Page 11 of Wolves Bound by Desire

“You weren’t thinking.” Her hands touched his shoulder, and he winced. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to see where you’re injured.”

“It might be better to take note where I’m not hurt,” he grumbled. “Aren’t you hurting any?”

“Of course I am. I fought as hard as you did. But I hadn’t been crushed between two werewolves. You might have cracked some ribs, if not broken them entirely.”

“It sure feels like I did.” He had been in his fair share of brawls before, but the vast majority had been in human form. After all, only on rare occasions had he been in contact with werewolves during his exile.

Never had he had his ass handed to him so badly.

“Well, you did fight admirably,” she admitted as she continued her assessment. Despite the pain coursing throughout his body, he loved having her touch him. Her hands were so soft, gliding over his skin, hovering in places.

“I wasn’t about to—ow!”

“Sorry. I’ll have to clean this. There’s a lot of dirt in this wound.”

It was by his stomach. He hadn’t even recalled getting clawed or bitten there.

He waited as she walked over to the stream and returned with a wet strip of cloth. She handed him a branch, and he took it begrudgingly, but he hadn’t planned on using it.

But then she started to clean his wounds, and yeah, he bit down hard enough it snapped in half. Anders turned his head to the side and spat out the shards.

“I still want to know why you didn’t listen.”

“I… I… You’re gonna be pissed,” he warned.

“I’m already annoyed enough you didn’t listen to me. You might as well tell me the truth.”

“I wanted to protect you…” At her scowl, he rushed to add, “but I also wanted to show off too. Failed, didn’t I?”

“Failed spectacularly.” But she was laughing.

“Did I impress you at all?”

“Yes.” She glanced away.

“What is it?”

“They were here to kill us.”

“Yeah, but we killed them first. And none of them got away.”

“We can’t be sure of that. Once the sun comes up, we’ll have to check out beyond the battlefield to see if one didn’t hang back to act as a spy.”

“Devious. Wouldn’t put it past you Red Nightwalkers to do something like that.”

“Ingenious,” she retorted, “although that would leave us in a real bind. And speaking of binding, I need to check your ribs now.”

Just wonderful.

Anders waved her off and managed to stand without assistance. It was bad enough he was so broken. He didn’t want her to think him a complete invalid.

“Can you breathe without pain?” She hovered her finger near his chest but didn’t touch him yet.

“No, but the pain’s not just there.”

“So I gather.” She winced suddenly.

“You’re hurt too. Once you fix me, I’ll check you over.”

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