Page 93 of Wolf

Kay took one look at Ash before the mothering fury descended on her beautifully mature face. Her short boots stomped across the floor as Ash all but went quiet, the gray pallor of her face turning even paler when Kay reached her. Her hand went to the hem of Ash’s hoodie, and without even a breath, she tore the material up over her torso, revealing the white bandages wrapped around her stomach. “What the hell is wrong with the two of you?” Kay snapped, seeing the little blotches of red leaking out of two of the six wounds padded with extra bandages under herchest.

“I had no other choice.” Ash groaned as Kay took over, commanding Jax to grab a bowl of hot water, for Bell to grab her first aid bag for suicidal idiots, and for Mint to grab a towel and a bottle of water and the purest vodka. Lamb took over getting the bottle of water and vodka, handing both to Kay as she shoved the water into Ash’s palm, telling her to drink before shepassedout.

“I’d prefer the other one,” Ash said, eyeing up the vodka bottle on the floor. Kay only gave her one look before Ash quicklyshutup.

From what I knew, the nurses wouldn’t allow strong pain medication for Ash, considering she was an alcohol addict, but had her on small volumes of alcohol so she wouldn’t go into withdrawal before her injuries hadhealed.

“What do you mean, you had no other choice?” I interrupted as Kay got to work unwinding the bandages carefully from around Ash’s stomach, bitching about not being able to move her to the kitchen for stitching her up until she stopped the bleeding and assessed thedamage.

“How else would I getherhere?”

“Who—”

I shouldn’t have even bothered to ask as the brand-new door burst open on the other side of the room, cold wind blistering through the clubroom as the devil herself came spitting fire through the doorway. “Ash!” she roared, her eyes blindly searching the room until she spotted her friend before she managed to drop behind the back of thecouch.

It was like an inferno had gone off inside of her as her eyes locked onto Ash, the white burning against her furiously flushed skin, a deep, grumbling growl coming from her lips. “You’redead.”

Anna’s feet rushed her forward in a blind rage as she headed for Ash, and I barely had a second to dodge around the couch and step into her warpath. Anna didn’t even look at me as she tried to dive around me, hands lunging out to grab Ash, who let out a shriekoffear.

I moved on instinct, my head ducking down, arm going around her waist as I dropped my shoulder just underneath her waist and stood. Anna let out a scream of both fury and shock as she went up and over my shoulder, her face meeting my back as I wrapped my arm around the back ofherlegs.

“Wo—” she started to scream, but before she could, it ended in a gag as she slapped her hand over hermouth.

“Shit!” I hissed, my feet rushing as fast I could straight to my room, through the mess on the floor, and into the bathroom. I barely set her on her feet before she turned and lunged for the toilet, hurling the contents of her stomach intothebowl.

I scrambled around for the glass Anna insisted on leaving next to the sink, and filled it up, waiting for her to stop before handing ittoher.

Anna’s small hand shook as she took the glass from me and took a small sip through deep breaths as she rinsed her mouth out, spat it into the bowl, andflushed.

“Shit,” she breathed. “Don’t do that to me everagain.”

I looked down at her, her blonde hair tied into a small ponytail on the top of her head, skin pale and makeup free, as she shifted to sit her back against the counter. She looked so small and tired. “Are you alwayslikethis?”

“Always pissed off or always throwing up into a toilet bowl?” she joked, chuckling to herself before meeting my eyes, her baby blue ones dulled by the lack of light in the small en suite. She sighed. “Yeah, morning sickness—which is never strictly morning, may I add—is abitch.”

I watched as her eyes moved around the bathroom, slowly tracing everything as she sat there, nursing her glass of water, her hand rested across her stomach, her thumb brushing up and down in a thoughtless, casual movement. When her eyes made their way back to me, they turned into a scowl. “Why the hell are yousmiling?”

“It’s just...” I sighed, my hand reaching up to scratch my neck as I leaned against the wall and let my knees bend to slide down to the floor, the cold tile against my back making me shiver. “You look beautifullikethat.”

“I’m as sick as a dog, and you tell me I look beautiful?” Anna scoffed, shaking her head before her eyes began their second track around the room. I saw her pause on the clothes draped on one of the towel rails, no doubt noting that the laced bra and leggings draped over them were hers from when she had put them there a fewweeksago.

I didn’t acknowledge the slight tweak in her expression, remaining silent as the coolness of the tiles bled through my cut and shirt into my back, causing goose bumps to rise on mythickskin.

“What are we doing?” She sighed, catching my attention as her head lolled back against the counter. “How on earth did wegethere?”

I looked up, the dim lighting reminding me that I hadn’t turned on the light when we’d barged into the room. A deep orange glow sank through the little window at the top, the streak way up above us as it brushed the ceiling and painted the white tiles a bright citrusamber.

In the darkness, Anna’s skin and hair might have looked darker, but her baby blue eyes were bright, almost luminescent amongst thedullness.

“It’s been a hell of a year,” I admitted, thinking back to how easy life was this time last year. Hell, Hunter hadn’t even met Mallory back then, and all we’d been thinking about were the cold runs ahead of us and how on earth we were going to ride if, for once, Oregon was blessed with snow and ice. Although it ended up being a mild winter again, we had all brought out the hot Irish coffee and camped inside most of the month, enjoying company, girls, and drinking to our hearts’ contents as we waited out the winter before we started taking more runs again in thespring.

And then, when spring finally came, it had brought heaven and hell with it, and everything had been a hell of a ridesince.

“No kidding,” Anna scoffed. “First the Hell’s Runners, then the Grim Reapers, and now the guy who controls the English government.” Anna shook her head. “We sure have a way of dropping ourselves in big pilesofshit.”

“We’ll get through them,” I said, my hands reaching for my forearms, the faded ink somehow like a script of history carved into my skin, a story reminding me of how I had gotten here. “We always do.” My eyes looked up, and I saw Anna’s blue somber ones looking backatme.

In my forty-five years, I had seen enough hell in my life to know when heaven was looking back at me, and even in the dark, tiny confines of the bathroom, pale and tired, I could see the brightness she cast on me. The light she represented, and one of the only symbols of hope left inmylife.

---