Page 7 of Witchblood

“Friendly pack you have.” I couldn’t help but feel bitter about him sending wolves to follow me. Howluckywas I to be found? Just another controlling alpha. I tugged the blanket up further. My hair felt crusty, likely from blood and I was still light-headed. In fact, my whole body ached as though I’d gone through a really intense workout with the trainer from hell. Running, right this second, wasn’t an option. I’d have to heal, which left me vulnerable and in Liam’s care. I really hated the idea that I’d have to stay for a few hours. Days was not possible. Especially now that Liam’s pack knew about me.

“The wolves who attacked you were not mine. I was hoping you knew them. Two of them got away when we stopped to help you, or I would have followed them. I was more concerned about your injuries at the time. Though I do have a handful of wolves out searching for them. Your car is being towed to a local garage.” It didn’t sound like he was lying, but some alphas could do that, mask the truth by simply believing what they said.Apadid it all the time.

“Can’t afford to fix it anyway,” I said. The Beetle had been reknitted together at a dozen shops across the country, and with more magic than most mundane folks would ever experience in their lifetime. The shredded heap the wolves had left was better off as scrap metal. Not even magic could put a car back together.

I tried to sit up, only to be hit with a wave of dizziness so bad I thought I was going to hurl. “Fuck.” Nausea, vertigo, ear popping. A concussion. It wasn’t the first time I’d had one of those.

Liam’s arms wrapped around me and laid me back down. One hand cradled my neck as he adjusted the pillow beneath me. My vision swirled in colors. I couldn’t go running with a concussion. It had been how the vampire ended up trapping me the last time. My stomach roiled with unease even as my vision began to clear to reveal Liam hovering uncomfortably close.

His fingers actually gripped my hand, pressing into a spot in my palm. The nausea faded. I’d have to remember that trick for the next time. Sadly, there would be a next time since someone was always beating me up. Felix said it was my mouth that got me in trouble, but I still thought picking on the smallest guy in the room just meant someone was compensating for something.

“You didn’t recognize the wolves?” Liam asked again. “I had heard your nose is almost as good as most werewolves.”

“No. I didn’t recognize them,” I clarified. He needed to stop touching me. It was turning me on. Hell, his touch made my skin sing. It was an odd feeling. Normally I didn’t like people touching me.Prickly.Only for some reason his touch was comforting.

He traced the tattoos around my left wrist. My left arm was almost completely sleeved in ink. Some of the spells made it hurt too much to use, which was the reason I’d gone with my left rather than my right, since I was right-handed. The right had a few, but not the mesh of color of the left. The right one bore a handful of pale scars. Mostly from cuts for blood to seal a ward. They usually healed, but some I kept reopening because it was just easier to follow the line already there. His fingers traced a warm path over each and every one of them. If I’d been less injured, I’d likely be uncomfortably aroused.

“Tattoos don’t stay for us. It heals,” Liam said absently, his gaze focused on his fingers. I knew that. It was just something else that set me apart from the wolves. His touch found a spot that had been covered in an elaborate batch of woven bramble. A detailed protection and healing spell all in one. Beneath it had been a wolf. Sometimes the wolf still ached in my skin. The outline of it would redden and rise up in my flesh like an allergy. Usually only when Felix got near since it had been for him. A declaration he hadn’t shared which is why I’d covered it. There had been no actual magic in the original tattoo, but sometimes things evolved that way.

I jerked my arm out of Liam’s grasp. “Appreciate your help, Alpha,” I told him neutrally. “I will be on my way as soon as I’m well enough.”

Liam stared at me a moment, expression blank. There was something oddly familiar about him. He was powerful. Crazy powerful, unless I was mistaken, which was a rare occurrence. But he held it in check. He had no need to flex his power, or threaten those around him, because his presence was just that large. Only I hadn’t noticed it in the bakery. Was he that good at hiding what he was? Or had I been distracted? He was the quiet scary, likeApa. The smiling and kind face no one would suspect until it was too late.

Finally, he nodded as though making some sort of decision he didn’t share. “Stay a few days. When you’re well, we’ll discuss this again.”

“Nothing to discuss,” I told him.

He gave me a look that probably cowed lesser wolves. But I’d lived my whole life in the shadow of the Volkov. There was no scarier wolf than the Volkov. I’d once glimpsed the monster inside him. Not his wolf. Not exactly. Something darker, more sinister. The tiny peek I’d had scared me half to death. I’d been twelve or there about, just beginning to explore alchemy. It had taken me weeks to stop avoiding him. And I only had because he looked so sad when he saw me duck away to escape being in his presence.

“I’ll be doing you a favor if I leave sooner, rather than later,” I told him. “Felix will know I’m here within hours.”

“And he’ll do what?” Liam wanted to know. “He has no claim to you. The Volkov has made that clear. Felix would need permission to enter my territory. Which he doesn’t have.”

I didn’t think Liam was any match for Felix. Felix Volkov was a frightening man. Frightening, beautiful and ancient. I thought Felix around two or three hundred years old, but could never get an exact date from him. His current wife was his sixth, which was why he thought I shouldn’t care. Who wouldn’t want to be the lover of a man so rich and powerful, the son of the leader of the entire country of werewolves? Who wouldn’t want the money and protection of an ancient wolf most people feared? Me, apparently.

A grim smile curved the edges of Liam’s lips. “You don’t think I can protect you.”

“I don’t need anyone’s protection.” Only I was lying in bed with a concussion after being saved by a couple of werewolves from other werewolves. At least he was nice enough not to point out how terrible of a lie my statement was.

There was a knock on the door.

“Enter,” Liam called over his shoulder.

A younger blond man entered. He looked early twenties. His hair fell over his shoulders in golden waves. He wore jeans and one of those striped button up shirts like people in the movies from Texas wore, and cowboy boots. He wasn’t pretty, not like you’d expect with the long hair, but he wasn’t ruggedly handsome either. He was more boy next door above average. His eyes were huge and brown to accompany the wide smile he wore.

“Boss, Carl has gone to bed for the night,” the man said. He even had a thick Texan drawl. It made my heart ache for home, but I didn’t recognize the man.

“Dylan,” Liam acknowledged. “Dylan is my third. Carl, who left earlier, is my second. Dylan will be taking over guard duty for now. I will return to the scene of your attack and see if I can track the wolves.” Liam tilted his head in my direction. “Do you think Felix sent them?”

“He doesn’t have his own pack,” I said. At least I didn’t think Felix did. He was too volatile to ever have his own pack. WhileApahad never actually said it in those words, he’d implied it on more than one occasion. “They didn’t smell like Volkov wolves.” But my adoptive father specialized in strays. He took in all manner of werewolves, saved them or killed them. It was just his way, and why he’d ended up with me.

“Hired?” Dylan said, more to Liam than me. “Seems like overkill and more than a little risky given the circumstances. Everyone knows not to touch thewitchborn. Xander has always been really protective of his strays. And the stories about his fox child have made it all the way across the globe the last I heard.”

“I’m not his,” I told them. “He just got stuck with me.” Did Dylan know the Volkov? Not many outside the Volkov pack calledApaanything other than the Volkov.

Liam just gave Dylan the barest of nods. He seemed reluctant to get up, but after a moment did. His hands fell away from my skin, taking with him his warmth. He stood, towering over me for a minute, shadows swallowing most of his face. He turned toward Dylan. “He needs rest.”

I wish I could have placed his accent. It sounded old world, new American maybe. Not English. Or at least not quite. But I could have listened to him talk all day and analyzed the melodic staccato of his words. Living in the Volkov’s pack had given me a lot of accents to store a mental database of global regions.