Pack Poisoned, page 3
part #2 of Thrown to the Wolves Series
“What is up with you Hawthornes and watching me sleep?” Groggily, she scrubs a hand over her face, grimacing as she realizes that she was drooling and hastily wipes away the evidence. “You’re going to give me a complex.” Stretching, she hisses in a sharp breath. “Can’t sleep?”
Simply grunting in agreement, I skip over the topic. “Let me check your leg.”
She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t protest as I slip out from beneath her. Flopping onto her back, she extends her arms above her head and arches her back in a languid stretch, waking up more fully.
I pause at her feet, raising an eyebrow. “That’s not nice.”
Pushing herself upright, she gives me a look of genuine confusion. “What’s not?”
Scoffing, I gesture at her. “Rolling around in my shirt and some tiny shorts, splayed across my bed and thrusting your tits up in the air. You’re hurt; stop taunting me with what I can’t have.”
Chuckling, she reclines on her elbows. “Hate to break it to ‘ya, but none of that was for you. I slept at a weird angle and need to crack my back, but it’s difficult without a counter or something to lean back against.”
Heading over to my desk across the room to grab some fresh supplies, my inner wolf perks up his ears. A trickle of satisfaction rolls through me with her words, giving me something that I can actually do for her. “I’ll get it when we’re finished with this.”
She pivots so that I can stand on the side of the bed where the footboard won’t be in the way, lying horizontally across the mattress. “Well now I know I’m living in a fairy tale, because there's no way that I have access to such good healthcare in real life.”
Carefully lifting her leg, I untuck the wrap bandage at her thigh and begin unwinding it. When it’s fully exposed, my stomach flips at the sight, though it’s the kick in the ass needed to wake the sulking beast in my chest. Gently, I ease it back onto the bed like the limb is made of glass. She’s just so... fragile. Breakable. That bastard almost took her away from us permanently, away from me.
There’s a sinking feeling where my counterpart resides, like when a roller coaster crests its peak and begins to plummet; a sort of weightless, ominous sensation before reality catches up. Then with the flip of a switch, the demand for blood, the fire that was missing before, is reignited with a vengeance.
“You’re growling,” Sabrina points out in a whisper.
Biting my tongue, I reach for an antiseptic wipe and tear it open. “I’m angry.”
“That I killed him before you could?”
My eyes snap up to meet hers, the once bright blue now ringed with coral in a hypnotic way that settles me down damn near as quickly as Slade can, yet without a touch. “That you were in the position that you had to defend yourself at all,” I counter. “But, yeah, a little revenge on those bastards that call themselves men would go a long way to making me feel better.”
She sucks in a harsh breath as I run the cloth down the length of her leg in a single, steady swipe. Five days later and it’s still a raw, mangled mess, the flesh bruised to high Hell. Four deep gouges are carved damn near to the bone, starting in the middle of her outer thigh, down the side of her calf, and rounding to the top of her ankle and foot. Even with all of the stitches and butterfly strips, the discarded bandage had several spots of blood where the wounds were pulled open from overdoing it yesterday.
Can’t let her push herself so hard. We shouldn’t let her walk until it’s scarred over, maybe even after that. What if she trips and falls down the stairs, breaks her neck? If she’s always strapped to one of our sides, nothing like this will ever happen again.
Switching out for the antibiotic ointment, I slather it on as delicately as I can while she randomly states, “Thank god the conference room is practically abandoned.” I look at her in utter confusion until she clarifies, “So that I can steal one of the empty chairs as a footrest to keep my leg elevated.”
It takes a second for it to click, but when it does, I balk. “You cannot seriously be talking about going back to work.”
“Not like I’m a waitress or anything.” She helps lift her leg as I begin wrapping it with a fresh bandage. “I literally sit on my ass all day looking at a screen, so not exactly what I’d call a strenuous activity. Might need some help getting set up initially, but th-”
“You were working from home at your apartment,” I interject. “So can’t you do that, only here? I know in the chaos dealing with the aftermath of the attack that we haven’t gone back for any of your stuff yet, but I can easily make a run if you give me a list of what you need.”
