Page 8 of Witchblood

“I’m on it, Boss. I’ll sit on him if I have to,” Dylan joked. Something dark crossed Liam’s face, and I could have sworn I caught a glint of yellow in his gaze. The wolf rising. Dylan must have seen it too, because he amended, “Figuratively, I mean. So he can rest.”

Again Liam gave that small nod and stalked past Dylan out of the room. Dylan glanced once in my direction, before stepping out and closing the door. There was a click from the other side, telling me they’d locked me in. As if a simple lock had ever stopped me. I rolled over to get up, but the dizziness was too much and I just lay there panting for a minute. I buried my face in the pillow and closed my eyes. A little bit of sleep was okay. I’d be up and moving in a few hours no matter what Liam wanted. It would take an alpha greater than him to hold me. Even the Volkov hadn’t been strong enough for that.

Chapter 4

The next time I woke it was to the smell of food. Real food. Not just bread and scraps, but eggs, bacon, toast, juice, and coffee. Fuck, I was so hungry. My backpack and clothes were spread out on a chair beside a dresser. The pack was torn, and the clothes were in a jumble. They hadn’t been in the greatest of shape before the attack. I hoped I had something left to wear.

I was alone, and wherever the smell of food was coming from it was close but not in the room with me. Did they plan to torture me with the scent? I sighed and sat up slowly. My head ached, but it wasn’t bad. No more dizziness. My hip hurt more. When I peeled back the blanket I realized I had stitches down my right side curving slightly around my stomach. Apparently the wolf had almost gutted me. Fuck.

It took a good five minutes and lots of struggling to get up without pulling too much on the stitches or falling over from the dizziness. But I stank and could smell a bathroom nearby. There was one door opposite the bed and I suspected that was the bathroom. I even had a vague memory of visiting it a time or two, but wasn’t sure how I could have done that as injured as I was. There were no windows in the room, leading me to believe this was likely the safe room in the alpha’s home.

Most alphas had large compound-like structures for homes. It was a place for the wolves to gather and feel safe. The bigger the compound, the bigger the pack. Safe rooms were created in the center of home to be easily guardable. It was a place for the injured to recover, or betrayers to be held, until the pack alpha could deal with them. I hoped I was considered the former. Not that there was much else the alpha could do to me. I felt like I’d already been run over by a truck.

I clutched the bed for support to keep myself from falling over, wishing the bathroom and my clothes weren’t in opposite directions. I’d have grabbed my clothes and locked myself in the bathroom, but that meant five more steps I just wasn’t ready for. How the hell was I going to get out of here while still feeling weak and helpless? Maybe Liam’s witch was weak. She should have been able to heal most of the cut and the concussion with the help of my own magic. My own magic was just a simple binding spell to reknit my cells when they were strained or damaged so long as my body had the energy to expend. Seemed odd that the witch hadn’t been able to provide more energy or strength to my own spell. I healed a little faster than most humans. Not as fast as wolves. There were other spells I could invoke, but they needed more energy than I could provide. And one spell I only used as a last resort because I was afraid of the damage it could do to others.

The door opened. I stood frozen, naked, too far from the bed to reach for the one thin blanket they’d given me, and not strong enough to dart to the bathroom. It was Liam. His eyes locked on me briefly, just the barest glance over my body before he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. I took another hesitant step toward the bathroom.

“You could have called for help,” he said.

“I don’t need help to piss,” I hissed at him. I might lie in the shower if I could make it that far. But I couldn’t imagine how humiliating it would be to need help to pee. I reached the doorway and opened it to reveal a sizable bathroom. Of course the toilet was on the other side of it. Fuck.

Liam was suddenly behind me, arm wrapped around my waist, holding me up without any sign of strain. “Let me help you.”

My face burned. It was another ten steps or so to the toilet.

He lifted me carefully, his arm a band of steel around my stomach. Before I could decide on a proper answer I stood in front of the toilet and he’d let go, turning his back to me as he started the shower. I sighed as the sudden sound of water covered my embarrassment. I flushed and hobbled toward the shower, steam already rising from it like a siren call. It had been months since I’d had a shower that hot, that deliciously soothing. It would probably hurt, since every inch of me ached, but I still wanted it.

Liam’s arm around my waist stopped me and I made an undignified sound of protest. He had some sort of plastic that he pulled over my stitches, pressing down the edges until it was sealed, then he set me down in front of the shower. I stepped into the spray, not caring if I soaked the whole bathroom or had to have the stitches redone. The heat poured over me in a rain of heaven.

I stood with my back to the spray, letting the water massage away a million aches. The water turned pink as it flowed through my hair. Yeah, I had a feeling there was more than just a concussion. I reached up to touch my skull, fearing what I’d find there. Scars? More stitches maybe? Suddenly Liam’s arms were back around me, hand beneath mine. He was naked, his chest pressed to my back, his hips tilted away from mine.

