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“Sissy,” Monster blubbered, tears streaming down his face as he held out his arms to me. Trent dropped him next to me and then quickly scurried backwards as Dom’s head swung toward him, growling.
Trent lifted his hands, keeping his movements nonthreatening, as he eased toward Dylan. “Liam, pants,” he barked, and Liam snapped to attention, stepping away from a shell shocked Leah, to jog toward the motel.
Skinny, little arms wrapped around me as Monster rubbed his face against my shoulder, smearing snot all over me.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, patting his back, as I mentally sent the same words toward Dom. Fine, I stressed again when he didn’t respond and received a jumble of images from him. The sight of Dylan in wolf form lunging for me from Dom’s perspective was equally as terrifying as it had been from mine and I winced. There was no way he was letting that image go anytime soon and I was pretty sure I was going to have nightmares about it too.
You didn’t kill him, I sent back, the thought equal parts question and statement.
Nearly, he managed to reply and I gathered from the emotion behind the single word that it was a near thing. Once again, a tangle of emotion and images spilled from him to me and I saw him lunging for Dylan’s throat to knock him away from my curled up body. He’d managed to stop himself from clamping down hard enough to rip out Dylan’s throat, instead yanking on the heavy scruff of his neck to pull him away.
I don’t need to see anymore, I begged and the stream of images stopped abruptly. Thank you for not killing him, I added simply as Monster lifted his head from my chest, his face a blotchy mess of redness, tears and snot. I used the hem of my shirt to wipe most of it off. “Go see Dylan,” I told him and he shook his head so hard I was afraid it was going to fall off. “Yes,” I said firmly, “He’s your friend.”
“He almost killed you,” Monster cried, shooting a betrayed glance over his shoulder at Dylan. “He ran straight at you. I thought he was going to – ” He couldn’t finish, shaking from residual fear.
“You thought he was going to rip my throat out,” I finished for him, ignoring the snarl that tore from Dom at my words. “But he didn’t.”
“Because of Dom,” Monster said stoutly, hero worship glittering in his eyes. “Dom stopped him.”
“He did and you know what else?” Monster shook his head. “He didn’t kill Dylan even though he could have. You know why?” Monster tilted his head questioningly. “Because killing Dylan would have been wrong.” Monster lowered his head, resisting my words. “You know it’s true. Dylan was reacting to the situation. He didn’t harm me even though he could have,” I suppressed a shudder at the memory of how close that hot breath had come, but I knew I was speaking the truth. Dylan could have easily tore into me before Dom stopped him. “You were scared because of the situation and what might have happened. Don’t let that change your friendship with Dylan. He needs you to be his friend.”
“You’re not scared of him?” Monster asked suspiciously, and while he couldn’t feel the hard thump of my heart at the question, I knew Dom had felt the jolt when he growled.
“No,” I lied with aplomb. “Not at all.” They both stared at me disbelievingly. “I’ll prove it,” I added, seeing Liam jog toward us from the corner of my eye. Leah edged closer, trailing behind Liam as she kept a wary eye on Dom. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen one of them in wolf form, but Dom was the exception with his larger than normal size. Liam passed the loose shorts in his grip to Dylan and I quickly averted my eyes. I really wasn’t prepared to see any more of Dylan in his glory.
“Does anyone need medical assistance?” Leah asked, the last part of the question coming out in a squeak when Dom’s head swung toward her and he pinned her with a hard, yellow gaze.
“Easy there, Kujo, you’re scaring the newbies,” I chided, walking over to him and resting my hand on his head. I raised my voice as I said, “I don’t think anyone’s hurt.” I paused, letting my next words drift in the air. “Just shaken.”
I moved to go toward Dylan and prove I wasn’t scared of the massive wolf who had almost eaten me when I felt teeth settle around my wrist. I gave an experimental tug but there was zero give. I shot him an unamused stare. This had no effect as he repositioned his grip on my wrist, and effectively kept me prisoner.
He’s not going to hurt me, I huffed silently to Dom. I flipped my hand to the man child standing there with a fistful of cookies wearing a pair of borrowed baggy shorts. Looking at him, he didn’t look like he would hurt a fly and I knew he wouldn’t hurt a soul….in this form.