She gives me a small smile as I tuck the end of the new bandage at her thigh, my fingers lingering longer than necessary. “That was for my independent portion. I ended up going hard enough that I was a little ahead of schedule, but I’ve lost almost a week now, so I’m actually behind again. And the next part is integrating Jonathan and Reid’s new sequences into what I’ve already verified, section by section, line by line check and test, and there’s no room for error when the deadline is under four weeks away. I need access to their work, but also to them in case I have any questions real time without waiting for an email reply.”
Yeah, I have no clue what the fuck she actually does beyond computer shit with Reid.
“Reid’s already here. We can bring Jonathan in and set you three up in the dining room; same thing.”
Her small smile grows into a teasing grin. “One might argue that you’re trying to keep me trapped here. What happened to the fact that I just need an escort if I leave the house? Reid will be with me so it’s fine, right?”
Not me, not Cinjin, her actual mates. Reid. Always Reid. The only one she texted when she was avoiding us. The first one that kissed her. The one she’s actually happy with.
A low rumble vibrates through my chest and throat as I crawl up on the bed, hovering above her. “Being with us isn’t a punishment, and you’re not on house arrest. But after someone tried to poison you, broke into your apartment, thoroughly pissing off every family in the vicinity, and now three strangers taking up rooms in our house that flat out declared they want to slit our throats and take you away from us? You’ll understand that I’m a little fucking paranoid to let you out of my sight.”
Wrapping an arm around my neck, she closes the last few inches separating us to press a soft kiss to my lips. “So come with me. You make a more comfortable chair than the ones at the office anyway.”
Such simple words, yet they take the wind right out of my sails. Why the fuck am I being jealous? It’s my scent covering her right now, my bed she was sleeping in twenty minutes ago. Sabrina doesn’t do anything that she doesn’t want to do. She may be sweet and awkward, but she’s quick to temper, too. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’d have picked out a room of her own and locked us out if she wanted to be alone.
“Though I admit, it’ll be rather boring,” she continues, oblivious to my inner rambling. “So you might want to download a couple of new games onto your phone. And you knew what I meant, so don’t make me out to be a jerk. I never said, nor implied, that being with you guys is a punishment.”
Then why did you leave?
Immediately, I shut the thought down. It would only serve to instigate a fight, and things have been going alright the last few days; at least in regards to this. She hasn’t tried to bail, isn’t holed up in a room by herself, crying and lamenting her fate. She took some time to process, was overwhelmed and hurting, the same as the rest of us were. That doesn’t mean that she was disgusted by what she’d done, horrified to be tied to us.
‘I’m here because I want to be, not because I have to.’ Gods, I’m going to end up getting that on a coffee mug for her simply to see the reminder every morning.
“Besides,” she adds, “Kaige, Damian, and Hunter sticking around is actually a good thing. If they went back empty handed right now, my not-dads might come investigate themselves. This gives us some time to come up with a plan on how to approach the situation when we travel there after the new OS launches. We can appear non-confrontational and cooperative, and have a rational discussion about this whole mess. If they’re on our side instead of the men they grew up around, we should look at this as our luck finally turning around.”
Scowling, I roll us so that I’m on my back with her draped on top of me. “Your side, not ours. They’d shove any of us in front of a bus without missing a blink.”
Crossing her arms over my chest, she rests her chin on them with a teasing twist of her lips. “Not sure if you’ve looked at yourself in the mirror recently, but pretty sure you’d do more damage to the bus.”
Grumbling, I toy with a lock of her dark hair. "I know ignoring the problem won’t make it go away, but I hate that it’s been one thing after another lately. There are too many unknowns. At least here we know the packs, the terrain; what they want. Out there, we’re flying in blind.”
