Blackwing Wolf (Kane's Mountains Book 2)(3)

"This ain't my first rodeo, cowboy."

He flinched under her hand, so she moved closer and tried to be gentler when she pulled the torn skin together.

She talked to distract him. "I used to work nights at a hospital. I was  thinking about being a nurse, or maybe a doctor, but changed my mind  after a year working the front desk in the ER. I learned a lot though.  There was a nice doctor that took me under her wing and showed me the  ropes. She was like a mentor, and taught me a lot." Emma shot Dustin a  quick look and said carefully, "No claw marks."

"What?"

She blew out a sigh and pressed another stich into his skin. "You don't  have any claw marks, so that rules out bears and big cats."

"Stop it. Stop with the guessing. I'm not talking about it."

"Fine, but I want to know what werewolves are doing in the area and why  they nearly ripped your throat out, Dustin. This could've killed you."

"Nothing can kill me. I'm invincible," he said through a smirk.

"That's not true. You know it and I know it. The A-Team was annihilated  by Logan and Winter. People die, and tonight it could've been you."

"You would've missed me, huh?"

She wanted to claw that grin off his face. It was a fake one. A forced  one. It wasn't real, and they'd been through enough during the Blackwing  interview process that he didn't have to hide real feelings with  pretend bravado. When Emma jammed the needle into his neck, he snarled  loud enough for her to hear this time. Fast as she could to distract his  wolf from his aggression, Emma pulled the back of Dustin's hair and  leveled him with a look. "What's going on, Dustin."

He stood there frozen, glaring down at her with narrowed eyes. "Careful,  Human. Some shit is too far over your head, and you shouldn't get  involved in things that don't concern you."                       
       
           



       

"You concern me."

A look of shock drifted over his face, just for an instant, and then his smirk was back. "You wanna fuck now?"

She made a pissed-off tick sound behind her teeth and started sewing  again. She would have to cut these stitches out tomorrow when his skin  was cinched, but he needed these for tonight to stop the damn bleeding.

Suddenly Dustin went down hard. His legs just went out from under him,  and he went to the floor. Emma tried to soften his fall, but she was  scrawny, and Dustin was densely muscled.

Shit!" she yelled as she went down with him. He was white as a sheet,  and his breathing came in shallow pants. A thin sheen of sweat broke out  on his forehead, and his pupils were blown.

"Dustin?" she said, slapping his cheek gently.

"Don't leave," he slurred.

"I won't. I won't. I'm here. It's okay. I'll take care of you. Go to sleep, and I'll take care of you."

"My brother." He said it so softly she had to read his lips, but his words made no sense.

"What?"

Dustin swallowed hard and raised his voice just enough. "My brother did  this." He locked his bleary gaze with hers for just a few moments before  his eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp on the tile floor.

Emma rushed to finish stitching him, but it was hard to see through her  blurred vision. His brother tried to kill him? Emma couldn't imagine  Enrique or Lauren ever trying to hurt her, much less rip her apart like  this. She'd been lucky with her adoptive family, but clearly, Dustin  wasn't as fortunate.

Emma cut off the extra suture, checked his pulse, which was slow but  steady, then grabbed a clean washrag from the towel rack. She warmed the  tap water, drenched the rag, and hesitated over his limp body. She'd  never seen Dustin without a shirt on. He had angel wings tattooed on his  chest. They were done well, too, perfectly symmetrical, and showed good  skill from the tattoo artist. His sandy-blond hair was flipped to the  side, and even in his sleep, his torso was so muscular his abs flexed  with every breath. His jeans were spattered in dark spots, but they rode  low on his hips, and a strip of red elastic sat right above the waist  of his jeans. He had good taste in underwear, so there was that. She'd  always been attracted to dark-headed men with dark eyes, but there was  something masculine yet beautiful about Dustin. When he was passed out  and near death, that was, because he had a mouth on him she wanted to  claw off pretty damn often. And she was eighty-four percent sure he was a  pervert.

