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Frost opens the front door from the inside to admit us entrance. He’d disappeared around the back and probably broke a window to get inside—his usual MO. His icy blue eyes rake over Amora, and even though his expression doesn’t change, I can feel his worry through our shadow bond.
I get it. She looks rough. Even rougher than when she was poisoned by shadows.
The place is opulent for a mountain home. Running water, electricity thanks to a generator, and everything inside done up in shades of white and beige.
Amora makes a hard right and shuffles weakly toward the staircase. She leans on the bannister as she starts to ascend, and wobbles on the third step. I leap up behind her to catch her, my palm against the small of her back while I try desperately not to stare at her perfect ass.
She tosses me a glare, but she doesn’t shake me off. Even if she doesn’t want my help, she’s not too proud to admit she needs it.
Yet another personality trait I don’t want to admire about her.
I keep my fingers against her skin, giving her extra balance as we climb. The upstairs hallway is dim, since all the bedroom doors are closed—presumably to conserve heat. Amora veers to the first door, and I let my hand fall away from her waist, though I stay close because if she passes out again, I’m going to catch her.
She shoves the door open, then stumbles into the bedroom.
It’s fucking frigid. While she crash lands face down on the bed, I search out the heat register and open the metal slats. Heat’s already piping from the system, which means one of my brothers found the thermostat and cranked it up.
When I turn back to the bed, Amora is already out—eyes closed, breaths shallow. I roll her over and eye her wounds, carefully keeping my gaze off her breasts.
No leering at the injured woman, no matter how much I want her.
Malix appears in the doorway and holds up a clear plastic box. “First aid kit.”
“We probably need some soap and water, too,” I say, turning her arm over to show him a dirty wound, likely from her run to safety.
“Frost is on it.” He tosses the box on the bedside table and rips the lid off, then digs around inside. “He’s bringing towels, too.”
We start working on her wounds in silence, and a few moments later, Frost enters the room with a bowl of warm, soapy water and a stack of dish towels. I help myself to a towel covered in tiny dogs, then dunk it in the water before using it to clean her torso.
It’s hard not to notice her beauty. Even out cold, she’s gorgeous. Her skin pale and her hair so dark it looks black on her shoulders. I clean dirt from her collarbone, then carefully wash a cut beneath her breast. The time we’ve spent with her has given me multiple glimpses of her body, since we’ve shifted in and out of wolf form many times together.
But I remember her body from our first night together, and that’s the memory I keep associating with her. That night in bumfuck nowhere, Montana, when I locked gazes with her on that bar stool. That tight dress, legs for days, her hair wild, looking like the most fuckable woman I’d ever seen.
That night when my wolf informed me that I’d found my mate.
I shove those feelings away and refocus on her cuts, dabbing them with alcohol after I clean them. Malix has focused on her legs, while Frost sits at her head, carefully cleaning her face and bandaging an open cut along her eyebrow.
Frost catches me watching him and says, “This is probably going to scar.”
I nod and turn back to the shallow scratches on her rib cage. “What about poison? Think the shadow poisoned her?”
Frost lays his palm over her forehead, testing her temperature, then he gently swipes loose strands of dark hair away from her eyes. “No. I don’t think so. I can’t sense anything.”
Malix drops his bloodied towel back in the bowl. “I think this is as good as it gets until she’s capable of showering.”
I nod and toss my own rag into the bowl. “Yeah. She needs to rest.”
“She needs warmth,” Frost says, adding his own towel to the bloody water. “Her body temp is too low.”
Malix laughs. “Mine too, brother. It’s from walking barefoot and ass-naked in the fucking snow.”
As Frost stands to gather everything to carry downstairs, I work on getting Amora beneath the covers. I roll her until I can pull the blankets down, then roll her again onto the crisp white sheets. I tuck the blankets around her shoulders, covering her from neck to toe to ensure she stays warm.
She huffs once and then settles on her side, going still again.
Malix returns, although I didn’t even realize he left, and tosses me a blanket. “Figured we’d sit with her.”
I nod and slide onto the bed next to Amora, sitting with my back to the headboard and settling the blanket around my body. “Clothes?”
Malix throws another blanket on the foot of the bed, presumably for Frost, then tosses his own blanket around his shoulders like a cape. He opens a set of double doors in the wall and peers inside. “Yeah. Loads. We can take our pick.”
Frost comes back carrying a pot of coffee, three mugs clutched in his other hand. The smell fills the room as he sits all three ceramic mugs down on the dresser and pours out a measure in each one. He must have started the pot before he brought the water and towels up for Amora. That’s just like him, though—always strategic, always thinking ahead, always silently taking care of us.
I accept my mug with a grunt and motion toward the open door that leads to the en suite bathroom. “Why don’t you take first shower?”
“Thanks.” He picks up a second mug and offers it to Malix, then carries his own cup into the bathroom without further comment. A moment later, the water splashes into the basin, and the rattle of the shower curtain spills out from the open doorway.
Malix perches on the opposite side of the bed, glancing down at Amora as he takes a swig of his coffee. For a moment, he looks like he wants to speak, but then he seems to think better of it and just kicks his feet up on the mattress next to her.
Fine by me. I’m not in the mood to chat, either. Not after the shitshow of this morning’s events.
