"It's fine! I can do it myself!" Gabriel said, and then came into view as he got up from the couch. It was clear he was drunk because it looked like he was about to try and put his own arm back into place and the way he was holding it, made it clear he would just end up breaking it.
"You're going to break it," I said and slowly stepped out of hiding.
Every hybrid in the room turned to me. I hadn't really thought it through when I stepped out there, but when it came to nursing someone back to health, because they had been in a fight, I was a bit of an expert, and that old instinct just came right out.
"Well, well," Gabriel said. "Did we interrupt something?"
I rolled my eyes but still kept them locked on the ground. It felt very intimidating to have all three of them look at me when I was only wearing the king's shirt.
"Do you want help or not?" I asked him, taking a chance, and glanced at him.
"You want to help me?" Gabriel asked as if this sounded strange to him.
"I can just go."
"No, I would much rather have your hands on me than Dominic's."
That made the king growl at Gabriel's inappropriate joke, but even if there was a slight warning in his voice, he didn't tell me I couldn't go closer or even tried to stop me when I gestured for Gabriel to sit down again before I moved to his side. It seemed those three shared a very deep bond, and the king trusted Gabriel to get close to his mate, though his dark eyes were watching us very intensely.
"Son of a ..."
The last part was kind of masked by the growl that came afterwards from Gabriel, but he handled me putting his arm back into place much better than my stepfather ever did. It seemed like he wasn't that bothered by the pain, because afterwards he let me treat his cuts, which were mostly already healing, but just needed to have the dirt and such removed in order to completely close up. It, in a way, showed that not even hybrids were invincible. We could all die.
"I don't have any lollipops to give you, but you handled it like a champ," I joked, which earned me an honest laugh from Gabriel, who was now sipping his drink, he had left on the table in front of us.
I glanced over at the king, who was standing not far away. Ace was right behind Gabriel, but he was watching Gabriel more than me, while the king wouldn't take his eyes off me, but it wasn't the same heat I was seeing in them. It was something else. Something I couldn't really place. Maybe because no one had ever looked at me like that, almost ... tenderly.
"So, are you a nurse?" Gabriel asked. "Or training to become one."
I shook my head.
"I did study psychology, but had to drop out last year," I told him.
"Why?"
I wasn't sure why I had even told him this, and when I looked at him, even if he still reeked of alcohol, it seemed like he was genuinely interested, but I wasn't about to reveal, how my stepfather with his enormous debt, had made it impossible for me to study and had forced me to try and support him and his bad habits. So instead, I said:
"Life."
"Can be a bitch," he finished for me, making me smile a little.
It was strange. I had not smiled in a while. These hybrids weren't exactly what I imagined. Vampires and werewolves, I had run into over the years couldn't get far enough away from me. In their eyes, I had tainted blood. I was never enough wolf. The vampires mostly just didn't like me because I shared nothing with them, but I knew my mixed blood also made them like me even less.
"You should sleep it off," the king finally said, as he saw Gabriel down his drink.
Gabriel smiled and put the glass down.
"Oh right, we were interrupting you two," he joked.
I rolled my eyes again and silently shook my head.
"But tell me is the funny little wolf coming with us tomorrow?"
"Yes," the king said.
Gabriel turned to me, and I looked up at him, seeing him wink at me before he disappeared out of the suite with Ace going to their own rooms, which left me all alone with the king. I wasn't looking at him, but at the doors that had closed behind the two other hybrids. I could still feel his intense eyes on me though, and it made it hard for me to sit still, so I started to pack up the first aid kit, they had found, but he was watching me through it all.
"How did you learn to do it?" I suddenly heard him ask.