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“Stop trying to mother me.”
I hauled him against me, helping him to his feet. “Trust me, I don’t want to be your mother.”
He growled but went with me, and because of the walls, I kept us both upright. He leaned against the counter, not fighting me when I stripped him of his shirt.
The lack of even an inuendo when I undid his jeans and pulled them down his legs told me he wasn’t firing on all cylinders. The shivering had worsened, his skin freezing to the touch.
The deep, blissful groan when he lowered into the hot water said I’d made the right choice.
Silence took over the room, steam filling it, fogging the mirror, and I dimmed the lights before sitting on the counter.
Hunter looked better already, as if the heat was helping to ease whatever damage his tracking of Lilith had done.
“She’s in purgatory, isn’t she?” I asked.
Hunter nodded, eyes closed, sunk down into the water to his chin. “Yeah.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
“I’m made in hell. Purgatory is toxic to me, even to my other form.” His teeth chattered every so often, as if the heat eased some of the coldness inside him but didn’t quite rid him of it all.
“Are you feeling better?”
He opened his eyes, and I was grateful that they had returned to the ones I knew. “Yeah, I am. Thank you.” The gratitude seemed ripped from him.
“You don’t like help, do you?”
“You saw where I’m from, Ava. In fact, Jerrod was a complete asshole, but he was one of the nicer hellhounds. I haven’t lived a life where weakness is exposed.” He groaned softly, as if everything hurt. “And it isn’t something I deal with often. “
“Well, you just need to get used to it, because I’m not the type to sit back and do nothing when you get hurt.”
“So I’ve found.”
“What else can I do?”
He lifted one hand out of the water and reached out to me.
I went over and sat on the edge of the tub, slipping my hand into his, rewarded when he held it tight. It was odd to see him like this, and again, it stung.
I recalled Hunter being so strong that first night. Just like Kase, like Grant, even like Troy. Men who had been larger than life until knowing me had hurt them all.
“Stop blaming yourself.” He closed his eyes again.
“You’re all worse off than I am. It’s like you’re taking all the hits instead of me.”
“You got yours the first few weeks when I met you. If I remember right, you got your ass handed to you by trying to find Rachel’s spirit, then by a poltergeist, then you got thrown around by Olin, a scar from Lilith on your arm and roughed up by werewolves.”
“Are you saying I paid my price early?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m saying we were fighting wrong. We were attacking symptoms, not the cause, and we were fightingourway. Now? Now we’re getting to shit that you’re more qualified to deal with.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Wasn’t supposed to. Fact is, with where Lilith is, this is going to get uglier before it gets better. You need to get ready for that.”
I blew out a slow breath. “I already lost Gran. Isn’t that enough?”
He shook his head. “I’ve found the universe likes to take away something on par with what we want, just like with magic. The more you want, the bigger the price. You’re looking to saveeverything, shadow-girl, so there’s going to be one hell of a payment.”
