“Shit!” Noah snapped, making quick work of checking all the bruises covering the small woman’s body. “Any idea what she is yet?”
“Human,” his father said softly as Noah nodded to himself, “I’m going to need an x-ray to see how much damage there is.”
“She has bruised ribs, internal bleeding, but it’s not serious. They knew what they were doing,” Ephraim said evenly, his eyes turning red as he watched the small woman that had gone through hell. “But she’s burning up. She’s probably been sick for a while. She was a bit out of it when we got to her.”
“Flu,” Noah said, nodding as he shifted his attention from checking her injuries to getting her covered and warming her up. “She looks pretty dehydrated. Any idea when the last time she ate or drank anything was?”
“Five days,” his father said hollo
wly as Noah nodded and set to work on Indie as he glanced towards Trace. “What happened to her?”
“She died,” Trace managed to get out.
“What?” Noah said, rushing over to take Samantha and-
“Oh, shit!”
Backed up quickly when Trace allowed his eyes to turn red and growled the only warning that the human was going to get.
“Don’t come between a Pyte and his mate,” Kale mumbled into his pillow as everyone in the room murmured in agreement.
Clearing his throat, Noah nodded, “Duly noted,” as Trace backed up until he found a corner and sat down so that he could hold her, not ready to let her go.
Not yet.
*-*-*-*
One simple kiss and he was ready to explode. That had never happened to him before. He’d always been calm and collected during sex, making sure to cover all of the bases, foreplay, condom, and an orgasm for his partner, before he allowed himself one, but right now he was struggling not to fuck her hard for the relief he desperately needed. Had he ever wanted a woman more? He didn’t think so and wasn’t going to look too much into that at the moment since he was struggling to stay in control.
“I missed this,” Zoe moaned into his mouth.
“Kissing?” he asked, groaning when she slid her warm little tongue against his.
“Mmmhmmm,” she said against his mouth as her hands slowly slid away from his hair and down his back only to come around the front and gently trace his chest and stomach, driving him out of his mind and making him wish she’d slide her hands a little south and trace something else that needed her attention.
When her hands slid around to his back and down until they cupped his ass whatever control he’d had snapped. He deepened the kiss, devouring her mouth with more passion than he’d ever felt in his life. He ripped her towel away, ignoring her shocked gasp as he moved over her, urging her back up on the bed until he settled his weight on top of her, forcing her to lie back as he-
“Someone fucking shoot me,” Nathan said, sighing heavily from the bed next to his sister.
After he’d regained consciousness, Nathan sat up, looking dazed as he glanced around the room. When he saw his sister lying unconscious several beds away from him, he’d pulled the wires out of his arms, climbed out of bed and slowly made his way down the room. After making sure that she was okay, he’d turned around and shoved the shifter off the bed before climbing onto the freshly vacated bed, closed his eyes and promptly fell back to sleep.
“And then what happened?” came the softly whispered question that had Trace looking up from the book that he was reading to his wife to find four women watching him.
Clearing his throat, he gestured towards his wife who was still in her coma, “She likes it when I read to her.”
“No one told you to stop,” Izzy said, gesturing for him to get on with it with a forkful of chocolate cake while Indie sat on her bed, sipping from a juice box that Marc had given her, watching him through innocent baby blue eyes as she nodded in agreement.
“We’re gonna need you to go back to the part about the kissing,” Kara said as the rest of the women nodded in agreement.
“I love his voice,” Madison said with a dreamy sigh as the shifter two beds over stood up, reached over and snatched the plate of chocolate cake from the small Sentinel, glared and returned to his bed, grumbling as he finished it off in one bite.
“Me, too,” Kara readily agreed as Trace sat there, not really sure how to take that.
“Keep going,” Izzy said, gesturing for him to get on with it.
Lips twitching, he looked back down at the book when movement from the door caught his attention. He looked up and found his father standing there, watching him. Without a word, he stepped back from the door and walked away, letting Trace know that his reprieve was finally over.
“We’ll watch her,” Madison promised with a warm smile as Trace stood up and after he leaned over and kissed his wife’s forehead, he forced himself to walk away.