“But we’re not. We have those three bringing us up to speed, and time to make a plan. Worst case scenario, we go for the jugular, then make a break for it. I’m actually pretty decent off grid, even if I would weep every day I had to spend without WIFI.” Letting out a long breath, she finishes, “Ultimately, though, it’s not me they’re after. I’m merely a consolation prize, or a threat to their reputation. They want Mom, and I know where she is, so we have leverage.”
Gently tugging on her hair, I point out, “You gave Kaige the address. He’d have memorized it before washing it off, which means they could lure us into a trap where they’d have back up waiting to overpower us. Then they’d have you right where they want you, plus your mom’s location.”
She rolls her multicolored eyes before sarcastically drawling, “Yes, because I’m really so dumb that I’d give away our only bargaining chip. You think I gave him a real address? My mom may be a bitch, but I’m not actually that heartless, sheesh. Well-” she cants her head, mulling it over. “Maybe I am. If it’s between them threatening to kill one of you or give her up, it’s not even a debate on my part. Guess we’ll have to wait to see and hope it doesn’t come to that. You know, so you don’t realize the full extent of the monster that you accidentally married.”
"Speaking of," I hesitantly broach the forbidden topic, "we never got to have that conversation you planned to come back for."
She worries her bottom lip. "I suppose we did sort of skim over that dealing with more pressing issues."
After an awkward pause, I roll us over again, climbing off of the bed. “Face down for me.” Her cheeks tint, breaking the tension as I chuckle. “So I can crack your back, remember?”
“Obviously.” She coughs to cover her embarrassment, stretching out on her stomach. “Why else?”
Settling my knees on either side of her hips, I place one hand atop the other at the middle of her back with my fingers splayed. “I could think of a couple of good reasons.” Pressing down to save her from responding, I work my way down her spine, working out tiny pops until she’s bonelessly slumped beneath me.
She drags out a long sigh of relief, appearing two seconds away from falling back asleep. “So.” As she begins to speak, I swing my leg over to flop on my back beside her, otherwise we’ll be shoving this already long overdue conversation aside yet again. “What’s something you like?”
“You.”
Snorting in amusement, Sabrina turns her head to face me, folding her arms beneath her cheek. “Seriously. If we’re actually giving this whole mate thing a shot, I should know far more about you than I currently do. It’s pretty embarrassing that if anyone were to ask, I don’t know what sort of things you love or hate.” Grimacing, she pushes herself up, carefully sliding to her feet. “Actually, one second.”
I move to help her, but she’s already snatched the small notepad off of my nightstand before I’m upright, settling back on the edge of the mattress. As she opens to a clean page and clicks the pen, I wrap an arm around her waist, tugging her back far enough on the bed that her leg can be elevated in front of her at the very least.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a cheat sheet. I’ll organize it more efficiently when I have my laptop back, but this will work in the interim. One relationship is hard enough, but four? I’ve apparently got two husbands now and I don’t even know their full names, or if either of you are allergic to anything. What if I mix up facts and accidentally poison one of you? I’ll look like a jackass, and the others will never let me live it down. Pros and cons of having a few backup husbands, I suppose.”
Bursting out laughing, I settle more comfortably on my stomach so that my head’s beside her hip. “You’re so much like the twins that it’s genuinely creepy. In the same breath you go from analytical and awkward, to picking fights with alphas like you want to watch their heads implode simply because you’re bored.”
She sighs, scrawling all four of our names at the top of separate pages to flip between. “Yeah, not my best plan, I’ll admit. I’ll try to watch my temper from now on unless I check-in first that you’re in the mood to beat someone up for me.”
My grin splits my face. “I beg to differ, it was delightful to behold. You were confident enough that we had your back to go poking angry wolves in the face with a stick. And for the record, I'm always happy to beat someone up for you.”
As she adds that as a bullet point beneath my name, my abs burn and I get a stitch in my side from how hard I laugh. The next half hour is spent with me rattling off facts about me and my brothers, and I whip out my phone to follow her lead, getting a leg up on the others with a personal cheat sheet into her good graces. It ends up being far more fun than something this clinical should be, and eventually we circle back around to what started us on this path to begin with.
