It said a lot about had badly the poisoned shifters felt that no one argued.
Just as well. By then reaction was setting in. Godiva’s hands trembled as Bird held out her handbag. “I saw it fall, and got it first thing. Everything should still be in it.”
“Thanks, Bird,” Godiva said, and they all parted.
Rigo slid an arm around Godiva, whose hip was now barking like a hound from hell. Her bad knee howled like a banshee. As for her ribs where Cang had grabbed her, she felt them creak every time she took a breath. And her neck twinged from her head snapping back when Cang had thrown her, before she went into freefall.
“Not far,” Rigo murmured.
Godiva blinked. Here it was again, that inner sense of him. She knew where the cuts were on him without looking. And they were cuts, not scrapes. Likewise, he had to be feeling her own aches. So weird!
And even weirder when she remembered that she could share her thoughts instead of burying them as usual. “This whole mate bond inner phone line is . . . funky,” she said, just to have the fun of saying it.
His smile brightened briefly. “I know. It is for me, too.”
“Funky, but good.”
He didn’t speak, but ran his fingers lightly over the outside of her arm—the one place where she had no aches or pains.
Neither spoke on the drive back. That felt right, too, that they didn’t have to talk. She could sit back, shut her eyes, and feel him beside her
, content to be together in spite of the residue of fear at Cang’s cruelty. It was that mate bond internet again.
When they got to the house, a couple of the house guests were in the living room. Wendy was bringing in coffee and mugs. Any hope Godiva had of sneaking by went out the window when Eve jumped up off the couch. “Godiva, what happened?”
Wendy set the tray down, looking worried.
“I took a fall,” Godiva said, and wondered if this was how Doris, Jen, and Bird had felt when they lied to cover up shifter stuff. “I’ll be fine after a little horizontal time. This is Rigo, by the way.”
“Hi,” Wendy said, her eyes round, as Lily and Eve grabbed coffee mugs.
Godiva felt Wendy’s gaze following them, but she didn’t ask questions. Good—all that could come later, when she and Rigo figured out a story.
Together.
As soon as they got into her room, she insisted that they bandage his cuts first. Rigo sat silently under her ministrations, and then said, “Shall we see the damage?” He glanced at her side.
“How about a hot bath?” she asked, wiggling her brows. “Kill two vultures with one brick.”
He helped her undress. Even lifting away the tunic from her side had her hissing and wincing, “Ow, ow, ow. Damn, that is going to be black and blue from boob to booty.”
“Let me,” he whispered, “kiss it.”
She didn’t think she had a chuckle left in her, but there it was as his soft lips gently brushed over her ribs.
She put a few drops of healing lavender into the steaming bathwater, then they climbed into her huge tub, which was spacious enough for two. Her body relaxed into the water, and the aches gradually eased a bit.
She felt Rigo’s steady gaze, and was going to speak. Then she realized he knew she was not, despite her wishes, up for anything acrobatic. The tenderness in his smile made it clear that he was on the same page. That he would always be on the same page.
He slid over, and gently pulled her against him. They lay there in the swirling water, limbs heavy and tangled.
Sometimes, what a person truly needed was just to be held.
After a time during which she exulted in the silky feel of his skin next to hers, and the sound of his breathing somewhere over her head, she said, “Here I am, over eighty, and I have about as much clue about how to talk relationship stuff as an eight-year-old.”
She reveled in the rumble of his laughter through his chest. Then he said, “Does it have to be either-or?”
She sent a tidal wave surging around as she sat up. “Ow.” She leaned back again. “Am I ever going to get used that?”