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I try to sit up.

“Lie back,” Luc says. “Rest.”

His voice soothes me and I lie down again.

“Where am I?”

“You’re safe. How do you feel?”

“Fantastic,” I say. “Never better.”

“You look it,” he says and smiles at me.

His smile makes me feel warm and safe.

“We got away then?”

“That dog whistle of yours is a magic weapon,” he jokes.

It hurts to talk and I close my eyes again.

“Here,” Luc says, “Drink this. Some painkillers.”

I swallow the pills gratefully. “My mother…” I say.

“Already on it,” he says. “Rest now.”

I lean back.

As I sink into sleep, I mumble to him, “Stay, don’t go.”

I hear him say, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise?” I think I say.

He comes to sit next to me on the bed and carefully, I nestle into him.

Then I fall into the deepest sleep.

Chapter 20

Luc

I suspected that the shifters were using Ruby as a trap. That is why I didn’t go into the forest without a plan and a bag full of weapons. Even so, I had not expected a hundred wolves to jump at me. If it had not been for Ruby’s dog whistle, I would not have made it out of there alive. We would both have been killed.

As I lifted Ruby up into my arms, I felt two wolves attacking me from behind. I managed to shake them off, but their teeth had sunk into my back, ripping out chunks of flesh. I couldn’t get very far in this state, I needed medical attention.

There was a vamp-friendly hotel near McAlister and I called the owner, an old friend of mine called Louis. He gave me the top floor and sent up meds for Ruby and some Extra for me. Extra was a blood product with medication and accelerated healing properties. I could hear Ruby muttering about her mother and knew she was worried about her. I called Dennington and asked him to move her mother to a safe location. Ruby told me the name her mother had been checked in under as well as the name of the facility.

I was shocked at the sight of her.

Ruby looked like she had been in a gruesome car accident. It was hard to believe that her own people had beaten her up like this. She would have scars, perhaps even permanent injuries as a result of the torture she’d been subjected to. I hated that this was done to her because of me.

If I hadn’t come into her life, this would never have happened.

I owed it to her to take care of her and her mother, regardless of what happened between us. She couldn’t go back to her home and would have to begin a new life, one way or another.

I lay down next to her and rested, waiting for my medication to kick in as well. My back was aching and in the mirror, I could see that I would need a doctor so I called Louis and asked him to send someone up.