Hannah Pole - Silence of the Wolves

‘Right. Now change back into a man,’ she croaked.

Leyth did as he was asked, reversing the process, allowing his body to break and reshape. He could feel Tamriel watching him intently, her keen eyes searching for any hidden trick, any explanation for what was happening. After all, magic rarely had a logical explanation.

‘Oh hell,’ she stammered when he was finally finished, eyeing him as he studiously dragged the little towel around his waist to cover himself. ‘You really are a werewolf.’

‘Yeah.’ His voice was hoarse, shifting twice in quick succession would do that to you. ‘So are you.’

‘I can…’ She absently rubbed her eyes. ‘I can do that ?’

‘Well, we’ll see.’

She cleared her throat. ‘That doesn’t explain why I’m not practically dying. If this wound was as bad as you’ve made it out to be, how am I still breathing?’

‘Wolves have exceptional healing capabilities. You’ve slept through the worst of it. We can heal a broken bone in a matter of hours. What would kill a human only wounds us.’

‘Right.’ She snorted, though even as she tried to laugh it off, he could see her mind working at a hundred miles an hour behind those green eyes. ‘I’ve always been a fast healer, cuts go in hours not days, bruises are gone in minutes.’

‘And now you’ve been through your fever, you will heal even faster. You have to as a wolf. Your body needs to be able to break down and rebuild itself quickly when you change and, as a result, can heal much faster than that of a human.’

Leyth watched Tamriel as she tried to digest everything that had happened to her over the last few hours.

‘My fever?’

‘You went through the fever over the last few days. Doc and I looked after you.’

‘I was in a medical clinic, wasn’t I?’ She winced.

‘Yes.’ Leyth confirmed. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah, my head just hurts,’ Tamriel replied. Crap, he realised he hadn’t even offered her a drink. He was such an arse. Shooting to his feet, he stalked into the kitchen, filled a glass with water and rooted through her drawer for some asprin.

‘Here.’ He handed her the water and, as she took it, her fingers brushed his, sending ripples of heat shooting up his arm. For a heartbeat he stood, staring at his hand. What the hell was that ?

‘You should—’ He cleared his throat. ‘You should let me check that.’ He waved a hand towards her stomach.

‘OK,’ she said, sipping the water. She looked a little dazed still and, to be honest, he was surprised she was going to let him. Hell, this female had so much fight in her; she was so irritatingly stubborn, he had honestly expected her to fight him, to suffer through the pain and try to do everything herself.

‘OK then.’

Yet as he looked at her, he could see through that strength, and he caught a brief glimpse of the vulnerable, scared female hiding underneath. The female who was in a great deal of pain, who had literally just witnessed her world come crashing down before her.

‘I’m going to move you, if that’s OK,’ he grunted, watching her carefully.

‘Do it,’ she replied, locking eyes with him. He watched that vulnerability disappear and the annoyingly cold determination fill her gaze. Carefully he moved forward, sliding his arms around her. As her skin touched his, those bizarre ripples of heat flowed through him once again.

What on earth was happening to him? He hadn’t been with a female for Maker only knew how long. His traitorous manhood leapt to attention, making his heart thud even harder. He needed to get laid. His body was betraying him at the sight of any female, obviously. And this was one female he did not want to get involved with. Hell, he didn’t want to get involved with any female.

Shoving those ridiculous thoughts aside, he focused on wrapping his arms around her and then lifted her fragile body up off the sofa as carefully as he could, not wanting to hurt her. Slowly, he spun her around so she was lying on her back on the sofa, and gingerly fingered the sheet covering her.

‘Just do it.’

Damn, she was infuriatingly stubborn. Here he was, trying to be nice and gentle and she was barking orders at him anyway. Bunching up one of the discarded blankets, he draped it over her chest so she could cover herself while he checked her stomach. She held the blanket tightly around her breasts as he carefully slid the sheet covering her downwards, exposing her stomach.

Leyth caught himself almost sighing as her pale skin slowly came into sight. What the hell had come over him? Telling himself to get a grip, he unwrapped the bandage on her abdomen. It was a little awkward, but this strange moment was the closest he’d been to a female in years. His heart was hammering his ribcage so damn hard he wasn’t entirely sure the thing wasn’t going to punch straight through his skin and out the other side. Goddamn he needed to get laid.

Finally the bandage gave way to her milky skin, and as he lifted the soft gauze, the horrific wound came into sight. Lord almighty, it was bad. Though it was healing well, the wound was still huge, a circular hole as big as his own fist marred her skin just to the left of her belly button. The bleeding had stopped, but the skin was puckered and looked incredibly sore.

‘Holy hell,’ she exclaimed, looking down at herself.

‘Told you it was bad,’ he muttered, setting the bandage aside and reaching for the medical bag Doc had left behind. He pulled out some disinfectant and antibiotic cream and began to clean the wound. Tamriel hissed as the liquid hit her, making him curse internally as his eyes caught hers. She had closed her lids over those emerald eyes, clearly not wanting to look weak in front of him, yet he could see the tears threatening to spill.

‘It’s OK,’ he said soothingly. Damn, he was no good at this nice guy crap. Yet all he wanted to do was look after her, stop the pain and the hurt, and ease the confusion riding her mind. Where the hell were these thoughts coming from? ‘I’ll be done in a minute, hang tight,’ he added gruffly.

When the disinfectant had been applied, he smeared cream across the wound, making her delicate features twist into controlled agony. Anger flared, roaring to the surface. It was anger at himself for scaring her to the point that she felt she had to run away from him. It was his damn fault she was in this much pain and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

‘I’m going to put a fresh bandage on, cool?’ he said as calmly as he could, though his mind was anything but calm.

‘Yup,’ she whispered.

When he was finished, she sat up and put weight on her feet, wincing. He could literally feel the waves of fear and pain washing off her, see the tears wanting to spill and watched as her face contorted with unspoken agony, yet even as he could see, hear and sense the pain she was in, he could see her desperately trying not to show him that fear; she wanted him to believe her to be strong, to show no weakness. And it was more than a little infuriating.

‘Ready?’ he grunted, sliding a hand awkwardly underneath her back and lifting her midriff off the sofa, a combination of his efforts and hers had her arching her back in one hell of a curve so he could quickly wrap the bandage around her, keeping the gauze in place.

But as she arched, he couldn’t move. His breath hitched in his throat as his gaze took her in. Unwanted images flickered through his mind, images of her arching her back like that for him in a very different way. Desire punched him, hard, hitting below the belt.

‘Do it,’ she grunted.

Crap. He really needed to get away from this female before he did something he would regret. He could not be getting involved with any female, let alone one as vulnerable as Tamriel.