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When we arrived at my cabin, he tried to make me lie in the bed, but I refused. Finally we compromised with the porch swing, where he wrapped me in an old quilt from the back of the couch.
“Get a knife,” I whispered, my throat raw.
“Why?”
I parted the blanket and showed him the hole between my ribs. The area around the entry wound had begun to blacken, the infection snaking out with thin fingerlike lines, crawling towards the unblemished skin of my torso.
“Silver,” I said.
“Fuck.” He ran back into the cabin, and I watched the tree line, waiting for either the assassin or the pack. I wasn’t sure which one I hoped would come first. Metal rattled, and a moment later Holden returned with a steak knife. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I rolled onto my side, exposing my injured ribs. “Don’t apologize unless you can’t get it out.”
The knife was dull, but it was steel so even the pain of the unsharpened edge sawing a hole into my flesh didn’t hurt as much as the poisonous pellet inside me. Once he’d cleared a big enough path, Holden stuck his fingers deep into the channel carved by the bullet, snaking his way after it.
I whimpered, not bothering to fight against the tears pouring from me.
He found something. I could tell because his fingers got tense.
When he pulled his hand out with a wet, sucking sound, his fingers were smoking from the bullet pinched between them. He threw the bloody object, so small and unassuming, onto the deck, where it sat covered in blood. It looked so harmless. Just a gob of metal.
I buried my head in my arms.
When I looked up again, Holden was gone and a dozen werewolves in their naked human form stood in a half-circle around me.
Lucas appeared confused until he saw the knife and the bloody bullet.
“Someone told them where I was,” I said.
“Someone shot you?”
I nodded, but it hurt. For the third time in two weeks someone had tried to ventilate my body with silver bullets. That combined with my foray into the swamp with the Loups-Garous? Well, needless to say I’d had my fill of this little vacation.
“I want to go home.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
New York, New York. Home of the Empire State Building, Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the best place on Earth. My apartment.
I hadn’t spoken much since we left Louisiana. Callum had been more than willing to give his blessing for us to fly out of Baton Rouge, so not only did we not need to drive two hours back to New Orleans, we also didn’t need to go anywhere near Maurepas.
Good riddance.
Family might be all well and good, but if the McQueens ever wanted to see me again, they’d have to haul their Southern asses north, because with God as my witness I would never again set foot in the great state of Louisiana.
Dominick dropped me off at my front door, and Lucas reminded me we had a meeting with Kimberly the next evening to discuss the final details of our ceremony. I thought I was being pretty gracious when I said, “Fuck Kimberly and whatever white horse she’s hired for you to ride in on.”
Lucas, having already spent the last several hours with my silver-poisoned surliness, just smiled. “We’ll pick you up at seven.”
I grabbed my bag and stomped into my apartment like a grizzly bear with a stubbed toe.
Rio was waiting for me.
“Brreow?”
“I missed you too.”
I dropped my bag on the floor, and she skittered under the loveseat.
