Wolf's Bane (Monstrous Hearts #2)

Chapter Eleven

The doctor had prescribed two weeks' rest for a full recovery, and Alice dutifully followed those orders, well aware that Samhain drew ever closer and carried with it whatever Magdalene planned next. In the first few days at home, her body demanded rest to the point where she hardly bothered to get out of bed, the chilly autumn hours sliding by while she curled up with Colton in a tangle of limbs.

His patience surprised her, that ravenous appetite for her flesh tempered into a hot mouth that only tasted at her bruised skin, coaxing sweet releases from her battered body whenever her tension over Magdalene's menace became too much to bear. Whenever she dozed, he would read, his free hand tracing along her body as the rustle of pages followed her into calm, dreamless sleep. Awake, she talked about whatever slipped into mind.

Ah, but it sounded so simple, didn't it? To murmur into the ear of a lover content to let her go on about anything and for however long she wished, as long as it meant he didn't have to talk back. To admit both deepest vulnerability and silliest pettiness to a beast indifferent to huffs of breath.

What monstrous thing could she pull from her thoughts that would be worse than the very monster beside her? What secret would he bother to use against her when he had his teeth to savage? His was the danger of jaws in the dark and bloodthirst beneath the moon. The day he decided to hurt her would be the day she died from a torn-out throat. Her mind would remain untouched.

Such a simple thing, yes, to speak without care, and yet the freedom still stunned her. To let the syllables fall from her mouth like stones cast into deep water, rough and heavy and forgotten as soon as they sank out of sight. To shine a light on the wretched, clammy-skinned things curled in their hiding places, exposing them in full. And the beast beside her still listened without concern, that hunter's passion never ebbing from a wrong word said or a wrong opinion given.

"It's like she trained me," she said one morning, while thick clouds drizzled rain outside the bedroom windows. She was naked, belly-down on the crumpled sheets and chin resting on her crossed arms, eyes closed against the delicious afterburn of teeth marks on her shoulder. The bruising on her neck was still too violent to take his intensity.

Colton lounged beside her, the dry flick of paper meeting paper telling her that he was reading. His free hand followed the curve of her spine as she considered the truth to her words. "It was never obvious. All of her was unusual, beautifully so. It would have felt strange if she had been normal about anything. What you saw of her—she didn't used to be so openly horrible like that. In fact, she was really good at making people feel special. She just didn't care by the end, and knew I was too deep into things to pull away."

Colton's hand squeezed at her nearest hip, then, soothing away the knot of tension there and coaxing out more words. "Rob told me it was a pattern with her. That she did it to girls who reminded her of Indigo. I always wondered if Indigo was different. Those letters that Magdalene wrote to her... They seemed vulnerable in a way she never was with anyone else. But that night by the river, she told me Indigo hadn't waited for her. That she'd gone on."

"Who'd want an eternity with that fucking woman?"

The bluntness startled a laugh out of Alice, and she arched into the rough palm that ran over the dimples in the small of her back. "That's true. I wanted it, once, but now I can't think of anything worse."

Then she fell serious, opening her eyes as the handful of days left until Samhain bore down on her thoughts. The look on Magdalene's face there at the river's edge, so wild with fury and desperation... If Colton was right about her disappearing to lick her own wounds, what would happen once she recovered enough to attack again?

Before fear could do more than prickle at her, Alice heard the pages of Colton's book flutter shut, the only hint that his attention had shifted before she found herself rolled onto her back and held there as he stretched over her. His hair was still damp with sweat from the round of fucking, but his gaze had lost its laziness, now alert as he studied her face. Alice instinctively wrapped both legs around him, but her voice fell breathless with worry, not lust. "Only eleven days left until Samhain. She'll have the whole night to try to take me back with her."