Chapter Eighty-Five
I woke in surprise, my bones forced back into my body. I screamed in pain; my roar echoed from my head. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, I couldn’t see, I could barely hear, and the smell of burnt flesh and blood greeted me. I went for the first target as magic held me down, I was stuck, forced to stay put as my body began to heal itself, bones knitting together, and pain became a world within itself. I wanted to pass out, find the world of unconsciousness, but nothing, my damn body, could heal enough to keep me awake and alive. Holy hell, I was on fire from the healing. It was possible to treat so much to kill a shifter, only if it was a shit ton of damage. What happened to me?
I breathed, even that flared pain through my lungs and mouth as I panted still in my jaguar form. It was one of the better ways to heal, but it felt labored, unsteady. I couldn’t move from the magic, and my body fought back the idea of doing anything. I was in danger; I couldn’t defend myself, which only urged me to fight. I wanted to rebel, but I couldn’t. I felt a hand over my fur, someone muttering to me. It was a calm voice I knew, a scent I knew, and I could breathe. The pain began to ease, magic followed through me, healing with my regeneration. I felt the ocean’s blue waters healing coursing through me, and I went back into the blissful darkness.
I woke on something soft, fuzzy. I had healed enough to return to human form, and everything was no longer on fire or pain. I opened my eyes, to dimmed lights and on my bed, covered with ample blankets and pillows. They were new, they carried no scents other than fresh. Sitting up, the sheet slipped off. I could see the streak of raw pink wounds still in the healing process over my body, it would have to be terrible damage to take this long to heal. It was well into the evening, if not early morning by now. Hours had slipped by as I slept deeply. I looked around the room, seeing everything was in order and Caleb was sitting on a chair relaxing. I shifted over to sit in front of him, waking him with my movements that weren’t as steady as I usually could be, but I managed.
“Caleb, are you all right?”
“Yeah, you took the worst of the injuries, it was bad.” He rubbed his hands over his face, shifting his glasses before fixing them to look back to me. “I thought you died.”
“I am hard to kill.”
“I know, but this nearly did it. You need to heal, hell there are several wounds barely closed. I helped where I could, but I had exhausted most of my energies in the fight.”
“How did we get here?”
“I called your friend, the angry cat, Mr. Molina, who gave me an earful but helped. He also left a shit ton of brisket and burritos in your kitchen. He and some other guys helped out, one named,” he paused to shake his head, “Six had a few choice words as well. I guess he is the cat in charge.”
“Yeah, Six is the president, so he knows?”
“Enough, I guess. I didn’t get to talk a lot, just help them get you here. Some other guy, Oz, I think, got your bike. I tried to talk to him, but he pretty much didn’t acknowledge me but took your bike, and it is back where you park it. I think it needs some work.”
“I will deal with that when I am up and running. I need my phone; angry cats need to know before they get too worried.” He handed me the new phone as I looked at him.
“I switched it over to your new phone, this has a hard case to protect it and it works better.” Shrugging, I started texting my club, thanking them, and catching them up on what happened. There were a lot of messages, but I managed to get a few taken care of and answered. I calmed my friends and would handle them after I took a few more days to heal, Six already had me covered for the weekend and he told me to join them when I could, they would need to see me, smell me, and touch base as we did when things got wild. It put us back together, back as a group. Axel already volunteered to take a run I had for next week to west Texas, and I would take one of his later.
I leaned into the pile of pillows and blankets, reaching out a hand to Caleb. He took it and crawled into the bed next to me. He placed his glasses back on the pile of books to nestle down with me. He held me with care, I would have liked to have been closer, but right now, my body hurt too much to worry about it. I settled my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat calm and steady beneath me.
“Today scared the shit
