Pulse racing, she held them out, palms up. They were abraded from her baseball player slide, the skin angry and raw.
“Not too much blood,” he observed. “Mostly a lot of dirt.”
Taking one wrist, he moved her hand under the water, letting the warm stream wash away the loose grime. Then he lathered the soap with his own hands and gently began to wash hers. She hissed at the sting and he murmured soothing words about how brave she was, both before and now. Coddled her. Nobody had done that for her since her dad when she was little.
But from Kalen, the action took on a whole different intimacy.
Whether he noticed how the tiny room seemed to close in she wasn’t certain. He simply worked slowly and carefully, until her hands were clean and patted dry. They didn’t look so bad now.
“The scratches will fade some by tomorrow, but . . .” He trailed off, frowning at the small wounds. Before she could ask what was wrong, he whispered another of his incantations.
To her amazement, the scratches faded until they were almost nothing. “Oh my God! How—you’re a Healer?”
“No. I can do small patch-up jobs and take away some pain, but that’s all. My healing talent is nowhere near Zander’s level, not even in the same ball park. And I can’t patch up myself,” he said, gesturing to his own bruised face.
Zander Cole, one of the wolf shifters, was the team’s Healer, and a highly valuable one at that. He was capable of healing extensive, life-threatening injuries—though at great personal cost to himself.
“But they don’t hurt anymore,” she enthused, wiggling her fingers. “Thank you.”
He shrugged. “Let’s see what we can do about the cut on your shoulder. Turn around for me.” She did, and he sucked in a breath. “This is a bit uglier than your hands. I need for you to take off your shirt. Is that okay?”
She nodded. He might be the new guy on the team, but she trusted him with her life. Hell, he’d already saved her butt, so what did she have to lose? She grabbed the hem of her red tank top, but when she tried to lift her arms, her left shoulder screamed in protest.
“Ow!”
“Easy, honey,” he said, his palm rubbing her back in a comforting gesture. “Let me do it.”
Working carefully, he lifted the shirt and eased it over her right arm first, and then over her head. From there, it was simple enough to slide it off her left arm, where he let the material drop to the tiled floor.
“That shirt’s a loss. So is the bra. The clasp is dangling by a thread back here, and the whole thing’s in my way.”
Face flushing, she shrugged her good shoulder. “Then take it off.”
Doctors didn’t embarrass easily when it came to
She didn’t consider herself overly modest, but right now someone could’ve fried an egg on her forehead. She stared at the wall, glad he was behind her where he couldn’t see how flustered she was to be standing there topless in the same room with the man she’d lusted after for weeks.
As before, he cleaned the wound as gently as possible. It hurt, though, much worse than the scrapes on her hands. At one point she gave up trying to keep herself covered and gripped the edge of the sink, tears of pain pricking her eyes.
“I’m sorry, sweet thing. Just a bit more, okay?”
Five more agonizing minutes, and he was finished. Tossing the cloth on the back of the sink, he ordered her to remain still for another few seconds. A soft stream of Latin left his lips and the slash on her back began to tingle. The sensation lasted briefly and was gone.
“There. It’s not perfect. Zan could’ve made it vanish altogether, but it’s better than having it bleed all over.”
Turning around, she examined her left shoulder in the mirror. The creature’s claw had raked an ugly furrow about a half-inch wide from the top of her shoulder, over the shoulder blade, and a few inches below. A few more and it might’ve damaged the nerves in her spine, possibly severed them.
As it was, Kalen had closed the cut enough to form a scab that made it appear the wound had been healing for a week or so. “I’m impressed. And it feels a ton better, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How’s your arm?” she asked.
“It’s not as bad as I thought. I’ll clean the cut later.” His gaze dropped to her chest and his eyes widened, body going tense. Lust etched itself on his face for a fleeting moment, and then he gave her a sheepish smile. “Christ, where are my manners?”
Exhaling a deep breath, she watched him exit the bathroom. In the bedroom, he removed his duster and laid it over the back of an old chair, and then pull off his black T-shirt. Walking back to her, he held it out. “Wear this. It’s clean, except for a little bit of blood where his claw tore my sleeve.”
She took the shirt, but damned if she could take her eyes off his toned chest, sprinkled with just the right amount of curly black hair and the silver pentagram pendant resting over his heart. Washboard abs, too. He’d filled out, gained some weight since he’d been with the Pack. And those few pounds had been shaped into muscle, and gone to all the right places.
Shit, those long legs, and that bulge between his thighs—
“Mackenzie?”
“Hmm? Oh! Thanks.”
Turning around, she pulled on his shirt and was immediately assailed by his wonderful, spicy scent. Assuming they had to stay the night, how the hell was she supposed to sleep wearing clothing of his that smelled so damned good? Parking her rear on the bed, she watched as he dug out his cell phone and tried again to reach someone at the compound. Nothing. She did the same, with identical results.
“Must be a service outage somewhere,” he muttered. “Looks like we’re stuck here for the time being.”
“Unless you want to just leave and make a run for it,” she suggested. “Maybe whatever it was is gone?”
“No, he’s still out there, waiting. I can feel him.”
“Then I guess we’re here for the duration. Want to watch TV?”
Alone with Kalen, and that was the last pastime on her list. But she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself by making a play for him.
Kalen flipped on the television and they settled on the bed, propped on pillows, watching a standup comedian on a cable channel. The show was funny, but her eyelids soon grew heavy. Too sleepy, worn out from their stressful ordeal, she let herself fall into oblivion.
What a freakin’ waste of a delicious Sorcerer.
Jax wasn’t surprised when, at two in the morning, there was a knock on the door to the quarters he and Kira shared. Nor was he surprised to find Nick standing on the threshold, frowning in concern.
His commander got right to the point. “Did you loan Kalen your keys to one of the Escalades?”
No point in lying when the man clearly knew the answer already. “I did. Isn’t he back yet?”
“No, and neither is Mac. I can’t reach either one of them on their cell phones. In fact, I can’t even contact Sheriff Deveraux. There seems to be an outage in the area—and not a normal one.”
“Shit.” A chill snaked down his spine. “We initiating a search?”
“Yeah. I’m not getting any premonitions except a vague sense that something bad has happened, and I don’t fucking like it.” The man sighed, raking a hand through short, dark hair a lot like Jax’s own, except Nick’s was beginning to turn silver at the temples. “Let’s take Zan and Ryon with us. Hammer will stay here and keep watch.”
“Good idea.” Four was a more comfortable number when facing unknown odds. Five would’ve been better,
