Page 101 of Frosted Torment

My heart raced, and I swallowed hard. Vallen and I were connected on a deeper level, and he knew I felt it too. A sudden, undeniable desire coursed through me – that pull I felt before now became a push.

“Well,” I said with a light laugh, “I don’t want to die and be the one to send you back to an eternal prison.”

“Noa,” his gravelly voice whispered in my ear.

“Don’t. Because I hate you,” I murmured, pushing aside the tingling sensations growing low in my core.

He drew me in again, planting a soft kiss on my head. “I know,” he expressed, an understanding in his tone.

My eyes found his, and those gold starbursts shot across his pupils. He tilted my chin up, then leaned down, inching closer to my lips. I closed my eyes, ready to become his fool.

Ready to welcome him into my mouth, and right as our lips touched, the door of the bunkhouse opened and we stumbled inside. Vallen caught me with one arm behind my back, and I leaned backward with Father O’Neil gazing down at me.

“Oh, my,” O’Neil said with a chuckle, and he cleared his throat. “Quite the development.”

We stood, and I adjusted my clothes as we stepped inside.

Nakoma blocked my view in front of the fireplace. “Welcome,” he said as a smile danced across his lips.

On my right, a smaller wooden dining table replaced the card table I’d seen the day before, covered with books and relics salvaged from the attack on Dawson and Nevaeh’s home.

“The angels are working when they can to get into the basement for more, but it isn’t safe,” said O’Neil. He looked at Vallen with raised brows. “Welcome back.”

“Father,” Vallen replied and offered him a nod.

My head turned to the left, and Nakoma shifted, matching my line of sight, keeping me from whatever was on the other side of the room.

“Noa, there’s something else, but before you can see it, I need you to take a few deep breaths.”

My brows furrowed as a skeptical interest swirled within me. “What is it, Nakoma?” I asked.

Bowing his head, he stepped to the side and my mouth dropped. My stomach lurched, and I darted over to where another table had replaced the chairs in front of the fireplace.

“Baz,” I said to him, wanting to fling myself across his body.

But he was propped up on a pillow with an IV coming out of one arm and a blood pressure cuff on the other.

I looked back at Vallen, who remained in the doorway just as stunned as I was.

“How is he alive?” Vallen asked, wrinkles forming across his forehead.

Nakoma walked up beside me and replied, “Do you honestly think the other guardians wouldn’t come running when they heard their alpha’s cry?”

I rubbed my hand down my face, wiping away the tears. “This is incredible. Will he live?”

“We aren’t sure,” Father O’Neil offered from behind me. “It’s touch and go, but we’re trying.”

Nakoma slipped his stethoscope off from around his neck to check Baz’s breathing. “Vincent’s claws contained some kind of venom that got into his bloodstream.”

Vallen stood over me, looking down at Baz in his human form. “That damn wolf is fighting for you, Noa, and deserves to be your signati.”

I glanced up at him, regret now covering Vallen’s face. “It’s not our fault,” I reminded him. “But we can’t let him die. I couldn’t bear the thought of him getting sent to hell to be tortured by Maros.”

Vallen stepped back and walked toward the door. He leaned his head back, then looked at me without blinking an eye.

Brushing his hands through his hair, he told Nakoma, “You need a branch from the cherry blossom tree. Get its petals, grind them up to make a paste with any type of carrier oil, then feed it to him. The venom will leave his system, and he should recover if you do that.”

Nakoma gasped, his eyes widening in surprise. “We’ve been searching for anything that could help,” he said. “Thank you, Vallen.”

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