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He jerked and fought against it, but then finally, he slumped, and Jagger hooked him around the chest so he didn’t fall on top of me, rolling him away.

Kurgan lay on his back unconscious, and I lay beside him, trying to catch my breath.

“Goddammit, Sutton, I told you not to touch him.”

I barely heard what he was saying, every one of my healing powers called me to the big male sleeping heavily beside me.I pushed myself up, turning to face him.Sitting cross-legged, I held my hands above him and moved them over his massive, muscular body.

“He’s suffering,” I said, letting Jagger know what I felt, what I saw.“The pain inside him, it surpasses anything he just did to himself.”It was like a burning ache deep in his belly that had tendrils reaching up from the top of it, like brambles twisting and stabbing, filling his chest.

“He has a female,” Jagger said.“A mate he can never claim.”

I looked up at him.“Why?”

“The last time he saw her, he almost killed her.”

I bit my lip as tears filled my eyes, because I felt it, that moment, it caused a scar deep inside him.“He’d never do that again,” I rasped.“He knows he did wrong.That moment, it tortures him.”

“We can’t control him, we can’t risk letting him free,” War said.“And that female, he might not mean to hurt her again, but he will.She’s been through enough.”

“Can you do something, to make this easier on him?”Jagger asked roughly.

I shook my head.“There’s nothing I can do to ease that kind of pain.It’s not magic…” I swallowed dryly as the reality of what caused his agony hit me.“It’s fate.Stopping it…it’s impossible.”

Jagger made a rough sound, and my heart thudded in my chest.I refused to look up.

“Can you heal the damage he’s done to himself?”War asked.

“I can do that.”I got to work while Jag and War watched, staying close just in case he woke.Hounds healed fast, but this kind of damage would have taken time, especially with the pain he carried inside.That kind of agony affected everything in a being, including the physical.“I’ll make a potion you can add to his water.It’ll keep him a little calmer.”

“Thank you,” Jag said.“That would be a huge help.”

“No problem.”My heart was beating furiously in my chest now.Everything that had just happened here, seeing inside this hound and the way being separated from his mate affected him, was getting to me.Did Jagger ache this way?

Did he carry a jagged ball of agony around inside him now as well?

I watched as he dragged Kurgan over to a pallet against the wall.War helped him lift the big male onto it, then Jagger covered him with a blanket.

He and War said their goodbyes and the alpha left.Jagger helped me gather my things, then took my hand again, and led me from the room, shutting the door behind him.

“You were almost hurt,” Jagger rasped.“I told you I’d keep you safe, and then?—”

“And you did,” I said, hating what I heard in his voice.“He didn’t hurt me.”Jagger was trembling, it was subtle but I felt it.“I’m fine, Jagger, honestly.”

He nodded, staring down at me in a way that made my stomach squirm.“Do you really think I’m a warrior?”I asked before I could stop myself.But the things he’d said to me, before I kicked him out of my car, had been going around and around in my head.

“Fuck, yes.”His hand lifted to the side of my face, and as soon as he touched me, he released a shaky breath.“You’re brave, Sutton, and tough…and so fucking beautiful I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m near you.”

My heart thumped hard in my chest, and I immediately shook my head.“I look like a monster.”

He cursed as his gaze searched mine, sliding over my face, taking in the black veins that pooled below my red and black swirling eyes.

“Fuck, female, the way you look now, so deep in your demon, you look…you’re fucking beautiful.”His thumb slid across my cheek, tracing one of my black veins, and he drew me closer.“Both versions of you, sunshine, take my fucking breath away.”

I shook my head again.How could he mean that?

“You doubt me?”I’d pushed him away, over and over, and it had taken a toll.Feeling Kurgan’s pain, his desperate craving for his mate, I couldn’t do it again, not right then anyway, not after that, and not with Jagger so close telling me he thought I was beautiful.

I dipped my head, not wanting him to see how much I wanted his words to be true right then.He took my chin, tilting my head back, forcing me to look up at him.“You doubt how much I want you?”He shook his head.“You truly doubt how fucking stunning I find you, all the time, including this version of you?”