I don't think so. I just really fucking hope she wants us close too.
Three
Riot
My throat feels like sandpaper and I can't open my eyes. The fire in the right side of my chest and shoulder is close to unbearable, but I swallow the groan. Just the simple bob of my throat feels like I'm ripping the skin off my face.
"What the fuck?" I croak, needing an outlet for all of my confusion.
"My thoughts exactly," a male voice replies.
Startled by the deep timber, I twist my head and force my eyelids to work, except my left eye stays dark. "What's wrong with my fucking eye?" The arm that doesn't feel like it got thrown into a meat grinder rises to feel my face. Instead of skin, I touch fabric.
"Right," the stranger mutters and clears his throat. "You have a gnarly cut through your left eye."
"What?" I bark as I whip my head around, trying to find him. When I see him for the first time, I'm taken aback. His long, dirty blond hair is pulled back in a low ponytail. His eyes have dark bags under them, and he's watching me with confusion and something else. Warmth?
With a sigh, he comes closer. His dominance shifts through the space between us, making his alpha nature obvious. "Youwere shot. The bullet went clean through your right shoulder. You got lucky, but lost a lot of blood. Of course there's damage to some nerves, so you'll need to do some physical therapy. It could have been a lot worse."
"And my eye?" I grit out, clenching my hands. My brain is working overtime trying to remember what the hell happened to land me in a hospital with a stranger looming over me. He's not a doctor. His jeans are dirty and torn; the black T-shirt he's wearing looks disgusting.Is that blood on his neck?
"Nicked by a knife through your eyelid and?—"
Alarm batters into me. Suddenly the pain numbs, and all that matters is where my omega is. Shoving myself into a seated position, I look around wildly. "Where's Vivian?! Is she here?!"
The man, whose name I still don't know, frowns at me. "You don't want to hear about the injury on your face?"
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I ignore him. All I care about is finding Vivian. "She's like five-foot-four, orangish-red hair down her back. Her nose is pointy and her cheekbones are high and always pink. There's a dark blue rim around the light blue of her eyes. She has these little pointy canines that I swear are always warning me to stop bothering her. You might not know her name because she's mostly mute, but it's Vivian."
"And how doyouknow her name?" the man asks, eyeing me as I struggle with the cords shoved in my arm.
"Damn it, how do these come out?!" I growl, trying like hell not to tear open a vein. "She drew it on my hand. Only spoke to me a few times. One was to tell me to shut the fuck up, which now that I'm thinking about it was awesome as fuck."
The man hums. "Were you talking her ear off? She hates when I do that while she's thinking."
"Yeah, she was scaring the shit out of me. I panicked even more when she wouldn't talk to me. I was—Wait. You know her?Where is she?" Leaping from the bed, I'm stopped only by his big hand on my good shoulder, nudging me back onto my ass.
"Vivian is sleeping in the room beside yours. She's going to be okay," he murmurs.
My heart beats wildly in my chest, and my feet wish to run to her side, but the wooziness in my head keeps me planted. That and the alpha holding me in place.
"The knife?—"
"Sliced through her side. She also got lucky, which I'm assuming had something to do with you using your face to block it. There are other ways to deflect a blow like that you know..."
"I took the shot meant for her milliseconds before I fell into the fucking blade also aimed at her, asshole," I growl, shaking his hold off. Last thing I need is someone questioning how I protected my omega.
"Jarek. My name is Jarek. And you're Riot, yes?"
Narrowing my half gaze at Jarek, I nod. "How'd you know that?"
"Well, aside from the fact that it's on your chart at the foot of your bed, and that I was the one keeping you from bleeding out and who gave the nurses your name, Vivie was screaming it until she passed out."
"Passed out..." I whisper, slowly digesting everything he's been telling me. "What's her recovery like then? You said she'll be okay."
Jarek studies me for a moment, then nods slowly. "She needed stitches and is now hooked up to some fluids, like you are. Thankfully it wasn't deep enough to be damaging long term, but she'll be uncomfortable for a while. You'll both be here for at least forty-eight hours and will need to talk to some officers. Time to heal, eat, and get you both hydrated."
Am I finally going to get my answer about how her mates treat her?"How do you know Vivian?" I inch back, not sure howmuch I trust this stranger. I might trust him even less if he is, in fact, her mate. Vivian has some questionable traits that make me wonder about the people who should be ensuring her safety and health.
