Page 15 of Callen's Captive
“We have time,” he said, hoping she’d talk to him, tell him what the hell she’d done to piss off the WSSO. “I could use something to think about, to get my mind off the pain.”
She sucked in a breath as she finished cleaning the blood from his chest. Her face paled as she pulled away, stunned. She mouthed the word, but didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t have to. He’d lived through Briggs’ hate speech while the psycho had carved the word ‘ANIMAL’ into Callen’s chest.
Callen bent his head forward to see the wounds. That’s when she kissed him. She tasted so incredibly good, and her lips were as soft as rose petals, but it was how her tongue slowly glided along his lips that almost made him forget where they were. When she pulled away, her eyes were hazy with unshed tears. Seeing those tears hurt, as much as the cuts on his chest that she tried to keep him from seeing.
“I should have moved faster,” she said, her voice so guilt-ridden it tore at him.
This wasn’t her fault. Fucking Briggs was the one who had chewed him up and spit him out like a chew toy. She’d risked her life to save him.
This time when he bent his head forward to look at the carving on his chest, she grabbed him by his chin, clear brown eyes locking onto him with a fortitude he couldn’t ignore. “Don’t.”
A single word, said with fire and compassion.
He wasn’t one to go all weak at the sight of something gruesome, not given all he’d done in his life. Besides, he’d already seen the carving, already knew what the WSSO and many humans thought of him and his kind. The fact that she was trying to spare him pain warmed him. For her, he lowered his head back to the cushion.
“They’re the animals,” she spat out, angry as she continued cleaning the blood off his torso. “Everything they do. . .” She didn’t finish her thought, but the anger in her face was clear. Her touch, meanwhile, was gentle, careful as she inspected his left arm.
He could sit around all day, watching the play of emotions of her face and be content. Even angry, she was beautiful and full of heart. More than anything, he wanted to touch her, let his hands glide over her smooth skin and hold her face in his hands, as she had just held his. But not here, laid up like a fucking wounded dog.
“The bone is definitely broken. Should I make a splint? Do shifters use casts?”
“Only as kids, before we shift for the first time. Young shifters’ ability to heal themselves is sporadic before then. But a splint would keep me from moving my arm and making the injury worse until it heals, so a split is a good idea, thank you.” A splint was far from necessary, but it would keep her busy, which she needed right now.
“What did you mean about moving faster?” he asked as she grabbed two rulers from the desk and sifted through a box of odds and ends. She found a ball of twine.
“I hacked their frequency and used a digital program to disguise my voice. I pretended to be Sherriff Hall and told Briggs that if he wanted me, he better get his ass down to the gas station on Fifth, where he had me cornered. The location is clear across town and during rush hour, it probably took him a good fifteen minutes to get there.”
“Clever, but how did you get back to the school so fast?”
“I set the program on a timer. I waited at the school, sitting in a tree for hours, praying the program would kick in and everything would work. It was the best I could think of to draw them away from you, but it was a gamble.”
She sat back on her thighs. “I didn’t know if it would fool Briggs or even if he’d leave you there. He could have killed you outright. He would have if I’d set the program for any later. I’m sorry, Callen. I shouldn’t have played Russian Roulette with your life. It’s bad enough I do it with my own, but short of turning myself in, I didn’t know what else to do.”
He turned his face away, a sense of shame coming over him. Hours. She had watched Briggs beat him, threaten him, and truss him up like a bird left hanging from a tree for the blood to drain out.
“Please look at me, Callen. I’m not sure I can stand the silent treatment right now.”
Silent treatment? Hell.“I’m not upset with you, Princess. Your plan was brilliant.”
“Then why did you turn away just now?”
That was hard to answer, but she was waiting. “What Briggs did to me. . . It’s not something I wanted you to see.”
She quickly busied herself with the splint, wrapping the twine around the rulers and his forearm. He had no idea what she was thinking, but it still bothered him that she’d had to witness the torture. Not everyone could stomach torture, and those who witnessed it, watching a friend or loved one undergo such brutality, were often tormented with a form of survivor’s guilt, even PTSD.
“So, you’re a hacker,” he said, hoping to turn the conversation.
Her head snapped up, brown eyes blazing with indignation. “Know this, shifter, I’m not apologizing for who I am, only for putting you in danger.”
“Back to ‘shifter’ again?”
Her eyes rose from the splint she was fashioned, to the carving on his chest before focusing on his face. Deep pools of brown filled with an unease and something he couldn’t quite place. With his hand, he traced the line of her jaw, and to his surprise, she let him.
“It was only a question,” he said in as soft a voice as he could muster before cupping her cheek. She leaned into his hand, sending an unrivaled pleasure through him. Both his body and his wolf wanted more, much more than a simple touch. “Never apologize for who you are, Princess.”
Silence returned to the room, except for the sound of her wringing out the blood from the towel in the sink. Pain flared in his chest when she resumed washing the blood off of the “L” on his chest, the deepest of all the cuts and the one that refused to stop bleeding. Her face was growing pale. Callen eased the cloth from her hand. “I can finish up.”
She nodded and sank into the chair by the desk, but she didn’t sit still for long. At first, she drummed her fingers against the rusty metal desk, and just when the drumming was starting to grate on him, she began rifling through the papers stacked under a hockey puck subbing as a paperweight. A white file folder gained her attention.
