Page 11 of A Twist of Luck (Shifter City Fated Mates #2)
CHAPTER 11
EMME
T he flight to Golden Claw took five hours. I’d never been on a private plane before, and I’d have been thrilled to explore the Reeves pack’s incredible jet, if it wasn’t for the fact that one of my favorite shifters in the entire universe was hurt.
Hunter had placed Kellan in the private bedroom at the back of the plane, and I refused to leave his side, lying next to him and whispering to him for the entire journey.
I had no idea if he could hear me, but I needed him to know that he wasn’t alone.
Exhaustion eventually got the better of me, and I drifted off holding his hand, only stirring when someone lifted me off the bed. “No,” I mumbled as my hand slipped from Kellan’s. “Kellan.”
A rich coffee scent surrounded me as Hunter drew me into his firm chest, his nose sliding along my cheek. “Kellan is right here with us,” he murmured. “You can sleep, and we’ll make sure he stays by your side.”
My exhaustion and Hunter’s comforting scent tugged me back into the darkness, content in the knowledge that this alpha kept his promises.
When I woke up again it was in a panic, worried that I’d missed an update. The rapid beat of my heart slowed when I felt the familiar heat of the alpha beside me. Kellan looked like he was just sleeping, his gorgeous face serene. They’d removed all his body armor and weapons, leaving him in just a plain white shirt. As I snuggled in beside him on the bed, it was hard to believe he suffered from any magical attack.
They had to figure out how to save him. There was no other option here.
A cramp in my gut reminded me that I was only day two-ish into my period, and as I glanced down hoping I hadn’t bled all over the bed, I noticed that someone had placed a towel under me.
Hunter no doubt; he was a surprisingly thoughtful entitled alpha.
Leaning over, I pressed my lips to Kellan’s cheek. “I’m here with you, Golden Boy.”
It was the hundredth time I’d whispered that to him, and I would continue to remind him until the witch figured out how to heal him. All magic had a price and a counterspell, but she was working on a limited timeframe. Which terrified me.
“I shouldn’t have killed her.”
I jerked my head to find Slade sprawled in a huge armchair in the corner, his long legs extended in front of him. Fuck . How in the hell had I missed a giant shifter just sitting there?
His face was impassive as he watched us, but his eyes blazed. “You probably saved the rest of our lives,” I reminded him, my voice broken up. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
His expression remained unchanged. “My first instinct is always violence. The dragon solves our problems with death and destruction, and now Kellan suffers due to my inability to find another path.”
Pulling myself up to sit, I kept one hand on Kellan’s chest, while patting the bed beside me with the other. Slade’s eyebrows drew together, as if he had no idea what I wanted from him, and I didn’t push. I let him take his time.
When he stood, the room shrank around him, and I marveled at this massive, scary-ass shifter finally showing me a sliver of his vulnerability. I was starting to comprehend the true disconnect between Slade and his dragon, and I wondered if this was partly the reason for his coldly calculating need to control the world around him. Was it all a means to help with the internal chaos he could not repair?
Or maybe I was pretending to be a pseudo-therapist and should stick with serving drinks at Luxuria.
When Slade sat, he kept a small distance between us, but we were close enough for me to feel his heat. It reminded me of his comforting presence in the prison house, and how he’d saved our lives when said house exploded. And then again with the witch.
“This is not your fault,” I repeated, firmer this time. “As I told Hunter when he killed Jones, if your instinct is to protect your pack, and there was every chance that witch could have used killing magic on the rest of us, then you did the right thing by destroying her. You protected us and made the hard choices so the rest of us didn’t have to.”
Slade’s gaze was intense, trapping me in what felt like a beam of green light. I couldn’t look away, even as I struggled to convey all my feelings. “You are not a monster, Slade Riverson. You are a protector. Your dragon saved us from the blast. Don’t tell me that wasn’t pure instinct. Not even you could have premeditated and moved that quickly.”
He tilted his head to the side and lifted his hand. There was a breath of sensation against my cheek, and my eyes closed involuntarily. I heard a whispered, “Thank you,” and by the time I opened my eyes again, Slade was gone and all that remained was his scent. His scent and the sense— hope —that maybe I’d finally gotten through to him.
Even in my dazed state, my bladder reminded me that I needed the bathroom, and after brushing my hand gently down Kellan’s chest, I swung my legs off the bed and picked up the stained towel to take with me. I hadn’t paid attention to which room we were in, but as I glanced around at the light blue walls, one of which was completely covered in mounted weapons, combined with the caramel scent, I knew it was Kellan’s.
I’d had no idea he was this into weapons, and it hurt me that we’d had such a short amount of time together. There was so much more to learn… I needed more. I needed forever.
As I moved toward his bathroom, I heard footsteps which were followed by Finley’s scent. I paused, bundling the towel up tighter as I debated hurrying away or remaining where I was. In the end, I let Finley decide what he wanted.
