Page 74 of Entering a New World

At least it hadn’t while I hadn’t been thinking about it. However, the pain slowly filtered through my adrenaline rush, a white-hot, sharp pain.

Dimly, I was aware of the warm blood running down my arm, dripping down my elbow.

“We need a doctor!”

“Aaaaand that’s my cue,” I heard Jasper say, just a second before he came into view. He stepped out onto the patio, a big backpack slung over his shoulder, and hurried over.

“What did you do?”

“I disarmed someone.”

Jasper nodded, grabbing my bleeding hand and uncurling my fingers.

“Why does it look like you grabbed a blade?”

Behind me, Rhett started growling, chest rumbling. His white-hot anger surged through me and made me gasp.

I wisely refused to comment further on the situation. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to say anything anyway, because Jasper started cleaning the wound and it took everything I had to stay still and let him do his job while agony wound its way up my arm.

What a truly shitty evening, I thought as I turned my head and buried it against Rhett’s shoulder and tried calming myself down by inhaling his unique scent.

Exhaustion crashed into me like a tidal wave. My eyelids drooped. I wanted to go home. Now.

Chapter 19

Rhett

“This is so not how I wanted our shifter-wedding night to go,” Levi said with a pout on his deliciously full lips and his voice dipped low, the words drawn out in a teasing lilt.

My cock jerked in my jeans, even though I knew his teasing was half-hearted at best. The utter and complete exhaustion I felt in my limbs wasn’t my own. Nope. I might not be at a hundred percent, but I wasn’t drained and dead on my feet.

That was my mate.

Our mate, my wolf insisted. Take care.

Yeah, that’s what I’m about to do, I told my wolf while searching for my keys. They weren’t in their usual spot—my right jeans pocket—and not on the left side either.

Irritation sparked inside of me as I patted myself down.

Levi giggled. “You know, if you want to be patted down, you just have to ask. I could even strip search you.” Fuck, he was so out of it, he sounded drunk. Or maybe Jasper had given him something for the pain? I should know, but Jasper had ordered Gray to drag me out of the room after I’d growled at Jasper. Which, yeah, in hindsight wasn’t a nice thing to do to the doctor who was patching up your mate, but Levi had been in so much pain that I’d been reacting out of instinct.

There!

Why were my keys inside the pocket of my coat? I hadn’t even been wearing it in the car.

As I slid the key into the lock, I turned my head to my mate and found him swaying on his feet, head tilted back so he was looking up into the night sky, a dopey smile on his face.

“Did Jasper give you something?”

“Huh?” Levi blinked slowly and lowered his head until his eyes found mine. “No, why would he? It’s not my birthday or anything. By the way, my birthday is in June and I’m perfectly fine if your present is for us to fuck in the woods.”

What the…

“Levi, did Jasper give you any pain medication?”

He was blinking at me again, his eyebrows raising in confusion. Fuck. His owlish blinking looked almost comical.

I tried listening into my body and found a soft cloud of… something. It definitely felt like Levi was high. There should be pain—the cut in his hand was deep; as in possibly nerve-damage deep—but the only thing I felt was this soft, cotton-y cloud and low heat pooling in my gut.

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