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“Riley,” she says, sounding choked up. “Let your Aunt Cat look after you, please?” She sniffles.
I blink a couple times to try and clear my vision. I’m sifting through all the scents in my nose. Jase. Joel. Grey further away. My Aunt Cat. My mate.
“Everybody out,” I demand.
“Riley?” Aunt Cat calls. “I’ve got some medicine here for you and I drew blood because-”
“I need a minute, Aunt Cat. A minute guys.”
My mate’s trying to pull away. I tighten my grip on her.
She makes a pained sound. Too tight.
“Sorry,” I breathe through the intense throbbing. So much fuckin’ head-throbbing. “Not you out. Them out,” I manage.
“Rye, maybe you should-”
“Out Jase,” I snap. “So fuckin’ help me…”
“It’s okay,” I hear Rikki say. “I’ll be fine.”
I hear the door shut.
“Where are we?” I demand, sniffing the air. “Can’t see very well.”
“The bigger bedroom at the cabin,” she says.
I tug and she comes closer. Not close enough.
“Closer,” I demand.
She gets up on the bed beside me.
I pull her until her face is almost close enough to kiss.
“Ouch.”
I release her wrist and catch her by the waist, pulling her on top of me. “Sorry,” I say.
She doesn’t resist. I smell salty tears. Her salty tears. She’s crying.
“They hurt you?”
“I think I did more damage than they did. To me at least. Are you okay?”
“All three of them? Badly? Incapacitated them?”
“Kind of worse than that with two, but don’t worry about that right now; your friends are dealing with it.”
“No,” I growl. “Explain. I don’t want shit being kept from me. I don’t want my pack getting between me and you. Or anybody else. Enough of this shit!”
“You got stabbed a couple times and shot and the smoke bomb went off in your face and damaged your eyes. Your aunt gave you medicine.
“Where am I shot?” I need to shift to heal but I don’t want to shift in case I can’t get back in again. I need to figure shit out like this, as man.
“The bullet got pulled. It’s… it got pulled from you, Mason, and Lincoln. Two of the bad guys are dead. Tyson is looking for the one who was shooting everyone. Let’s worry about letting your aunt get you well, okay? That’s all I’m trying to say.”
“What did they give me? My head is fuckin’ pounding and it’s so goddamn blurry in here.”
“The tear gas bomb or whatever that was went off right in Scooby’s face.”
Scooby. I could almost laugh.
She keeps talking, “Then it was so close to your face when it went off. And they don’t know what the darts had in them, but your aunt is gonna do lab work on all three of you that got hit. She doesn’t want you shifting yet. The other guy was kicking you and stabbing you, too. That’s why you’ve got bandages. You lost a lot of blood.”
“Who?” I grasp my head and moan with the pain.
“Greyson said it was his mate’s brother. Try to rest, Riley.” She’s pulling away.
No. No!
“Stay. Lay down with me,” I demand, grabbing her.
There are several bandages on my body. They feel tight, foreign.
She lays down at my side.
I pull her closer and twist, putting my head on her chest. I’ve been rough. I’ve hurt her.
“Sorry I’m being rough. I… need you here.”
She stills.
The pounding of her heart, though it sounds a little fast, is comforting.
She wraps both arms around me.
“I’ll stay. Close your eyes and rest, please, okay?” she chokes out. “Your aunt thinks you’ll recover fine, but you need to rest your eyes. She took blood to make sure, to find out what they gave you, and she injected you with some pain meds for your headache and bandaged the wounds.”
“Don’t leave,” I demand.
“Okay,” she says softly.
Stop crying, baby. I’m gonna fix it. Gonna fix all of it.
I think the words, but realize I can’t manage to verbalize, because I’m sinking. I’m sinking into her scent, fingers on one of my hands threading into her soft hair as my body grows heavier. She’s filled with troubles. Pain. Worry. But I’m gonna fix it all.
31
Erica
A vibrating noise startles me and it drags my mind back to being stuck together for two days. But it’s not happening inside me; the sound is coming from his chest. And it’s not feeling like that same sensation; I’m not stuck. There’s nothing sexual happening here. Though, maybe I am kind of stuck. Because this sensation sliding through me feels soft, sweet. It’s kind of lulling. Like I want to be stuck. Glued to Riley Savage for the rest of my life. My eyes drift closed, and my body fully relaxes. So strange, feeling relaxed for the first time in… weeks, I think.
No, no kind of stuck about it. It’s absolutely lulling me into what feels like a happy, cuddly dream-like state. Like… I’ve never been this relaxed in my life. Like… I’m in a field of soft, warm flowers. I smell floral scents in the air, and the crisp smell of a fall morning. My favorite scents.