When he froze in the doorway, his broken stare took me in as I hovered and bled all over myself. Eventually my patience ran out. “I’m going to shower. Can you stay with Kel? I don’t want him to be alone.”
He responded with a deep, bear-like rumble, and then a grunt. Ah, lovely. “Great, thank you.”
I forced myself to calmly stride around the bed and toward the exit, my legs aching as the last few days took its toll on my body. It went back even longer than that, really, if you considered the first attempted kidnapping. Or getting dragged to Golden Claw and meeting my scent matches?—
You know what, it had been a fucked-up month, while also one of the best in my life.
As I passed Finley, I held my breath, not emotionally ready for a full hit of his scent. In my room I closed the door and breathed in the clean, cool air. Florence had been in to tidy, and she’d opened my blinds and shutters, letting in the crisp afternoon breeze.
After dropping the towel into my laundry hamper, I was heading for the bathroom when I noticed a large basket sitting on the end of the bed. Upon closer inspection I found it was filled with an array of period related products, including underwear, cups, discs, tampons, pads, painkillers, a hot water bottle, chocolate, and snacks.
I blinked and stared, wondering how they’d managed to get all of this in the short time since we’d returned from Silver City. My throat grew unbearably tight and my eyes watered, my emotionally fragile state unable to hold the tears at bay.
With plans to sob my guts out in the shower, I took a second to sniff the basket, surprised to find Slade’s scent was the most prominent. With just a hint of Hunter’s too. Our entitled alpha took the care of his pack very seriously, and I’d anticipated this would have come from him, but the dragon was unexpected.
Piece by piece, day by day, these alphas chipped away at the protective barriers I’d been erecting around my heart—rewiring the parts of my brain that had been determined to never rely on or feel attached to this pack.
At this stage, if I had to leave them for any reason, it would be akin to an addict weaning off their drug of choice. Mine was apparently dominant, possessive alpha males.
Leaving the basket for after my shower, I entered the bathroom and cranked the water as hot as I could. My skin itched, and I couldn’t wait to scrub myself clean. When I stepped under the stream of water, heat engulfed me, and trails of red ran down the drain. Not all of that was from my period; that witch’s blood had remained in my hair, and it was somewhat cathartic to watch the last of her disappear.
Fuck her . How dare she hurt my Kellan.
The first sob was loud, ripping from my chest as I curled in on myself. Fuck her. FUCK HER! She needed to be here so I could kill her again, tear her to pieces to assuage this pain crippling me. My knees buckled, and I would have crumpled to the tiled floor, but strong arms caught me as I went down.
More sobs burst from me, gut-wrenching in their intensity, and my tears fell so fast that I was blinded. Not that I needed to see to know who was with me. Both logic and scent told me it was Hunter, the one who held me in the shower when my world destructed.
“I’ve got you, baby girl,” he whispered. “Fall apart. Fall all the fucking way apart and trust me to hold the pieces. Until I put you back together.”
My scream was guttural, and I didn’t restrain myself as I raged and cried and hated on the world. My stomach heaved, and I would have vomited if there’d been anything in my gut. I hadn’t been able to eat a single thing on the plane, too focused on Kellan.
Hunter’s hold never wavered as he wrapped me tighter, both of us pressed against the shower wall, as I screamed against his chest. He did exactly as he said and held my pieces, until eventually I quietly sobbed through my pain.
Without letting me go, Hunter reached out for my washcloth, added some of the peach-scented bodywash, and gently dragged it over my skin. He washed away blood I’d missed, and down my thighs where new blood slid, and not even once did he show any reaction to my period or my brokenness.
If anything, he was gentler than ever as he caressed my stomach, the slow soothing swirls of the cloth feeling like heaven, and as my eyes fluttered closed, I realized that Hunter was putting me back together. Another promise he’d kept.
“Kellan is going to be okay,” he murmured as he continued to soothe and clean me. I was too wrecked to do more than trace my fingernails gently up and down his biceps, moving over the geometric pattern of his tattoo, while listening to his calming and reassuring words. “I refuse to ever lose a member of my pack. I’ve kept you all alive up to this point, and that’s not going to change with our Golden Boy. Do you understand, Emmeline? Kellan has no choice but to recover, because I never admit defeat.”
My chest tightened. “He took that blast for me. He sacrif—” I couldn’t finish.
“He did, and he’d be so fucking happy with himself if he was awake,” Hunter replied, his huge chest rumbling under my face. “You’d tell him he was a good boy and give him a hug, and he’d be swinging his dick around, about to come in his pants. I promise, that’s still our future. This is not the last we’ve seen of his annoying ass.”
I chuckled hoarsely, surprised I could still find anything humorous. “He’s perfect, you know.”
Hunter stilled, the cloth pausing on the small of my back. “I know, baby girl. I fucking know.”
We stayed together under the beating water for a long time, and when he dried me off, there was a sense of peace in my soul that almost equaled the pain.