Louisa met Dox on the front porch and ran her hand over Pamela’s head, then pointed into the house. Without waiting for the ogre to come and get me, she instead climbed into the back seat of the truck beside me.
Her hair was cropped short, still growing back after her time spent with a Daywalker who’d used her as bait for me.
“Rylee, do you want to call in your favor to me?”
“Heal us both,” I said, the rib digging in hard. I wanted to cough, fought the urge and held my breath against it.
She put her hands to my ribcage, clucking her tongue as her fingers prodded at me. “The girl I can heal; you are going to need more help than I can give. I will need to call in another Shaman.”
“Do it.” They all owed me a favor, so if I had to cash in two favors to save both our lives, I would do it.
Would I heal on my own, without her help? Possibly. But with my rib so far out of place, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. Even supernaturals healed wrong if the bones were broken too badly, or too displaced. Made for some seriously ugly and misshaped bodies.
She left me there, her beaded necklace and bracelets jangling with each step as she walked away. I leaned my head back. Right there, in that position, I didn’t hurt too badly. The pain still hummed under my skin, but with my eyes closed, I could believe that I was suffering from nothing more than a bad fall.
A whisper of wolf musk curled into the truck and then Liam was there, staring up at me. He didn’t shift back into human form, which worried me. I reached out to him.
“Liam.”
He whined and licked my fingers, shaking his head afterward. Louisa came out, and shooed him away as if he were a wayward mutt, and then she stilled, her eyes widening as she took him in. “I’d heard a rumor that a great wolf had been born. But I didn’t truly believe it.”
“Later,” I whispered.
She pointed at me. “You stay there. We aren’t moving you again; the rib is too close to your heart. But you knew that, didn’t you?” Her shrewd eyes snared mine, and I couldn’t look away. I also couldn’t get enough breath to answer her so I just nodded.
“And you continued on anyway?” Her hands were working fast now, a sharp knife in one as she cut away my shirt.
I wanted to slap her hands away, but even if I could have lifted my arms, I knew she was helping me.
She peeled off my shirt and cut through my sports bra to reveal not only my shattered rib cage, which had some really interesting points pushing up against my skin from the inside, but the black snowflake that had been permanently etched into my breast bone.
“Well, if you can survive a Hoarfrost demon, you can survive this,” she said. The cool air ghosted across my skin and an involuntary shiver grabbed me. Locking my jaw, I could only just stop myself from arching my back against the pain. Louisa shouted for Dox, and the rib shifted, slicing through what was left of my lung—and my world went black.
He was inside the Shaman’s house, shifting, when Louisa shouted for Dox. The fear in her voice reverberated through him. With a growl, he forced his body to hurry. Panting, the last of the shift ripped through him and he stood, grabbed a blanket off the couch and tied it around his body as he ran out the door.
Dox blocked his way on one side, and Louisa blocked his way on the other. Intellectually, he knew that there was nothing he could do to help, but his instincts were to push them aside, bare his teeth, and chase them away from Rylee. To protect her at all costs. From there, he could smell her blood, and it sent him to the edge of his control.
“What can I do?”
“Go get some hot water going on the stove. And stay in the house. There are extra clothes in the guest room.” Louisa’s eyes flicked up to his, briefly, and he saw the command in them. His spine stiffened, and a growl slipped past his lips.
Dox smoothed things over. “Another Shaman is coming, you need to get some clothes on and have that hot water ready for her.”
Frustration coursed through him. Yet again, there was nothing he could do, not really. He knew a make-work job when he was handed one. Shit, Alex could have gotten the water hot—where the hell was the submissive werewolf anyway?
Liam jogged into the house, grabbed some sweat pants and a shirt from the guest room, and yanked them on. He had to stop shifting while still wearing his clothes.
There were two pots of water already on the stove, and all he had to do was turn the heat on. Two clicks later, there was nothing else he could do but wait. And pace.
Not until he’d passed the couch twice did his eyes really flick over it, showing him what his nose already knew if he’d been paying attention. Pamela watched him warily, covered to her chin with a blanket the same color as the couch. Alex was curled up on her feet, his big eyes brimming with tears.