Page 22 of Red

“It’s fine.” He takes in my dress, dropping his head as his eyes trace the fabric between my breasts. I don’t breathe until he looks back at my foot. The bleeding seems to have stopped but the glass shard still sticks out. If I pull it at the same time as mending it, the blood will clot.

Stark lifts gauze and a white tape roll to it.

“Shouldn’t you be at dinner too?”

“It’s fine.” His favorite two words today. And he wonders why I don’t ask him questions.

“Could you do me a favor?” I know last time I asked, he was less than pleased.

“What in the spirits could you want right now?” His voice is low to keep the others from hearing, but it doesn’t take the intensity away.

“I just wanted water, remember? Could you grab me a glass?”

He gives me a nod and stands.

I rip the glass out the second his footsteps go down the hallway. Letting heat pour down, I bite my cheek hard, forming blood in my mouth. The heat builds, burning through my foot, and I watch as the deep cut lightens in color.

By the time Stark reenters the room, I’m wrapping one round of gauze around my foot, hoping it doesn’t melt onto it. It takes time to cool in open air, but I refuse to let myself bleed. Pratt would have probably done the opposite.

He hands me the glass of water and I down it. It soothes some of the burning.

Slow and stiff, Stark lowers to his knees and lifts my leg back up. “You should have waited. You’re lucky there isn’t a lot of blood.”

“Next time, I think I’ll maintain my hold on the medical kit for future events.”

“I can give it back to you after tonight.” Taking the gauze out of my hands, he finishes wrapping my foot. “Your foot is on fire.”

I tilt back and sink into the chair. Screw the Elders’ dinner. “Why do you need it?” I ignore the fire comment because duh, it is practically on fire.

He tucks the end of the gauze into the bandage and smooths his hand over my leg before lowering it. “Nothing for you to be concerned about.”

My pulse speeds, and I scan over his entire body for any signs of an injury. He’s covered except his hands and neck. I continue staring, hoping maybe he’ll give me an answer, but he gets up, leaving the medical kit, and pulls down the sleeves of his charcoal button-up.

“Aloka, you need to come back to dinner.”

I rise in the seat. “No, thanks. It’s not like they’re going to let me leave.”

“Leave?”

“Yeah, go home. I have a home, a place that I love, where I’d like to go back to. Away from you.” I’m an invasion of his space. Less than a month has gone by and he’s already got in shit with the Elders’ Council because of me.

“You don’t get a choice in this.” He pulls me up and drags me down the hallway, letting go right before we get into the room. Fuck his lack of ability to be a gentleman sometimes.

Back at the table, I keep my eyes on my plate. I don’t want to do dinners with the Elders, or anyone. I want Pratt’s jokes back, and his overprotectiveness because he loved me, not to be surrounded by a table of werewolves who argue over if I should exist or not.

“Tomorrow, you need to stretch further into the south forest toward the treaty border. There are rumors of a camp being built. They have no right to hunt here, yet they’re hunting us, and we all know they won’t hesitate to shoot you in either form,” the white-haired Elder says.

“I want someone here with Aloka.” I know Stark is looking at me, but I avoid his gaze, and everyone else’s.

“She’s out of harm’s way in your home. Otis and Faira will be close by.”

“Lunin, that’s not enough. I want someone here, after the other week.”

“The pack will do her no harm,” another Elder says. His beard covers his face down to his chest and his eyebrows are thicker than a thumb.

“Excuse me?” I raise my voice over all the other discussions at the table.

“Yes?” The Elder who apologized for Pratt gives me the same sympathetic look from before.