Page 31 of Reign of the Beast

“You would have, yes.” I struggled into a sitting position. “What about Jaxon?”

“Ingesting enough wolf’s blood to heal yourself will make you sick. Plus, Jaxon isn’t in any state to do much of anything at the moment. He’s grieving.”

“Grieving? I held Draco off so his pack could get away.”

“He had hisrecruitssurrounding Silverwood pack lands and he slaughtered everyone, those who ran before you got there and those you thought you were saving. He was prepared for every eventuality, determined to decimate Jaxon’s pack.”

“Oh my God,” I gasped, pain lancing through me. Draco had murdered everyone Jaxon cared about, taken his home from him, his whole reason for being. I couldn’t even imagine what he was going through. “Is he—where is he?”

“He’s here with us in this house, just taking some time. He took some big hits from Draco too. He needs rest.”

“I need to see him when he wakes up. Either take me to him, or bring him here. He can’t be alone with all of that, he can’t suffer alone, Ry.”

“He won’t.”

I studied him. He was earnest. Extremely so. “You two are friends now?”

He nodded. “He’s a good guy.”

“He has a good heart. Like you.”

His expression softened briefly. But then he shook it off, his eyes hard as he pushed off the wall and headed for the door. “Get some rest. I just wanted to make sure I was here when you woke up to stop you from bolting out of bed and aggravating your wounds. I’ll come back in a little while and redress your bandages.”

“Ryker!” I called, just as he was about to turn the doorknob and walk out. “Stop this.”

His back to me, he grunted, “Stop what?”

“You clearly have a problem with me.”

“Don’t,” he ground out.

I snapped then, the situation, Jaxon’s pain, and Ryker’s attitude all too much to maintain a calm state of mind. Before I could stop myself, I was yelling, “What the hell is up your ass?”

He spun, his eyes wide with surprise at both my phrasing and me blowing up at him.

Storming over to the bed, he fumed, “What you did back there was an epic fuck-up all around!”

“I was rusty.”

“Rusty?” he scoffed. “That’s an extremely generous way of putting it. You never should’ve gone there. I don’t get why the hell you did. You refused my pleas for you to come back in and yet the second Jaxon’s in trouble, you toss all your reservations out the window and rush straight to his side?”

“I just… reacted.”

He stopped short, frowning. “Reacted? To what?”

“The blockage that’s been in place between him and I fell and all of a sudden I felt him. His fear, his desperation, his need. It was so powerful, pulling at me so strongly that I was teleporting to him before I knew it.”

A look that I couldn’t place blanketed his features for a moment. But it was gone in the next second, as he told me, “You should’ve called me. Going there was foolish.”

“I did what I had to do to protect someone I care about.”

“Wrong. You made everything worse.” He shoved his hand through his hair. “And you can’t even offer up an apology. So fucking typical. Fucking Ice Queen.”

“Watch yourself,” I seethed at his scathing insults.

“Or, what? You’ll glare at me? It’s about all you can do right now.”

“You infuriating, jealous asshole!”

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