Page 63 of Pack Choice

I follow his gaze and my head swims, black spots dancing across my vision. There’s a rip in my arm, the skin hanging loose, blood pouring down my arm.

“It’s okay,” Ford says, tossing his phone onto the seat beside us. “Just breathe.”

I try, but nausea burns in my throat and the pain in my arm smarts violently. “Come on, Molly, breathe for me.” I suck in a feeble, wobbly breath. “That’s it, good girl. In … Out … In … Out … You’re going to be just fine.”

“You need to stem the bleeding,” Colt says firmly.

Ford nods and gently he shifts me forward in his lap and reaches for the neck of his dress shirt, pulling it over his head and ripping the material in the process. He grips the cotton between his teeth, ripping it some more, until he has a strip of material in his hands.

“Omega,” he says, capturing my gaze with his own, “this is going to hurt.” I whimper, it already hurts so much. “It’s okay, little butterfly, I’ve got you. Just keep looking at me and breathe.” He takes a deep inhale himself, his wide chest expanding. Then he grips my arm in one hand and with the other pinches my sliced skin together.

I scream. The pain soars straight through my body.

“That was the worst of it,” he tells me.

“You’re doing really well, Molly. Good Girl,” Colt adds.

“Ready?” Ford asks.

“Y-yes.”

He wraps the material tightly around my arm, over the wound. It stings but it’s not so painful this time, and watching his face is a huge distraction.

It’s his eyes. The way they dart with concern from side to side. The honey color so vivid against the ivory white. Vivid and translucent, like there’s a depth, layer after layer of that viscous hue.

His brow furrows in concentration and I can see the different colors in the strands of his hair too. Not one homogeneous color, not simply jet, but many – browns and blacks and even coppers.

Then my eyes stray lower, to his throat, where his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, where a chain hangs around his neck, a collection of dog tags resting between his muscular pecs. Above his heart is a tattoo of a crest, the crest of his regiment. Names are scribbled below it. It’s the only inks he has.

My gaze wanders lower still to where his rib cage ends and his abs begin, three rows of tight muscle.

I want to touch him, snuggle my body against his bare skin. My heart is racing, my head light from the blood I’ve lost. I want to feel safe.

He ties the two ends of the material together, then examines his handiwork. I peek too, seeing that my blood is already seeping into the white cotton.

“There’ll be a doctor there waiting for you. They’ll stitch this up properly for you.”

He lifts his blood-stained fingers to my face, stroking his thumb along my cheek bone.

“All right?”

“Ish,” I tell him with a wobbly smile.

“Does it hurt anywhere else?”

“My neck,” I say, rolling my head, “and my ribs.”

“Bruised,” he says.

“Colt?” I say, turning my head towards the alpha driving. “Are you okay?”

“Absolutely. Don’t you worry about me, sweetheart.”

I nod again and then I do exactly what I shouldn’t do, something I’ve had no invitation to do, but something that my body does automatically. I snuggle in closer to Ford, resting my cheek against his chest, listening to the reassuring thud in my ear. There’s no tension in his body this time. He tugs me in even closer, tucking me under his chin, encasing me in his arms and purring for me quietly.

It’s like a sedative. Like magic. That sound. The way his ribcage vibrates against me. It smoothes away the pain, the shock, the worry.

I’m not sure I ever want to move. Wound be damned.