METAMORPHOSIS • DEREK HALE [COMPLETED]

Chapter Fifteen

"You're lucky I've had some past human healing experiences, and you live by a CVS," Alex smiled up at him. After soaking a cotton ball in disinfectant, she pressed it to his small wound.

She felt him wince beneath her fingertips as the antiseptic cleaned the open mark on his stomach, "Sorry, it stings."

He beared the new pain as Alex bit her lip to stifle a small laugh. "You're enjoying this, aren't you," he asked, humor in his voice.

"No," she said, intending it to be serious, but it came out as a laugh. Switching the bloodied cotton ball for a clean one, she continued, "It's just, I've never met someone who wasn't used to not healing at a supernatural rate."

"Me either," he joked, yet she still detected the uneasiness in his voice. He had never not healed shortly after being injured before, and she could see it scared the hell out of him.

When finished with swabbing the now sanitized gash, she then opened a package of gauze bandages and held it to his skin with one hand. With the other hand and her teeth, she ripped strips of paper tape to anchor down the cloth. "It's just a graze, but make sure it doesn't get infected," she instructed, smoothing down the slight wrinkles using her thumb.

He briefly glanced at and felt the bandage before putting in a clean grey v-neck.

Alex circumnavigated around him to land back in the short length of the large table in his loft. Leaning in, she studied his quiet stature. "Infections aren't something you've had to worry about before, are they," she inquired.

He shook his head, standing adjacent to her.

"So now everything's completely gone," she wondered, "No glowing eyes, no hearing? No claws? I saw them outside of the vault yesterday."

"I think that was luck. I haven't been able to extend them since," he held up his hand, and she saw the concentration on his face  as he tried to lengthen them, but to no avail, they remained the same human enamel. His troubled eyes met back with hers, and he continued, "But no, no hearing, speed, everything."

"Strength?"

"I can still win a fight," he answered. His well, very well, defined muscles would have made any one believe him, but not Alex. Feeling daring, she gave him a skeptical look, and she knew his reaction would be stunned.

And just like clock work, he furrowed his eyebrows at her.

She processed to plant her elbow on the table at a ninety degree angle, her band beckoning him to a challenge. He let out a breathy laugh, and she quirked her eyebrows, "Don't worry, I'll go easy."

Up for the friendly competition despite the sexual tension growing in the air, he leaned in, wrapping his hand around hers with his elbow also placed across from hers.

"Ready," she asked, her voice low and inviting.

"Mhm," he dauntlessly nodded.

With their eyes never leaving each others', she began to count down, "One... Two-"

Catching him off guard, she took a jab at his bullet mark with her free hand and bent down his competing hand with her other.

He let out a loud groan in pain. Bending over his now sore wound, he exclaimed, "You cheated. Ah, that's... That's cheating."

"I won," she stated. "When you're a human facing off against the supernatural, you need to bend the rules a little bit." His eyes met here again, and she added, "I'm going to teach you how to bend."

**********

After returning to Derek's loft, the sky was still dark, giving it a low lightening, and Alex laid out a variety of guns she borrowed from Chris.