Page 11 of Love & Violence

I sit down at a large wooden dining room table and feel a sharp pain on the side of my waist. Draven looks at me sharply when I make a noise.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Stand up,” he says, but he’s already helping me out of the chair.

My legs feel shaky for some reason, and I assume I’m coming down from an adrenaline high. Draven lifts my arms above my head as his gaze scans over me. I bite back a moan because I don’t want to upset my mate.

“What are you looking for?” I ask, but Draven doesn’t answer.

“Let’s take this shirt off.” He pulls it off over my head, and I hear him hiss.

“What?” I’m starting to get worried now.

“You’re bleeding.”

I’m utterly shocked. I have never been injured in my life besides a scraped knee, but I thought something more serious would hurt worse.

“What do you think happened?” I ask him.

“I’m not sure. Let’s go into the bedroom so I can check the rest of your body and tend to this wound.”

“I don’t think it’s a big deal, Draven,” I say calmly. “It doesn’t even hurt that much.

His dark, intense look has my body tightening, and I don’t know if fear or desire is causing it. Maybe both. Draven picks me up without talking, ensuring not to aggravate my wound further, and walks me into a room down the hallway. Rylee is spreading a towel over the mattress.

“I’m going to get blood on everything. Isn’t there plastic or something we can put down?”

I see the way Draven’s jaw starts ticking and decide to remain silent.

“You’re pushing me, mate. I can buy another fucking mattress. I can’t replace you.”

I press my lips together. I don’t want to make him even madder than he already is. He strips me carefully out of everything except my lingerie. He turns me to the side, and I hear him growl lowly. I try to pull myself up to see, but he pushes me back down.

“I just want to see.”

“Not now.” His voice is lower than I have heard it before.

“What is it?” I ask.

I notice Rylee placing things on the mattress that Draven would need to care for me, but she won’t look me in the eyes, and the Rat man isn’t in the room.

“A bullet hit you,” Draven says, his voice eerily calm.

I can see how tense he is and start rubbing his arm. “It can’t be that bad. I hardly feel anything.”

Draven closes his eyes, a stricken look on his face.

“It’s because your adrenaline is still high, little mate.”

“Is it going to be bad?”

“Not if I can help it,” Draven tells me, stroking my hair out of my face.

“Do you want to stitch it?” his sister asks.

“Are you talking about stitches?” Oh, hell, no. “I don’t like them.”

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