Rightfully so. His Alpha had come barrelinginto his room like a bull in a china shop. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. Though I had a feeling, with Orsen, it was par for the course.
“I get it. He’s used to me healing him,” I said softly.
“He said there’s no one better,” she replied with a rueful smile.
I approached the door, placing my hand on the handle, only to halt abruptly when Ma grabbed my wrist.
“If what they’re sayingistrue, I am truly happy for you. And them.” She spoke with such honesty that it made my eyes burn.
Anyone thinking of our current situation as positive was rather jarring. It was like finding an unexpected tax bill enjoyable. Taxes and violence weren’t usually what people got excited about. Still, I couldn’t help but remember that this was about their lost mate.Of course, I could see why her coming back would be huge—and welcome.
Trouble was, I wasn’t her.
I had purposely avoided the west coast ever since I was attacked just in case I ran into my past. Naively I thought because I was always moving around I would be safe—but my past had clearly caught up to me.
My throat swelled uncomfortably, and I couldn’t answer. So, instead, I simply nodded at Ma before entering the room. I couldn’t cope with her kind smile for a moment longer.
“Rowan!” Griffin exclaimed the moment the door opened.
“Jesus Christ, Griffin,” I hissed as I took in his appearance. “Look at you.”
His left eye was completely swollen shut and badly bruised. The cut underneath was still oozing a little, and several other contusions littered his torso. He was sitting up in bed, the blanket draped over his waist, every dark mark across his shirtless torso on full display.
“It’s notthatbad.” He laughed, then stopped short with a groan. Breaking off into a hiss, he placed his hand on his abdomen, clearly in pain.
“Oh yeah, not that bad. Sure.” I shook my head, sighing.
Taking a few steps forward, I placed my medical bag on the bedside table and opened it, running my critical eye over his injuries as I snapped on some gloves and said, “Let me take a look at that wound.”
“It really isn’t that bad,” he insisted as I started dabbing at the cut beneath his eye with one of the gauze pads.
“Well, if I don’t do something, your eye is going to scar.”
“Ladies love scars,” he declared, shrugging one shoulder. “Do you have any idea how much attention they get me? I have you to thank for that.”
I snorted lightly. “Sure. Thanks for the scars and not for the wholesaving-your-lifething.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m plenty thankful for that too.”
We were quiet for a moment as I gently applied a serum to his cheek to help it close and prevent infection.
“Is what they’re saying about me true?” I asked softly after the silence stretched for too long. I knew it was a possibility, deep down, I really did. Only, part of mereallyrebelled against the idea.
I was probably in denial.
“I don’t know,” Griffin admitted. “I never met their mate. None of us did.”
“Isn’t that a bit suspicious?” I stilled, holding another gauze pad to his cut.
He shook his head. “They’d always go to this cabin in the Midwest for the summer months. It was a place where they could be rowdy teenagers together. Isolated and private. One year, we got the call to say they’d met Emmeline. They spent the next few weeks out there, and then they were going to bring her here—to her new home.”
I couldn’t keep my fingers from shaking. “That couldn’t have been me, Griff.”
“In any case, they woke up one morning, and Emmeline was just gone. None of them were the same after that. It was like the sun went out. They came back and led the horde, sure, but they weren’t reallyhereanymore.”
“What do you mean she was just gone? They don’t know what happened?”
Griffin shrugged, shaking his head.
