Page 50 of Wolf

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Hunter growled, catching my attention. “They would have gotten to us one way or the other. If it wasn’t her, it would have beensomeoneelse.”

A churning silence brooded between us, the heat of my coffee bleeding through the crap Styrofoam and the cheap cup sleeve and into the skin of my hands—the hands that had beaten and bloodied anybody I saw worthy of it and anybody I deemed a threat. I was a reckoning. Death and destruction all withinonebody.

And it only took one woman to tearmedown.

“I wish it weren’t her,” I breathed the words like a lodged stone in my throat suddenly coming free. “I wish it were someone else.” I felt like a dick for saying it. Wishing that on anybody else was horrific, but I wasn’tlying.

“I know,” Hunter just said softly, his green eyes lingering on Anna’s face. “Iknow.”

Our silence ended with a harsh knock atthedoor.

On instinct, my head swung toward the bed, daring to believe that a loud noise mightwakeher.

Shedidn’tmove.

Instead, Lamb stood in the doorway, his eyes reading too much into my movement but his face remaining as stagnant as always. He didn’t look at Anna, not once, as his eyes refused to move from mine. “Wolf,” he said, his voice holding a tone I had heard many times. “We needtotalk.”

I didn’t like what cameafter.

Chapter Twenty

Anna

Most people havethat moment of strange peace when they wake up after getting stabbed. That moment of disorientation when they don’t know where they are, what happened, or what condition their body was in. It must have beenbliss.

I was not mostpeople.

I awoke to a hot burn on my side, my pulse overly loud in my ears, and a terrible need to shoot a hole through that damn beeping machine. I suppose that’s what happens when somebodystabsyou.

I peeled my eyes open, the surface of them feeling dry and irritated as a dim light glared back at me. Moving on, I lifted my sheets and managed to tug the long skirt of my gown up without shifting too much on the bed to take a peek at my injury. A white bandage wrapped around my waist, and as I ran my fingers across the surface, I brushed the sutures holding the wound closed. It wasn’t big, maybe a few inches long at the most. But the skin around it was purpled even beyond what the bandagecovered.

I looked for the clicky thing for the morphine drip. I had one next to the bed and checked the levels of morphine being fed into my veins. I was relieved when I realized that it wasn’t that high, meaning my wound didn’t seem to have caused too much damage or I would have been in a lot more pain. Moreover, judging by the location, a few inches above my hip to the left of my stomach, it didn’t seem to have been near any major organs beyond that of myintestines.

I took a breath, noting my cotton mouth, and put my gown and sheetsbackdown.

As I looked up, I noticed for the first time the huge, bowed body in the corner of the room. Wolf’s size was hard to miss even in the space of the obviously private room. Shadows draped over him, the light from the early dawn not enough to fend them off. His long hair had fallen forward in front of his face, hiding no doubt an exhaustedexpression.

I knew his character enough to know he hadn’t left that spot since I was brought in here. The cold and untouched coffee cups and the way the chair cushioned around his body supported my conclusion. He was wearing different clothes since the party, which I suppose I owed to Kay. She was probably the only woman to be able to kick his assintogear.

I fought my chuckle. I probably wasn’t in a position to laugh, but after waking up after being stabbed, seeing Wolf exactly how I would expect him to be was comforting. He was such a straightarrow.

I shook my head, fighting my smile as I glanced around for something in grabbing distance. I found the television remote on the small bedside table and reached for it. I bit down on my lip at the sting of the sutures pulling and fought not to hiss aloud as I managed to pick up the smalldevice.

And then Ithrewit.

The plastic made a loud crack as the projectile bounced off his skull and clattered against the floor. It was followed by a sharp screech as Wolf’s chair flew backward into the wall, black skid marks marring the plain whitelinoleum.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.” I smirked, his wide, animalistic eyes flashing as they hit mine. He was intense, rabid, and I watched as his senses came back to him. The change on his face was the telling of a dramatic movie, going from shock to surprise to fraying at theseams.

“Anna,” his hoarse voice cracked. Those deep whiskey eyes were ringed red, and the sharp features of his face were hollowed into the exhausted pallor I hadexpected.

He moved faster than my eyes could track, and before any pain or discomfort could hit me, I felt his warmth swallow me whole, his shaking form surrounding my small frame in aninstant.

“I got you, Anna. I got you,” he whispered in my ear overandover.

“W-Wolf,” I breathed, my voice thick and stuttering. “L-letg—”

“I’m not letting go, Anna,” Wolf growled. “Never again, you hear me? Never.Again.”

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