Page 155 of Her Wolf

“I shot you,” he murmured, voice hoarse from disuse.

“You saved me. You saved all of us.” She straightened, blinking hurriedly, and then turned away to wipe her face. “I’m fetching Lars.”

“No—” he tried to grab her wrist, but she was too nimble. Darting back, she gave him a girlish smile and hurried from the room, closing the door behind her.

He wore only loose boxers, which made it easy to tally up his wounds.

That fire had chewed him up and spat out what was left. It had ruined his body. He got his legs back up and just tugged a sheet over the lower half of his body before Lars barged through the door.

The man was at his side an instant later, crowding against Finn’s legs as he tried to find room to perch beside him.

“Je-sus!” Lars crooned, his eyes taking in Finn with a greedy sweep. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

Heat touched Finn’s face. He’d never in his life felt embarrassed by his appearance, but this wasn’t his body anymore. It was a desolate husk.

“My fuck, am I making you blush?” Lars asked, cocking his head to the side. His hair was shorter, too. It made him look younger where Cora’s shorter hair made her look older.

Lars ran a self-conscious hand over his head. “Yeah, thought it was about time I stopped looking like a hippy.” His green eyes glimmered with mischief as he reached over and tweaked Finn’s nipple. “Doc says you’ll be on solids later this week. Exciting stuff, right?” Lars leaned closer still, his mischievous expression filling Finn’s world. “Says you might even be able to get rid of your blue balls before the end of the month. Believe me, I’m counting the hours.”

Finn shifted, dropping his eyes. “Where are we?”

“You don’t recognize this place?” Lars sat back, frowning at Finn. “Should I get someone in here to check if you lost any ducks in the fire?”

“Lars—”

“Cora’s place. Swan Manor. Oh, right…” Lars pointed a finger at him. “You’d only ever been in her bedroom, not the master.”

He waved a hand at the vaulted ceiling. “This is daddy Swan’s. Or, was. It’s hers now. Ours, I guess.” Lars looked around, pouting a little. “Well, soon as you’re off the drip, anyway. We’ve all had to try and fit into Cora’s little bed. It lost its appeal pretty fucking quickly.”

“Zachary?” Finn asked through a cough.

Lars brought a glass of water closer, manouvering its straw between Finn’s lips.

“He reincarnated into a plate of crispy duck. Except, less edible.”

Finn sagged back against his pillows, letting out a long sigh.

“I know, right? Cockroaches and all that? But he’s definitely kicked the bucket. I saw what was left. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Island?”

“Aren’t we a chatty Cathy today?” Lars said, taking back the water glass and having a sip himself. “Luckily for us, Zachary had a spare phone. ‘Cos, the other one got fried, just like him.” Lars let out a short laugh and then sobered immediately. “Believe it or not, 911 can’t reliably trace satellite phones if they’re not actually in America. Go figure, right?” Lars shrugged, and began toying with the edge of one of Finn’s bandages.

“Luckily, Kane managed to convince the last guy Zachary phoned that he did in fact want a supply run. We were ready to overpower the fuckers when they landed, and made them take us all back to Mexico.”

Lars tapped Finn’s arm. “Fun fact: getting over the border is so much easier when you have a tunnel going under it.”

Finn laughed, but it came out more like a croak.

“Kane?”

Lars let out a long sigh. “There we got us a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Kinda cool, actually. See, Ana—real stand-up chick, that one—she managed to keep her cool until we got back to Z’s farm.”

He gave Finn a quick, interrogatory glance. “Z is for Zachary.”

Finn rolled his eyes.

“Just checking we’re still on the same page, big guy. No offense, but you took quite a pounding recently. And then there was that fire and everything.”

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