Page 32 of Soul Bound

“What the hell happened?” Pru’s eyes are huge as she takes us in. My shirt is torn in multiple places and I’m bleeding all over her hardwood floor.

“Talk to your mate,” I call over my shoulder. Winslow attempts to stop so she can talk to Pruitt, but I tighten my grip on her and pull her with me. I can feel her staring at me, but I don’t look down to meet her gaze. She’s probably confused because I didn’t stop.

“I see you met our new friend.” I hear humor in Ransom’s voice behind us. “Dude, she sees dead people. How fucked is that?”

* * *

Winslow fights me at first,but she eventually lets me clean the wounds on her neck. I decided working over Pruitt’s fresh white carpet wasn’t a good idea and took Winslow into the en suite bathroom instead. She sits on the bathroom countertop, her combat boot-clad feet swinging back and forth as I work. She doesn’t flinch when I pour antiseptic into the puncture wounds, which I know for a fact burns like a motherfucker. After all the fighting I’ve been doing the past couple of months, I’ve had to use the stuff more times than I can count. I curse like a sailor when I use it, so the fact she didn’t even make a noise is impressive.

“You don’t have to do this,” she tells me for the fifth time since I brought her into the room. “You’re hurt way more than I am, we should be taking care of you first.”

“I told you, I have shifter healing, these will be closed in an hour or two,” I assure her as I wipe away some of the dried blood on her neck with a warm washcloth. “You’re not used to having people take care of you, are you?”

My mother was and still is, the type of mom who babies and dotes on all her kids like they’re fragile little beings who are incapable of putting on their own Band-Aid. It used to drive me crazy when I was younger, always pushing her away when she’d try to help me with a scraped knee or paper cut. That’s part of the reason why I had to move out of her house. I couldn’t handle how she was always checking on me and asking me if I was okay or if there was anything she could do to help me. I know in my heart she meant well, but I was suffocating under her constant worry and attention.

Where I had an overbearing mother, it sounds like Winslow’s mother kind of… well,threw her to the wolvesand didn’t give two shits about her. I’ll take my mom any day of the week over Winslow’s useless mom.

“My parents’ idea of taking care of me was locking me in the house, keeping me away from the public, and then locking me away in a mental institution. The only people who ever‘cared’for me were paid to do it. So no, I’m not used to people giving a shit about my well-being.” I’m shocked by how freely she answered me. Getting the truth out of her is usually like pulling teeth.

“Well, I care.” She was honest with me, so I was honest with her.

Her big eyes slowly raise to meet mine, a look of total confusion on her face. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “My wolf has taken a liking to you and he really doesn’t like to see you hurt. The scent of your blood earlier drove him crazy. It took everything I had not to let him take over and shift right there on the spot.” I don’t admit it’s not just my wolf who cares about her, I don’t think I’m ready to admit that to her, let alone to myself.

“He’s never been in like before?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Hmm… weird.” If she’s thinking anything else, her face doesn’t give it away.

I place the last small bandage and feel satisfied once the wounds are clean and covered. My wolf relaxes knowing we took care of her and she’s no longer bleeding. I feel his relief, it washes over me and soothes my nerves.

Winslow hops off the countertop when I move back to throw away the bandage wrappers and bloodied gauze. She grabs a fresh washcloth and runs it under warm water, ringing out the excess water when she’s done.

She meets my gaze through the mirror. “Take off your shirt.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, take it off. I need to see all the damage your brother did, and your sleeves are covering it up.” She motions with her hands for me to hurry up when I don’t make any move to follow her command. “Come on, hurry up. We’ve got things to do. You know, babies to find, evil masterminds to set on fire, ghosts to talk to, shit like that… let’s get a move on White Fang.”

“Evil masterminds to set on fire?”

“Yep! I’ve decided we are going to find that Sterling guy and set him on fire. Have ourselves a littleevil-dudebonfire. I’m going to roast marshmallows and everything.”

I choke on a laugh. “I can’t decide if you’re crazy or just brave.”

I wish it was that easy to find Sterling, but the man is a master at staying hidden. Jax has been looking for him for years but has come up with nothing.

“Probably both. Now get that shirt off or I’ll cut it off.” She holds up a pair of scissors I had used to cut pieces of gauze.

“You’re kind of bossy.”

Winslow snorts. “Pot, meet kettle.”

I grip the torn hem of my shirt and pull it over my head. My muscles are stiff, and my wrist is still in wild amounts of pain, so I remove it as gently as I can. A piece of the fabric had attached to my already healing flesh, so when I pull the sleeves up and off, it opens up the cut again. I start to reach for a piece of gauze, but Winslow is already there, pressing the warm compress to it.

All I can do is sit there and watch as she gently tends to my wound. I normally would never let someone do this, but having her here taking care of me doesn’t make me feel coddled. It makes me feel…something.I can’t quite put my finger on what.

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