She knelt beside him and cleaned his skin slowly, gently, so she  wouldn't re-open any of the newly healing bite marks on his ribs and  chest. Dustin was so confident, so quick-witted, she'd assumed him  invincible. Plus, she'd seen him fight in his human form before, the  first day of interviews when the mob of shifters had surged toward Dark  Kane. He'd gone into that fight beside Logan and Beast and hadn't backed  down an inch. She hadn't been able to take her eyes off him. She blamed  those pretty bi-colored eyes of his. Or maybe the sexy, long hair or  his sense of humor.

When his skin was clean of blood and she'd bandaged his neck, Emma  dragged him by the feet to the bed. She huffed and puffed, trying to get  him up onto the mattress, but it wasn't happening. She worked out to  keep up with her people, but Dustin was much bigger than her, and she  didn't want to hurt him even more. So instead she yanked the unmade  blankets off his bed and created a pallet on the floor for him. A couple  of log rolls later, and Dustin looked comfortable enough.

Emma checked his breathing. It was so shallow she couldn't force herself to leave him here alone.

Plus, he'd asked her not to leave.

It was late, and she was exhausted after the adrenaline crash, but she  was terrified he would stop breathing in the night. So she stayed awake,  watching his chest rise and fall, straining her ears for the sound of  breathing. And when her eyes got too heavy to hold open another minute,  she draped her legs across his chest so she could feel his breath and  slumped her head back against the side of the bed.

In the final moments before she fell asleep, she thought of Dustin's  brother. Dustin drove her nuts most of the time, and if she didn't want  to slap him ten times in a twenty-four-hour period, it was a slow day,  but he was D-Team. And though she would never admit it, Dustin felt like  a friend. The most annoying friend she had, but a friend nonetheless.

Something dark and ugly inside of her hated his brother, whoever he was.





Chapter Three




Emma cracked her eye open. The ache in her neck was ridiculous, and as  she took stock of where she was, it made sense. She was lying on  Dustin's pallet and someone had stuffed two pillows under her head. Her  neck was basically at a ninety-degree angle, and when she moved, her ear  hurt. Her hearing aids were small and sleek, but part of them rested  behind her ears and she'd slept on one. She groaned as she sat up, but  could barely hear her voice. Crap.                       
       
           



       

She fiddled with the aids, but both were out of batteries thanks to her  not charging them long enough last night and leaving them on.

It was early October now in the Smoky Mountains, and cold, but she felt  fine thanks to Dustin who had tucked her in like a child. He'd even  shoved the edges of the blanket under her like she was a burrito. On a  paper towel next to her on the floor, her toothbrush sat beside her half  empty tube of toothpaste and a white paper bag that smelled like it  harbored a fruit-filled donut. Maybe she was dreaming. Emma rubbed her  eyes and blinked hard, but nope, not dreaming. Everything was still  there.

When she sat up, the blanket slipped down past her bare boobs. Emma  squawked and yanked the covers back up. Dustin was brushing his teeth at  the sink and smiled cheerily at her through the mirror.

"Why am I naked?" she asked, but could barely hear herself and grew  self-conscious she was speaking too loud and not enunciating enough. She  hated when she didn't have her hearing aids.

Dustin frowned and turned. "You don't remember?" he asked, and clear enough she could read his lips.

Clutching the blanket, she shook her head.

"We fooled around. Twice. I was a stud and you were okay, but we'll improve with time. Your hair looks like a bird's nest."

Emma's mouth plopped open in horror. No. No, no, no, she wouldn't have slept with Dustin. Not him.

Dustin did look quite recovered now with color in his cheeks. And  apparently he'd taken his first aid into his own hands because he'd cut  his own damn stitches out. "You said my dick was huge, and I said thank  you, and you said I was the best you'd ever had, and I said thank you,  and then you asked me to eat you out, and I said, ‘it's not my favorite,  but you saved my life, so okay-'"