Page 126 of Unwilling Wolf

Burke entered to check Eliza’s dressings again. “You gonna tear me apart this time, or are you going to let me do my job?” Burke said in a gritty voice.

True, Garret had attacked him the first full day Burke was trying to help Eliza. “I didn’t mean to go after you. The wolf just doesn’t want anyone around her when she’s vulnerable, that’s all.”

“I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

Eliza moaned softly as he lifted her to clean the exit wound on her back. She’d gotten lucky with the bullet missing her bones, but unlucky with the infection that followed.

“When will she wake up?” Garret asked for the tenth time.

“Hard to tell,” Burke answered somberly. “She lost a lot of blood, and she’s got poison inside her now with that damn infection. She’s fighting though.” Burke gently rested a hand on her shoulder and stared down at her tenderly.

Garret fought the urge to rip him away from Eliza and throw him straight out of the house. Burke didn’t mean her any harm. He cared.

“Wells picked up some new windows in town,” Burke told him. “And Lenny has cleaned up the den as best she could. We will have this place looking like new soon.”

“Thank you,” he uttered.

“You need sleep, Boss.”

Garret twitched the corner of his lip up into an exhausted smile. “I will.”

Burke let himself out and Garret stood, made his way to the bed and stood over her.

If he bit her now, she would still have to fight the infection. The wolf would make that harder at first. Sometimes healthy people died from the bite. Was Eliza strong enough? Uninjured, probably, but now? He couldn’t be sure.

And he didn’t want her personality to change. He didn’t want her to be different.

He loved her as she was—his Eliza.

Garret lowered himself onto the bed beside her and placed his arm gently over her, hand on her chest so he could feel her heartbeat. She’d told him once it was his.

Hell, he missed her.

“Come back soon, yeah?” he murmured. “Come back and tease me, and insult me, and piss me off. It’s boring around here when you’re so quiet.”

Her breathing stayed steady, no change, and her eyes remained closed, robbing him of that dancing green color of them.

She was too warm to the touch, so he only touched her where his hand rested over her heartbeat, and little by little, being so close to her, he relaxed.

The wolf wouldn’t allow him to sleep though.

They had to watch her.

They had to protect her body when she was vulnerable like this.

They had to make sure she was okay.

They had to make sure that when Eliza opened her eyes, she knew she wasn’t alone.

Chapter Forty-One

A soft knock for entrance had Garret rubbing the stubble on his face, and he glared at the door with annoyance.

It had been three days since the Pack war, and Eliza still wasn’t awake.

“What,” he barked.

Clint Jennings stepped in, followed closely by his daughter Anna.

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