Wolf's Kin (Monstrous Hearts #3)

Chapter Eleven

Within minutes of returning from the shadow world, Alice realized her arm wasn't healing. Blood streamed from the cuts alarmingly fast, clotting the grime left on her skin from crawling through a rusted car and then damp leaf litter.

"It hurts more, too," she gritted between her teeth, trying to keep still while Colton studied the wounds. The towel he held beneath her arm already looked soaked through. "Did she do something to me?"

"No. There's glass lodged under the skin. Your body's trying to get rid of it and finish healing." He sounded grim, but his thumb ran over an uninjured area of her wrist, warm and comforting, before he added, "I need to pick it all out."

Soon, she found herself staring at the gentle yellow of the bathroom walls, the floor tiles cold against her muddied feet while she settled on the closed toilet. It was the only way to stretch her arm over the sink and leave enough light and space for him to work. Two of the fluffy, white hand towels set by the soap were already stained red and left crumpled on the floor.

"We might get kicked out for this," she murmured, while he took tweezers from her makeup bag. "Me making such a mess, I mean."

The lighter in his other hand snapped to life before he replied. "It'll be fine. I'll handle things."

As she watched him sterilize the tweezer's tips in the flame, she had no trouble believing that. Aware that he was almost ready, she turned on the faucet and adjusted it to a gentle warmth, not looking forward to the next step.

The water shocked her pain into something searing, as if it rinsed away her entire skin. When Colton growled, she knew it had flooded her scent. Her fingers found his and squeezed tightly while blood and dirt swirled down the drain. When the water ran clean, she sucked in a breath to steady herself. Then she looked down at her mangled flesh.

It appeared about as bad as it felt, fresh blood welling up to replace what was washed away. Yet she had seen worse as a vet intern, and watched unflinchingly when Colton leaned in with the tweezers.

Chips of glass landed against the porcelain, red and glittering. The smell of blood hung heavy in the air. Strangely, she grew calmer by the moment, the throbbing agony somehow easing the turmoil that had filled her full from the night she and Colton had found the remains of the coven's ritual. It was as if removing the glass embedded in her flesh also removed the fear and confusion piercing her heart.

Perhaps she wasn't ready to heal, but she was bleeding clean.

And the tongue that always felt so tender against her wounds? The teeth that tore at her nightmares? The wolf with his unrelenting hunts, his quick brutality, his shameless hunger? He was there with her, his fury filling the room while blood dried on his jaw and neck.

A dangerous sight, horrifying to some, but she only relaxed, watching the last pieces of the shadow world slip down the drain.

"It's all right," she said, softly, aware of the bunched tension in his shoulders and his simmering silence. "It feels better than when the glass was still in there."

He growled without looking up from the task. Among the old-fashioned decor of watercolor still lifes and framed, cross-stitched quotes from the Bible, he looked like the wild beast that he was, rugged and seething and ready to kill.

She reached out with her good hand and brushed his face, gentle, unflinching against the dark blood. "I really mean it. I don't think I can be hurt anymore, at least not by witches. After facing my grandmother and finding out she called only because I could hear her, that I was nothing more than fat and bone and opportunity... Well, I don't see how Vanna or anyone else from the coven could cut me as deeply."