Gemini clenched his fist against his leg. “No. They were probably prepared to catch a were. Our blood regenerates faster. Four vamps could feed on a were for several weeks—months even if they provided the were proper nourishment. All they would have to do is clean out the gold from his system and tranquilize him to keep him subdued.”
My mind latched onto the dead raccoon on my doorstep. “Is it possible the wereraccoon was a victim of a botched hunt?”
Gemini leaned back in the seat. “Perhaps. But it still doesn’t explain why he exploded. Or what he was doing following you.”
No. It didn’t. Good Lord, what a night. I leaned over Aric, protecting him with my body as growing anger tightened my chest. He could have been food. My hand clutched his. But then his stomach lurched.
“Koda, pull over!”
Koda veered to the side of the road. I pushed open the door and hauled Aric over my lap. I wanted to rub his back, but not enough skin remained. The salt had expanded the bullet wounds into gaping craters. The sight would have sickened most. Yet it only made me feel deep sadness, mostly because I hadn’t been there to save Aric like he had saved me.
I wiped my tears with the back of my hands. Thankfully, Gemini and Koda gave me the courtesy of turning away. Aric gulped deep breaths of air, but nothing happened. “I’m all right,” he said after a few moments.
No. He wasn’t. I’d have preferred him to hurl. Vomiting would have expelled some of the poison. I hoped Aric hadn’t fought the nausea on my account. But something inside me told me that’s exactly what he’d done. I pulled him back into the car and shut the door, wrapping myself around him as he trembled. I fought the urge to change. My tigress wanted to enclose him in our warmth. Except my beast was too big and the last thing Aric needed was a fur blanket with legs on top of him.
“Hang in there, baby. We’re almost home.”
Koda couldn’t get back to my house fast enough. The minute we pulled into the driveway, my sisters and Liam rushed out to meet us. “Son of a bitch,” Taran muttered when she saw Aric.
“Yeah. Pretty much,” Aric mumbled.
That was bad enough. But then Emme and Shayna screamed when they saw his coloring. In their defense, his gray tone appeared worse in the light of the family room. I ignored their shrieks. “Is the tub ready?”
Emme nodded while keeping her hands clasped tightly over her mouth. I hurried upstairs as the wolves lifted Aric off his feet. I burst into my bedroom and through the double doors leading to my five-piece bath. The steam from the hot water slowed my steps, signaling the torture to come. I stopped next to my Jacuzzi tub, filled to the brim with water. Salt water.
Koda tugged off the blanket around Aric’s waist and he and Gemini lowered him into the water.
And that’s when his roars began.
CHAPTER 14
The water boiled from the effects of the cursed gold leaving Aric’s body. Eventually Aric’s body gave out. He stopped thrashing and fell limp. It scared the hell out of me, but it allowed me to clean his wounds with a scrub brush Koda handed me while Gemini kept his head abovewater. My hands moved quickly, wanting to be thorough yet desperate to be done.
“What would have happened if Aric hadn’t been found?” I didn’t want to ask except it remained a passing question that continued to gnaw at my skin.
“With the hook and the bullets out, and no intervention, it would take his wolf a few weeks to excrete the poison.”
“What if the hooks and the bullets remained?” I asked quietly, wondering whether I truly wanted to know.
Koda tightened his jaw. “The gold would have stopped his heart over time.”
My throat tightened. “How much time?”
Koda shrugged. “Two, maybe three weeks.”
I stopped scrubbing just to take a few slow breaths and rub my face against Aric’s. His stubble scratched my cheek and moistened my skin, but I needed a moment—just one moment. Not caring who saw me have it. Two to three weeks—violently ill and in pain. Only to ultimately die. I sighed. Death by cursed gold seemed the most nightmarish way for a preternatural to go.
Aric’s lips opened and closed briefly. I interpreted it as him urging me on and returned to my work, saving the gaping holes from the hook for last.
Koda handed me a toothbrush straight from the package. I closed my eyes as he gave me instructions. “Scrub and twist all the way through. Don’t be afraid to be too rough. It will only help him.”
I kept my eyes closed when I asked my next question. “Do I—” I beat back my nausea, but just barely. “In order to clean the bullet holes, do I have to dig the brush through his chest and out his back?”