Page 17 of Alice Worth and the Elite Death Machine

A chorus of howls drifted out of the house. The Blue Valley pack, mourning their losses. Their grief should be private. I’d arrived as a fighter and protector, but now I felt like an interloper.

I didn’t want to be here anymore. I wanted to send my report and invoice to the hotel manager at the Phoenix Inn, shower, and fall into bed with Sean.

“You’re bleeding badly, my love.” He rubbed his bristly chin on top of my head. “You have a healing spell?”

“Of course. You know I’d never go into battle against an elite death machine without at least a couple of them.” I tried to force a smile, but it didn’t work.

“It’s going to be okay, Miss Magic.” He kissed my blood-matted hair and herded me toward the garage. “Let’s load up, get you healed, and go home.”

Chapter

Seven

Iplucked a globby bit of something out of my hair and held it up. “What is this?”

Sean leaned in for a closer look. “Bit of intestine, I think.”

“Oh my God.” I dropped the pink blob down the shower drain and rested my forehead on the tile wall. “I may be in here a while.”

“Oh, yes.” His hands slid from my waist to my hips. “I guarantee you will.”

“Sean Theodore Maclin.” I smacked his hands. “I haveintestines in my hair!And I don’t even knowwhichdead thing they belonged to!”

He kissed the back of my neck. “Then let me get you clean,” he murmured.

NowthatI could get on board with.

Honestly, was there anything sexier or more catnip than an alpha werewolf offering to shampoo and wash a bucket’s worth of blood and gore down the drain?

As he lathered my hair and gently extricated bits of stuff I didn’t look at too closely, I closed my eyes and let myself drift in the hot water and the comfort of his body pressed to mine.

“Conor waited for you,” he said, his fingertips massaging my scalp. “All the demons and theúlfheðnarwere dead and he had Noah, but he waited to see you before he left.”

“Yeah, he did.” My voice sounded drowsy. His touch was magical. And I hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours, so the steamy heat had me almost dozing standing up.

“Why do you think he did that?”

I’d thought about that too during the drive home. It helped distract me from the discomfort of my healing wounds and truly disgusting condition, even after changing my clothes.

“Maybe he’s only ninety-five percent asshole,” I muttered.

He chuckled and eased me into the spray to rinse my hair. “I usually bow to your well-honed ability to assess someone’s character.”

“But…?” I prompted.

“I think it might be more than that.”

“He threw me under the bus without a second thought, Sean. No warning, no regrets, no nothing. I could be in pieces in the woods right now and he wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.” Now I was getting hot again, and it had nothing to do with Sean or the shower. “So what the hell else could there be?”

“Have you considered that he believed you were a match for theúlfheðnar?”

Startled, I opened my eyes, and immediately regretted it when sudsy water ran into them. “Damn it!” I rinsed my face, wiped away the water, and glared as if my burning eyes were his fault. “I’m a human mage,” I protested. “He couldn’t possibly have thought?—”

“He marked you as afaoladh.” He tapped my forehead where the rune had once been. The first thing I’d done whenwe got home was use my air magic to get rid of it. “He said he recognized his own kind. He stuck around to make sure you made it out alive. That’s respect, Alice. From a man I’m sure gives it even less freely than you do.”

“You know what’s weird about me? I don’t throw people I respect between me and elite death machines.” I put my fists on my hips and ignored his smile. I knew this pose was far less intimidating when we were both naked, but I was still pissed off. “And even if Ididever ask someone to get between me and someone that deadly, I would let them in on the plan. Not make them figure it out on their own, and almost too late.”

“I don’t think he treated you fairly,” Sean said mildly. “But I do think he sized you up, decided you were his equal, and put you in charge of killing his mortal enemy so he could get Noah to safety. If he’d asked you to do it, would you have said yes?”

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