Page 37 of Just One Bite
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Olivia
“I found you,” he whispers in my ear. “Finally.”
A large set of arms is squeezing my head when I open my eyes.
Parker’s scent surrounds me. I recognize the coolness of his sheets, and it all comes back—the burning in my body.
A filmy haze lingers over my memory, and I’m missing fragments.
I attempt to move, and Parker squeezes me, so I crane my head toward the light to see him.
His eyes are closed, but he’s holding me hostage in his arms.
“Parker …”
His eyes shoot open, and he breathes deeply through his nose. “Hey, feel okay?”
“I feel better. I think.”
He releases me, with very little room to wiggle free, and his pupils are blown as he sniffs at my hair.
I assess myself more thoroughly. Nothing hurts. Clothes are on.
“Tell me I didn’t strip for you.” I’m half teasing, but Parker is still smelling me. Only, it’s more subtle. There are bags under his eyes, and the whites are bloodshot. His hair is a disheveled mess, and when I move my head over his chest, I realize he never changed out of his jersey.
“No. Clothes stayed on,” he says .
“You look …” Tired. His eyes are a weird in-between shade of his normal blue and the Were yellow, leaving them a murky green.
“I had to protect you. Someone drugged you. Do you remember?”
“Yeah, most of it. We need to …” Parker isn’t letting go of me. “What?”
“I’m sorry … you just smell different. Do you feel different?”
Then it comes back, the memory of Parker’s teeth in my neck. The burning and aching in me instantly calmed, then I was unable to stay awake for another second.
“You marked me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It was the only way to stop the potion.”
“No … it’s okay. I mean, it’s not exactly like we planned, but this works too. I just don’t feel any different.”
He’s staring at me with a soft, worried expression. It’s strangely docile. My thoughts race, then I remember what I said … what I admitted to.
“This is good. I was hoping it would be the same. That way nothing would change.”
I don’t want the way he feels about me to change because of the mark. I want Parker to still want me in the same way. Just Olivia.
“Yeah. Right.” His eyes stay that weird in-between color, and he turns his head from me.
“Can you see it?”
He moves the hair from my neck. It’s so tender. Tentative. Like he’s afraid too much pressure will hurt me.
“No. It doesn’t show up right away. You’ll start to see it come through tonight, and it will gradually darken.”
I wait for his smile. That confidence to peek through. The elation that even though something terrible happened he kept me safe. Or the cockiness from him marking me, and that I’ll smell just as he intended. But there’s pain behind his enlarged pupils.
“What?”
His eyes dart to mine. “Hmm?”
“You’re looking at me … strange.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Do you feel different?” I ask.
“I …” His nostrils flare, and a muscle feathers in his jaw. “It might change as it develops.”
Before I tell him that doesn’t answer my question, there’s a knock on his door and we separate.
My feet have dirtied Parker’s sheets, and there’s no sign of my shoes or phone.
“Where is our sister?!” Emma’s high-pitched voice pierces the air.
Parker opens the door to let them in, his shoulders falling.
“I knew she’d be in here.” Eva’s eyes widen when she sees me, and she flutters in, huffing in panic. “I was so worried when some random person called me this morning saying they found your phone on the ground.”
Eva is listed at the top of my contact list under Eva–ICE: pls state type of emergency immediately.
“I was wondering why you weren’t texting me any details about the trip. Then when Eva called me, I was certain you’d been killed!” Emma says.
“I’m fine.” I assure them; they’re making me anxious now with their worry.
I fill them in from beginning to end, starting with the messages I received, to the terror when I realized I’d been drugged … and Parker is staring . I try not to notice the heaviness of his gaze, but it’s hard. There’s an intensity to it like a bright light after a night alone in the dark.
He only speaks up to mention his findings on the potion.
“So the point was to get Olivia marked by another werewolf? That’s what the potion does?”
He nods.
“Thank the stars above Parker found you first,” Eva says.
“Yeah, Mom was looking out.” Emma grips my hand, and my heart skips.
How would she react to such a thing? Especially now that I’ve been marked.
We skip the marking part. Well, I skip it, so Parker skips it too. It’s a silent pact to keep that to ourselves for the day. This is the last day it’s a secret. The last few hours before the news breaks and everyone sees me as Parker’s mate.
That’s not the part I’m worried about. I’m sure my sisters will understand, but I’m too groggy to explain today—and I’m more concerned with why Parker won’t stop staring at me like that.
“Someone is targeting you. And I’m going to figure out who,” Parker growls.