrate. Somehow, this had become vitally important, all of a sudden.
It’s the drugs, the last rational part of her brain whispered, but she ignored it.
“Kade,” she sighed, sleep finally dragging her down. “He doesn’t... have a...”
The last word, mate, died on her lips as she fell asleep, Daniel leaning down toward her.
Charlie slept for three days.
The only thing she was aware of was Daniel, waking her up morning and night to gently feed her more pills, give her food and water — always the rabbit stew, always water with a straw — or help her stand up so she could go to the bathroom. Sometimes Kade was there, in the background, standing around with his arms crossed, and sometimes he wasn’t there.
She knew that some of the pills were sedatives and some were painkillers, and between the two of them, the waking world seemed fuzzy and strange, more like an underwater dream than reality. Sometimes she woke up, something urgent on her mind, only for whatever it was to sink immediately back below the surface and leave her there, blinking sleepily, grasping for words and thoughts that just wouldn’t come.
There was something important, she could tell. Something that she’d left back in the woods, something about people coming for her, but in her dreams everyone eventually turned into a wolf and then chased her until she started wake.
Every so often, she’d float to the surface of whatever dream she was having, and she’d over hear the two of them talking, though more often than not, there was no talking at all.
“Is that the bathrobe?” she heard once. She thought it was Kade’s low, concise, clipped voice.
“Yeah,” said Daniel.
No response. Charlie slipped back under.
Another time, she floated upwards to hear Daniel’s voice, almost sounding worried.
“It’s been a day and a half.”
“Hunter said it was okay to keep her under a while.”
Silence. Then Kade spoke again.
“He said she was healing well. No infections.”
Hunter was here? She thought. He looked at my back and I didn’t wake up?
Then she was asleep again.
She woke up in broad daylight, the morning sun streaming through the windows of the back room that they’d made hers. The men were in the next room, but the woods were so perfectly quiet and still that Charlie could hear them.
“They’re going to come back for her,” Kade said. There was a click, the unmistakable sound of ammunition sliding into a gun. Charlie shivered, despite the pile of afghans and quilts on top of her.
If they wanted you dead you’d be dead, she managed to remind herself.
“Why her?” asked Daniel.
Silence. Charlie’s alarm began to fade and she started to fall back asleep.
“I think they don’t want humans interfering,” Kade said. “Hard to prove that a wolf attack was a shifter attack. Besides, think of how well they could have hidden the body. Out here, no one would ever find her.”
More silence.
Then, Daniel spoke.
“Does this mean Olivia’s gone, then?”
Kade sighed. Charlie fought sleep, but it took her over and moments later, she was dreaming.
The last time she woke u
p, she was on her stomach on the cot, a comforter underneath her, Daniel kneeling next to her. He’d gotten her bathrobe down to her waist, and he was pulling at her bandages. The pain roared dully through her, followed by intense itching.
“Daniel?” she whispered.
He smiled, looking down at her.
“There you are,” he said.
She blinked a couple of times, testing her awakeness level. The last thing she needed was for Daniel to turn into a wolf, too, chasing her through the house. She was starting to feel like she was in an awful, hallucinogenic fairy tale.
“I need my backpack,” she said, suddenly.
That was what she’d been trying to remember, she realized.
“I need to tell my team that I’m okay. They’re looking for me. They’re probably out there now, combing the woods with helicopters and drones and stuff. They’ve probably found your house.”
“Shhh,” Daniel said. He tore one more bandage off, and it hurt then itched, just like all the others.
Charlie thought she heard a hint of sadness, or remorse, or something in his voice.
“I don’t want them to find you,” she said. “They don’t know about you. They think it’s just Kade, alone.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t exactly look surprised. He looked more like he didn’t know how to explain something to her.
“What do they think about Kade?” he asked, softly.
He reached into a big case and pulled out latex gloves. They barely stretched over his huge, calloused hands, and he squeezed a paste onto his fingers and began rubbing it into her back.
Don’t tell him, Charlie thought. No matter what, you can’t tell them that you know about Kade.
She felt hazy, but less hazy than she had in a while.
“Did you give me less drugs?” she asked, changing the subject. She didn’t think Daniel would notice.
“Hunter came by again, said to only give you half the sedative and see how you were.”
Charlie thought about it a moment. She still hurt, but she hurt less. She felt sluggish and stupid from all the sleep, and more than almost anything, she really wanted to shower.