"I'd managed to wrap my head around everything and make my peace with it by the end of my run," she declares, stealing my phone to add more things to my ‘Ways to convince Sabrina not to poison me’ note to keep herself busy while she talks. "And we were all on board with bypassing the awkward new dating stage to save ourselves the stress, so it wasn't even the multiple husbands thing that made me shut down. I was already dating three of you, for fucks' sake."
She pauses, thumbs hovering above the screen. "Loads of people fantasize about discovering that they're something other than human, for their boring lives to fade away in favor of something magical, or some hot guys to show up and whisk them away to something better." Sighing, she finally faces me, the look in her eyes causing me to grow restlessly agitated with the need to fix everything so that she’ll be happy again. "I had a crappy human life, and it was looking like my magical do-over was going to be even harder. Of course I was upset and needed some time to process all of that."
Setting my phone on the bed, she scrubs a hand down her tired face. "I wasn't coming to discuss whether or not I was going to give this relationship a shot, or let you know I was running away in the middle of the night so you should go shopping for a new mate. It was about hammering out the logistics of where we were all supposed to go from here. Hell, I didn't even know if Slade was interested before he kissed me that night. I wasn't sure where things stood between all of us, or expectations. If I was mated to you and Cinjin, was I not supposed to date Reid anymore? Were you guys expecting me to just bang him and Slade so everything was fair? Are we supposed to all share a room now, or keep on like we've been where I bed hop when I'm not at my apartment? I figured we could tackle the things we actually had some control over, was all."
Palming the back of her neck, I kiss her. "We don't expect jack shit, Sabrina. Gods, we certainly didn't expect you to be one of us, let alone want to stick around after you found out what we were. This is completely uncharted territory for us, too. But I can absolutely swear that the only thing on our minds is worrying about how to give you the life you deserve when being with us is what puts you in danger. Yet we’re too fucking selfish, and have no intention of ever letting you go; it’s maddening.”
Kissing her once more, I sigh. “You're not the only one that was thrown for a loop here, babe. I'm thrilled that you chose me, but I was in no way, shape, or form mentally prepared for this. Most people go into matings either knowing for years who their mate will be, or anticipating the very slim chance that they might be chosen if pursuing someone that isn't already promised to a pack. What we had with you? It was easy. We could move at whatever pace we wanted because there was no pressure on the situation. We thought that we only had to worry about the others having a casual interest in you because they like fucking with us, and you were human. With you being one of us? Now we need to prepare for an all-out war that I don’t know if we can win, but we’re damn well going to try."
Picking up the notebook, I close it and set it back on the end table. "Every job that I go on, I'm aware of the very real possibility that I might not come back. Sure, we pick and choose carefully, research the situation to the best of our abilities, but we can never plan for every possibility, or if the client putting the bounty on their head is leaving out a crucial piece of information. And nine times out of ten, if they’re willing to pay what we charge, it’s personal, so they always paint themselves as the injured party. That risk was fine before, because I didn't have anyone waiting for me here besides my siblings, and a miserable existence. Now? I have to make it home, because I don't trust anyone to take care of you the way that I can. It's terrifying. Amazing, everything I never allowed myself to hope for, but terrifying.”
Swallowing, Sabrina nods, some of the anxiety fading from her eyes. “One step at a time?”
Smiling softly, I rearrange our position so that we can go back to the way we were, with her tucked securely against my side where she belongs. “One step at a time.”
Gently scratching her back, now that all of this is finally out of the way, exhaustion slams into me like a freight train. We lay there for a few minutes in peaceful silence before she tosses out in an attempt at humor, “At least I won’t have to hyphenate my last name. Wait-” pushing herself up, she turns to look at me. “If there’s no marriage certificate filed, then is it only recognized among you guys, but on the human side nothing changes?”
