Page 49 of Knot Broken

“So I’ll just have to keep doing that then.”

He was moving closer, the warmth of his body registering wherever my skin was bare. All thought of sex was driven out of my head, because hey, talking life-or-death shit would do that to a girl, but it was now I started to see the upside to this whole situation. What if every morning he brought me breakfast? What if we let the food go cold as he pushed my robe off my shoulder, revealing a small square of bare skin? What if his thumb traced the shape of the part of me he’d claimed? I’d get all hot and feel that weird fluttery thing low in my pelvis and he’d lean down. The smile would fade as it was replaced by something far more intent, right before⁠—

“Tell me you haven’t eaten anything.” Grey emerged in a t-shirt and sweatpants, i.e. man lingerie, and I may have taken a second to enjoy the view. I mean, he was mine, right? Objectifying him was all part of the process of having a mate. “We need to be fasting for the blood tests this morning.”

“Shit!” I missed the heat of Tex’s touch as he pulled back and then looked over his shoulder. “Lucky I got distracted by my mate.” He winked at me. “Started thinking about something else I want to eat, and it’s not on that tray.”

“Blood tests.” I nodded as a wash of cold forced my head to clear. “Needles.”

My hands rubbed against the robe fabric, but the softness did little to settle me.

“It’s OK, Nadia,” Tex told me. “I’ll stay with you when they do yours.”

“Except you’ll be getting your own tests done,” Grey corrected, raking his hand through his hair. “I’ll… be trying really hard to stop my wolf from chewing the hands off anyone who dares hurt Nadia.”

That statement had me feeling conflicting things. No one had ever threatened to tear someone’s hand off for me, so I was kinda flattered. The reality though? I looked down, seeing the faint imprint his fangs had left on my wrist. That was a little scary.

Grey was a little scary.

“I better get dressed then,” I said, going to wheel my bag over to my room, when there was a knock at the door. Opening it, I expected to see Riley or Candy or maybe an orderly that worked here. Definitely not Ethan standing there, scratching the back of his neck.

“Hey, Nadia.” He smiled at the sight of me, then seemed to think better of it. “You got your bags OK?”

“Ah, yeah, thanks for picking them up.”

We both stared at each other for a second because I had no idea why he was here.

“So, they asked me to come in and do some tests.” He shook his head. “I was one of the guys that got you into this mess, so they need to work out how I factor into things.”

“Mess, right,” I said.

“So…” The skin around his eyes creased a little. “Are you OK? How are you feeling?”

People kept asking me that, but I was no closer to an answer, so instead I pulled back and ushered him inside.

“If we’re getting tests done, I better go and get ready.”

As I put on some clothes, brushed my hair and then pulled it up into a bun, Ethan’s words replayed over and over until I stepped out into the living room. All three of them turned around the moment I appeared.

“Let’s do this,” I said.

I’d focus on surviving the tests first and then maybe I’d find the time to try to process everything that was happening.

Chapter 24

Grey

There was no way I was going to get through this without shifting.

These strangers are not going to touch our mate, the wolf growled as we entered the testing centre. They are not going to lay hands on her, hurt her.

He didn’t really understand what needles were, but we’d had them before and he remembered pain.

If we care about Nadia at all, we are going to allow this to happen, I pushed back. If we don’t, she could get hurt during her first shift, or worse. With a blink, I remembered some of what Ethan went through and then brought those memories to the surface. The way a teenaged version of him writhed on the cool, grey floor of the lab. That cannot happen.

I could almost hear his huff inside my head. I’m not sure if that or the fact Nadia had given him a pat today made him more amendable, but we walked into the waiting room to be met by Riley and her team.

“Morning everyone. Today we’re going to send each one of you into separate rooms…”