Jennifer Ashley: Primal Bonds

“I thought I’d be away from the door maybe a minute.” Ronan’s deep black eyes filled. “What if someone had gotten hurt? Or killed? It would have been because of me.”

“No one got hurt but you, you big softie.” Sean’s voice took on that gentle note that made Andrea shiver deep inside herself. “You frightened away the bad guys before anything worse could happen.”

“If I’d been at my post, I would have blocked the door, and none of the bullets would have gotten inside.”

“And then you’d look like a cheese grater,” Sean said. “And be dust at the end of my sword. I like you, Ronan. I don’t want that.”

“Yeah?”

Andrea set down the first-aid kit she’d fetched from the cabinet and perched on the edge of the desk, her hand on Ronan’s unhurt shoulder. “I don’t want that either.”

Ronan relaxed a little under her touch—he needed touch, reassurance, all Shifters did, especially when injured or frightened. Andrea wanted to give Ronan a full hug, but she feared hurting him. She kneaded his back instead, trying to put as much comfort as she could into the caress.

Ronan grinned weakly at her. “Hey, you’re not so bad yourself, for a Fae.”

“Half Fae.”

Anyone else mentioning her Fae blood made Andrea’s anger rise, but with Ronan it had turned into friendly teasing. Ronan squeezed her fingers in his pawlike hand.

“This is going to hurt like hell, big guy,” Sean said. “So just remind yourself who you’ll have to answer to if you turn bear on me and take my head off.”

“Aw, I’d never hurt you, Sean. Even if I didn’t know Liam would rip my guts out if I did.”

“Good lad. Remember now. Andrea, hold the gauze just like that.”

Andrea positioned the wad of sterile gauze under the ragged hole in Ronan’s shoulder as Sean directed. Sean sprayed some antibacterial around the wound, reached in with the big tweezers he’d dipped in alcohol, and yanked the bullet from Ronan’s flesh.

Ronan threw his head back and roared. His face distorted, his mouth and nose lengthening to a muzzle filled with sharp teeth. Blood burst from the wound and coated first the gauze, then the clean towel Sean jammed over it. Ronan’s hands extended to razorlike claws, which closed on Sean’s wrist.

Sean pressed the towel in place, unworried. “Easy now.”

Ronan withdrew his hand, but not before a blue snake of electricity arced around his Collar, biting into his neck. He howled in pain.

Damn it. Andrea leapt to her feet, unable to stand it any longer. She batted the surprised Sean’s hands aside and pressed her palm directly to the wound. Folding herself against Ronan, she held her hand flat to his chest.

The threads of healing spiraled in her mind, diving through her fingers into Ronan’s skin, swirling until she closed her eyes to fight dizziness. She sensed the threads of Fae magic from the sword across the room drifting toward her, as though drawn by her healing touch.

Ronan’s skin knit beneath her fingers, tightening and drying, slowly becoming whole again. After a few minutes, Andrea opened her eyes. Ronan’s breath came fast, but it was healthy breathing, and the blood around the wound had dried.

Andrea drew her hand away. Ronan probed his injury, staring at it in amazement. “What the hell did you do to me, Andy-girl?”

“Nothing,” Andrea said in a light voice as she stood up. “We stopped the blood, and you heal fast, you big strong Ursine, you.”

Ronan looked from Sean to Andrea. Sean shrugged and gave him a small smile, as though he knew what was going on, but Andrea saw the hard flicker in Sean’s eyes. Oh, goody, she’d pissed him off.

Ronan gave up. He stretched and worked his shoulder. “Slap a bandage on me, Sean,” he said in his usual strong voice. “I need to find my clothes.”

Sean silently pressed a fresh wad of gauze to the wound, secured it with sterile tape, and let him go. Ronan kissed the top of Andrea’s head, clapped Sean on the shoulders, and banged out of the office, his energy restored.

Andrea busied herself putting things back into the first-aid kit. Sean said absolutely nothing, but when she turned from tucking the kit back into the cabinet, she found him right behind her, again invading her personal space.

It was difficult to breathe while he stood over her, smelling of the night and Guinness and male musk. She had no idea what to make of Sean Morrissey, the Shifter who had mate-claimed her, sight unseen, when she’d needed to relocate to this Shiftertown.

A mate-claim simply meant that a male had marked a female as a potential mate—the couple wouldn’t be officially mated until they were blessed under sun and moon by the male’s clan leader. All other males had to back off unless the female chose to reject the male’s mate-claim.

When Andrea had wanted to move to Austin to live with Glory, her mother’s sister, Glory’s pack leader had refused to let Andrea in unless she was mate-claimed. The pack leader had the right to disallow any unmated female to enter his pack if he thought that the female would cause dissention or other trouble.

Andrea, a half-Fae illegitimate Lupine, was considered trouble. When Andrea’s mother, Dina, had become pregnant by her Fae lover, Dina had been forced from the pack. That same pack now didn’t want her half-Fae daughter back. But Andrea had needed to flee the Shiftertown in which she’d been living in Colorado, because a harassing asshole, the Shiftertown leader’s son, had tried to mate-claim Andrea for his own. He hadn’t taken her answer—no way in hell—very well.

Glory had turned to Liam, the Austin Shiftertown leader, as was her right, to appeal her pack leader’s decision to keep Andrea out. Apparently the arguments between Glory’s pack leader and Liam had been loud and heated. And then Sean had cut the arguments short by claiming Andrea for himself.

Why he’d done it, Andrea couldn’t figure out, even though Sean had explained that it had been to keep the peace between species in this Shiftertown. But if that was all it was—a formality to satisfy a stubborn pack leader—why did Sean watch Andrea like he did? He’d not been happy with Liam for hiring her as a waitress, and Sean made sure he was at the bar from open to close every night Andrea worked. Didn’t the big Feline have better things to do?

Sean was tall and blue-eyed, and he radiated warmth like a furnace. Andrea loved standing close to him—How crazy is that? I’m hot for an effing Feline. She’d thought that after what Jared, the harassing asshole, had done to her, she’d never have interest in males again, but Sean Morrissey made her breath catch. To her surprise, Sean’s mate-claim had awakened her instincts and made her come alive. She’d never thought she’d feel alive again.

“What?” she asked, when Sean made no sign of moving.

“Don’t play innocent with me, love. What did you just do to Ronan? I watched with my own eyes while that wound closed.”

Andrea had learned to be evasive about her gift for her own safety, but she somehow knew Sean wouldn’t let her. If she didn’t answer, he might try to pry it out of her, maybe by seizing her wrists and backing her against a wall, looking down at her with those blue, blue eyes. Well, a girl could hope.

She made herself turn her back on his intense gaze—not easy—and start straightening the shelves in the cabinet. “It’s something I inherited through my Fae side. Of course it’s through my Fae side. Where else would I have gotten it?”

“I didn’t notice you mentioning that you had healing magic when you arrived. I didn’t notice Glory mentioning it either.”

“Glory doesn’t know,” Andrea said without turning around. “I had a hard enough time convincing Glory’s pack to let me move in with her, not to mention the pair of Felines who run this Shiftertown. I figured, the less of my Fae part I revealed, the better.”