He felt the body convulse against him as the bullet ripped through. The shocked look on Agent Smith’s face made it clear the bullet had done its job. Jared had seen that face many times before, usually plowed into the dirt, twisted and crumpled from his distant shot. Sometimes they wore a splatter of blood, like Agent Smith did. Sometimes it just pooled around their bodies, an inching red stain on the earth.
Jared shuddered as a warm, wet liquid slid past his knee—his naked, post-shift body was still clinging to Agent Smith’s. Jared shoved away, climbing up from the floor and shakily pointing the gun at Agent Smith’s head. But the man’s look of shock was fixed. Jared didn’t need to pull the trigger.
Smith was dead.
That didn’t stop Jared from wanting to pump five more bullets into him. At the same time, he was frozen in place, hand shaking and heart racing.
A static of shouts sounded in his ear. Numbly, he dug the earbud out and dropped it to the ground to make it shut up. But the voices kept coming. Nearby. Someone was calling his name. A strangled cry of frustration finally snapped him out of his haze.
“Jared!” It was Grace, still strapped to the gurney and covered with blood. Oh God, the blood. Everywhere.
He dropped the gun, staggered to her side, and tried to force his shaking hands to work the straps. “Grace, Grace…” His damn hands were useless, bumbling. His vision blurred as her blood-soaked form lay before him. “Oh God, Grace, he hurt you.” His voice was a sob. His mind was shutting down. He couldn’t get the straps off. With a growl that rumbled through his entire body, he shifted one handful of claws and ripped the bindings free.
She lurched up from the gurney and wrapped her arms around his neck. The hot, slick feel of her blood sliding across his body made him nearly double over in pain. Jared should never have asked her to do this thing, this terrible, stupid thing of revealing what she was. This was all his fault. His fault.
His arms were shaking as they held her.
“I’m okay,” she whispered against his cheek. “I promise, I’m okay.”
She was hugging him and telling him everything was fine, but the world was closing down around him. Her shredded, blood-soaked clothes pressed against his naked body. Everything inside him clenched and twisted. He was turning inside out with the pain of it.
“Grace, I have to get you… Jace is outside… he can stitch you up.” God, what had he done? Tears threatened to overwhelm him.
“Jared, look at me!” she ordered as she stepped back from him and held him at arm’s length. “I am fine!”
She was absolutely covered everywhere in blood, and yet… somehow she was still standing. He didn’t understand it.
She must be in shock.
He gently took her shoulders in his hands. They were shaking less now. “You’re not fine, sweet Grace. Honey, he’s hurt you. We need to get you some help.”
His legs were weak, probably from the gunshot wounds in his shoulder and through his side, or he’d be scooping her up in his arms right now.
She gave him a crazy half smile that blew his mind, then stepped back out of his reach to the cabinet. He watched in a daze as she grabbed a towel and started wiping herself down. Slowly the blood came off… and what was left behind astounded him. Her beautiful, creamy flesh was crisscrossed with thin white lines, but the blood… the blood all wiped away.
And there were no gaping wounds left behind.
He stumbled over to her, finally in command of his senses again, and grabbed hold of her shoulders, scanning her up and down.
She put her delicate hands on his cheeks and brought his gaze back up to hers. “I won’t say it didn’t hurt.” Her lips trembled in a way that made him want to kill Agent Smith all over again. “But I’m all right now. I think…” She stood a little straighter. “I know I’m different than other shifters. I heal faster. In fact, so much so that I blew Agent Smith’s mind. He decided to test the limits of how fast I could heal. Lots of times.”
A lump surged up in his throat. “Oh God, Grace, I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry? You’re rescuing me, right? That’s not something to be sorry about.” She looked a little concerned now.
A small laugh bubbled up, a crazy one, so he kept it inside. “Yes, I’m rescuing you.” He looked her up and down again, disbelieving, but it seemed just as she said. She had scars—so many scars, God—but no open wounds. Bloody clothes but no bleeding cuts. “Are you really okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”
She smiled. “I am now.” She looked to Agent Smith’s body on the floor behind him. “Please tell me he’s really dead.”