The angry leviathan of anxiety reared its draconian head for the first time since waking up in Liam’s safe room. I couldn’t breathe. Terror roiled through me, shutting down my brain to nothing but physical sensation. The pain prickling from my arms wasn’t a ward this time, just my body’s reaction to the fear. My soul cowered in terror. Not yet. I wasn’t ready yet. Not enough emotional or physical willpower to survive this again. I was too lost in the fear to try to reach for the desire I could feel tickling my senses.

“Hmm,” he grumbled. “Just stay still. Let me help.”

I’d experiencedhelpbefore. That night a week after I’d told Felix I’d be leaving. He’d been furious. Hishelphad left me broken and bleeding. I’d almost died and had to use a forbidden spell to heal just enough to escape. I wasn’t strong enough to offer much of a fight this time, so I just stiffened in Liam’s grasp, waiting for the attack.

It never came. Instead he gently washed my hair, fingers light as he massaged my scalp. “Breathe,” he whispered. “You are safe. Focus on my fingers, the sound of my voice, the touch of the water on your skin. You are here in my den, safe and protected.” He ran his fingers down my scalp, gentle, almost a petting motion, there was nothing violent or dangerous about it. “I’m going to count back from one hundred. Just listen to my voice. Ninety-nine…”

His words blurred as I fought to bury the panic in the soothing tone of his voice. I sucked in air when he told me to breathe and picked up the count with him somewhere around forty-three. By the time he reached one I was nearly putty in his hands. Relaxed into his touch.

He was pretty clinical about his care, washing me from head to toe and ignoring the tears I refused to admit were falling. Damn him for making me cave to the weakness. Damn him for making me crave safety.

I worked hard not to look at him, and not to examine how his skin was only a few shades lighter than mine. I would never be mistaken for a ‘white’ man. The brown of my skin was almost dark enough to put me on the danger side of the spectrum for any American-grown bigot. My momma had delicate features and had given me a lot of my own slight build. She told stories of her Japanese mother, gentle like a doll with porcelain skin, who’d fallen in love with her black-as-night father. We both had the Eastern tilt to our eyes. My own father was supposed to have been some Native American cowboy she’d met in Texas and had a brief affair with. All I had of him were stories from my mother, heavily embellished as everything my mother said was. It was just something else that made me different.

I wondered how Liam saw me. Was I just thewitchchild? A strange shifter? A mutt of mixed heritages and cultures? Maybe he just saw me as another of his flock to be protected. All the alpha’s I’d met before him were more aloof. They took care of their wolves just fine, but most ruled more like kings. Packs were not democracies. An alpha would not accept a non-wolf like myself even if it was just the inconvenience of my healing. Most alpha’s would have someone low on the food chain care for me if he worried about the Volkov’s reaction. So Liam’s proximity confused me.

As the anxiety faded, I tried to ignore the muscles in Liam’s arms, the solid strength of his chest on my back, and the way his fingers felt on me. The contrast of our skins so alluring. I didn’t know him. It could all be a game. An act. Maybe he was being nice until Felix could come and retrieve me, paying out a nice monetary reward for the return of his troublesome little fox. Still didn’t explain his presence instead of another lesser wolf. An ache inside me burned with something unfamiliar and yet not. Longing. Not fear, desire. I wanted to turn around and bury my fingers in his hair, press my lips to his, and pretend I’d never met another man before him.

Foolish.

I’d never let myself be that weak again. Trust had brought me nothing but pain.

Liam shut off the water and grabbed up a towel. I reached for it. “I can take it from here,” I told him trying to salvage some of my dignity. He wasn’t aroused, though I’d worked hard to no more than glance at that part of him. It was more terror than curiosity. A year wasn’t long enough. Liam was beautiful. A fine specimen of a man that any eye could admire. And perhaps I would have if I hadn’t felt so vulnerable in that moment.

“You can barely stand. Just let me do this. I’ll get you back to bed in a minute. Dylan is changing the bedding, and there will be food. You need to eat to heal.”

“I’m not a wolf,” I reminded him. Removing the smells of other wolves from the bed or forcing me to devour a dozen eggs wasn’t going to cure or even soothe me. Though I really wished I had a den in which to hide and lick my wounds for a few days of safety. Liam’s presence had given me a taste of that kind of safety I hadn’t felt since I’d left my camper behind a year ago. All the wards and spells I’d placed on my camper had kept most everyone out. My biggest mistake was crafting the wards to recognize Felix and allow him in. I’d never do that again. Once I had a space of my own, it would be just mine, no exceptions. “You don’t have to baby me like I’m some abandoned cub.”