Page 26 of Love You To Pieces

With a jerk of my head, I look up at him, watching Deacon step closer. There’s an expression of curiosity on his face, mixed with something I can’t identify, and as I watch, he reaches out to run a hand through my hair. “You’re disgusting,” he tells me sweetly. “Absolutely fucking filthy. You could’ve had a shower by now. You could’ve slept and maybe even had something to eat. All you had to do was stay in bed like a good girl.”

I jerk away from him with a sneer on my face. “Don’t touch me,” I hiss. “Don’t—” But he kneels suddenly in front of me, no longer looking at my face. “What are you doing?”

“You really just can’t keep these clean, can you?” Deacon frowns and lifts one of my hands in his. The bandage is bloody and half torn off the rubbed-raw skin of my palm. “This is the last time I’m bandaging these for you, babe,” he informs me with a roll of his eyes. “Because it’s starting to feel like you’re ungrateful.”

Ungrateful?

“I will show you ungrateful, you fucking—” My words are cut off by a yelp when Deacon presses a finger against the worst of the cuts on my palm, his blue eyes finding mine and looking rather unamused with my half-finished threat.

“Oh, yeah,” he deadpans. “Yeah, I’m terrified. Petrified, even. You done?” When I don’t do anything else, Deacon takes my other hand in his as well and pulls the bandage off of it. As I watch, he moves to the corner of the room nearest the door to toss them in the little trashcan there, and opens a tackle box on top of a dresser that looks more like a fishing accessory than a medical one.

“Do you umm…get a lot of practice bandaging up the people you kidnap?” I ask, half sarcastic and half curious, though I’m not sure I really want the answer to the question.

Deacon rolls his eyes before pinning me with his gaze and returns with a dark bottle and more bandages. “You’re funny. Adorable, even.” With quick, efficient movements, he grabs my hand and upturns the bottle, spraying out clear liquid that burns the small wounds and makes me gasp in surprise. Bubbles fizz on the still-bleeding scabs, but when I try to jerk my hand back, Deacon won’t let me. He just gestures for my other palm, and I hesitantly lift it up for him to dump peroxide on it.

This time, I manage not to make a sound. I stare at the fizzing antiseptic, my hands shaking from exhaustion and fear, though I will never admit to the second part.

“Am I wrong?” I force myself to ask. I don’t want to seem weak. Or for him to think I’m so easily frightened. Warily, I watch him, not bothering to look at the rest of the room while the threat is right in front of me.

That brings a smirk to his lips, and Deacon chuckles. “Yeah,” he says. With easy movements, he wipes up the peroxide with a clean bandage, then uses the others to re-wrap my hands. Only when he’s done does he let go, and I immediately pull my doorframe-injured hand to my face.

Well, at least it’s only a hangnail. Absently I grip the now-shredded nail piece between my teeth, and when I jerk it free from the bed, I flinch at the pain.

“You are definitely wrong.” Without giving me another option, Deacon pulls my hand away from my mouth, holding it up between us to watch the blood well to the surface where the nail had been more attached than I expected.

But he doesn’t clean it. As I watch, Deacon brings my hand to his mouth, and his tongue flicks out to taste the drop of blood before it can fall.

“Don’t—” I try to pull away, but his grip tightens, becoming impossible to break free from. With his eyes on mine, Deacon laps at my finger, and he only lets go after delivering a quick, almost teasing bite to the pad.

“Oh, Sadie-Rae.” He breathes my name like it’s more than that and settles back on his heels. “What are we going to do with you?”

His words send a shiver down my spine and I move back slightly, putting a few inches of space between us for my peace of mind. “I just want to go home,” I whisper. “Please. Just let me take Pearl⁠—”

“Pearl belongs in Wolf Lake just as much as Fox and I do,” Deacon argues, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “She was born here. Grew up here, for better or worse.”

“She’s my friend.”

And I don’t want to be alone.

“Yeah.” He tilts his head to the side. Studying me. “It is rather strange, if I’m being honest. She doesn’t like strangers. Never has. But you?” He reaches out to tug a lock of hair free from the loose, messy bun I’m trying and failing to keep it in. “She took a real liking to you. It’s strange. Maybe she sees something in you we don’t, pretty rabbit.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“What?” His grin turns wolfish. “A rabbit?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Your heart races like one. It races so hard I worry it’s going to burst and you’re going to end up dead on my floor with blood runnin’ from your nose. That would be a real shame, wouldn’t it?” I hate the way he fucking purrs at me, and I despise his easy, graceful movements that are bringing him closer to me.

“I’m not a fucking rabbit.”

“Oh, yeah?” Without warning, he lunges, never actually getting to his feet but closing the distance between him and me so fast that all I can do is throw myself backwards on the rug. I keep going when he does, not wanting to get pinned down by Deacon, and it isn’t until my hands hit something cool and metallic that I hesitate.

But Deacon doesn’t let me. He grabs me, his hand fisted in my t-shirt, and shoves me back despite my struggles and my shrieking. Anytime I kick out at him, it doesn’t work. He doesn’t even seem to notice. But he thrusts me backward, up and over the lip of something, until my hands find a plastic tray that’s loud when I’m shoved onto it.

“Then why is it so easy to get you in my snare, hmm?” With one last shove, Deacon pushes me further into the kennel, and before I can do more than lurch forward, the door is shut, latched, and locked.

“You…” I pant, sliding to my knees and hooking my fingers between the wires to try to grab for him as my heart pounds in desperation and fear. “You can’t⁠—”