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Sitting at the tinytable in the overcrowded motel room attempting to ignore everyone bickering around me, I stare at my newspaper without taking in any of the words, reading the same article for the fifth time. At the nearly imperceptible sound of Sabrina’s heart rate increasing, I immediately lower my paper, my hopeful gaze landing on the bed where Sabrina’s finally stirring. All hushed arguments cut off instantly, the others as highly strung and attuned to her every breath as I am. With as long as it was taking her to wake up, the past few days have only served to fuel the already volatile tension between us, Hunter and Boden coming to blows yet again this morning.
Rubbing at her face as Bo helps her sit up, she croaks, “Fuck, what time is it?”
“Eleven in the morning.” Her brow furrows, so I clarify, “On Wednesday.”
Her lips part, and several seconds pass by before any words follow. “But we left...”
Damian huffs, sitting on the sliver of available mattress beside her. “Around three a.m. Sunday, yeah. You clearly needed the sleep, though.” Gently, he eases her forward so that he can inspect the gash on the back of her head. The rigid tension leaves his stiff shoulders in a rush. “Looks like your wolf is stronger than we ever could have hoped for. Even mine’s barely active, but at the rate you’re healing, I’d wager that by the end of today you should be good as new.”
Bo rolls out of the opposite side of the bed, guarding her like a damn German Shepherd since we arrived, only taking breaks to fight with Hunter or Cinjin. “Some food should speed things along.”
“I’m wholeheartedly on board with that plan.” Stretching her stiff muscles, she runs a hand through her hair, grimacing as her fingers snag in the tangled, filthy mess. “Aftera shower.”
Folding my paper in half and setting it on the table, I cross the small room in four strides, extending a hand in offering. “Allow me.”
Something flashes across her eyes before I can get a read on it, but if the half-assed, breathy chuckle is anything to go by, I’m leaning towards it being nothing good. “Pretty sure I can at least handle a shower, but I’ll leave the door unlocked in case I lose my balance or something if it'd make you all feel better.”
Don’t picture it. Keep your reaction on lock down. We don’t want her misinterpreting things again because of my stupid mouth.
“I like taking care of you, and with everything that happened,” I trail off, not wanting to delve into those recent wounds.Fresh start, remember?“Now that Damian’s carrying the mantle, I’m not particularly sure what role I fill anymore, and it has me feeling rather restlessly lost. So, humor me?”
With a sad smile, she slides her hand into mine and lets me pull her to her feet. "Iamstarving, and my head's still a little sore, so maybe having a shower buddy isn't a bad idea. If I were to slip and take another blow to the head, you guys would never let me live it down."
Damian stretches out in her vacant spot on the bed, looking ten times better now that it’s clear Sabrina’s going to be okay. "You're not wrong, though Iamashamed that I didn't think of offering first, so I call dibs on your next sponge bath.”
As she shakes her head, I glance over my shoulder to ask Bo to find a place we can grab something to eat afterward, only to find him already scrolling on his new phone, beating me to the punch. Leading the way and closing the attached bathroom door behind us, I roll up my sleeves and begin filling the bathtub while she strips, keeping a subtle eye on her in my peripherals. Small mercies, I have no concern that I’d reach her in time; I’d simply need to stick my hand out with as small as this bathroom is.
Navigating around each other in the cramped space, I lift one of the two tiny bottles precariously balanced on the sink counter and squint. “Next stop, we’re getting an actual hotel. I’m not sure if this is shampoo, body wash, or a shot of cheap liquor.”
She tosses her clothes into the corner beside my feet with a laugh, this one a bit more genuine than before. “Shampooisbody wash when you don’t have anything else, and there’s no way a place like this is giving out free shots, trust me. A lack of conditioner is the real beast; makes brushing out my hair a serious challenge. At this point, though, I’m happy to get the dried blood and awful smoke smell out of it. Beggars can’t be choosers, and a hot bath is a luxury when we’re technically wolves on the lamb.”
After taking her hand to steady her as she steps into the dingy tub, I sit on the tiled floor beside her. “Youmustbe feeling better if you’re tossing out jokes before caffeine. Alas, keep wishing, because it’s looking like lukewarm is the hottest setting this place offers. But!” Triumphantly, I lift the other bottle in my hand. “Conditioner, we have.”
She leans back to wet her hair, and my stomach flips at the sight of the murky cloud spreading around her head like a dark halo. “Well, that settles it,” she teases, and I take her gradually improving demeanor as a win after she looked so... broken before she fell asleep. “The two counteract, so we’re firmly back in the lap of luxury.”
Shoving the depressing thoughts aside, I scoff, working the possibly-shampoo into a lather between my hands. “It pains me that you think of this as spoiling you. Here, sit up.”
She does, and I begin tackling her hair, already realizing that we don’t have nearly enough in this tiny bottle to get it totally clean, but I’m damn well going to figure out a way to make it work.
“Oh? I take it you already have the picture-perfect scenario planned out if I ever gave the all clear?” she challenges with a small smile.
Leaning in, I whisper in her ear, “Of course, love. You think I don’t lie awake at night picturing everything that I want to do to you? Every way that I want to make you so thoroughly mine before I even undress you, that you’ll never doubt the depths of my devotion?”
Her shiver is enough of a response to have me smirking, but it falls as I watch her expression shutter, and finally piece together what’s going on. Each time she shows a sliver of amusement, she backpedals as if she feels guilty for feeling any shred of happiness.That,I understand far too well. So as we simply sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes lost in our respective thoughts, I envision castrating Boden for putting that guilt in her head.
Reluctantly, I’ll admit that everything he said in his tirade was valid, but there were better ways he could have gone about that discussion and gotten his point across. If he’d waited until after she’d been able to process everything that happened, when she wasn’t clinging to the last wisp of herself that managed to survive all of the mental whiplash and horrors of that night, he wouldn’t have snuffed out the last remaining spark that makes Sabrina,Sabrina.
The only person she could ever trust was herself, and he shattered that confidence while yelling at her, unintentionally removing the one security she had left to fall back on; him. Now she doesn’t have any safe spaces left, since we’ve all failed her in some way just enough to prove her right. Relying on others will only result in them letting you down, leaving you worse off than if you’d never trusted them to help you to begin with.
I was worried about how much more pressure our empire could withstand without breaking, and I was right to be. But my desperation to be free kept me blind to the fact that if it fell, Sabrina would be crushed beneath its weight, blaming herself for the loss.
Working the last of the shampoo into a lather, I focus on the back of her head, giving the area my complete concentration. There’s a jagged line cutting across her skull several inches long, mostly scar tissue at this stage, but the surrounding area would be tender if she’s still feeling the effects of the blow. Naturally, it’s where the worst of the dried blood is matting her hair to her head, so it takes every bit of my focus not to hurt her while erasing the evidence of one of the most traumatic nights of our lives.
“Damian said his wolf was still mostly out of commission,” she says softly, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Is that the same for you? None of you guys were hurt too badly besides Reid and Hunter, right?”
Coaxing her to lie back so that I can rinse her hair, I eradicate that train of thought before she can spiral any further than she already is. “We’re all alright. You’re not the only one that burned through your reserves, though, love. It was a hard, exhausting night for all of us, but we’ve had years dealing with our other halves, and Damian, Kaige, Hunter, and I with our abilities. Not only that, but fighting is, well-” helping her sit up, I sigh- “it’s in our blood. We grew up learning the best ways to kill people, to revel in our strength and abilities. But our wolves being free is still relatively new, and we pushed ourselves farther than we ever have before. It’s natural that we’d need some time to recover, so don’t worry.”
