Page 94 of The Piece You Stole

Dressed in a pair of blue sweats, he leans against the doorframe, his arms folded across his chest. “I’m almost afraid to ask how you got back home as a wolf.”

Since I don’t have an answer for him, I let my gaze sweep across my bedroom. It’s large but not overwhelmingly so. Nothing like the Desidario Estate. My tastes are a lot simpler than they were back then. The walls are a pale gray, the carpets a darker gray and the drapes are a rich black. Other than two closed, white doors which lead to my closet and bathroom, there’s nothing else in it.

Only a nail in the wall where a framed photograph of Monica throwing a playful grin over her shoulder as she perched on a bar stool in the Cerberus had once hung. A woman who played favorites, but who we would have done anything for. Now that photograph lives on the top shelf of my closet, too precious to throw away, and too precious to keep in sight.

Pulling my focus from the black nail on the wall, I refocus on Aden. I don’t need to ask if Kade is okay because the cedar and wild berry scent a few doors away tells me he’s still breathing. And the jasmine and sweet magnolia scent reveals Saige is also a few doors away. Her breathing is slow and steady enough that I know she’s sleeping, even if the light peeking through the curtain suggests it's daylight out there. What time? I have no desire to drag my heavy body from the bloodstained sheets to check. “What happened?”

How long have I been out?

“We got Saige. You went after Rylan, and that was the last we saw of you.”

A flash of memory hits. I’m tearing into wolves, soaking the ground with their blood as smoke shoves its way down my throat, and singes my nostrils. “How long?”

Is she alive? Hurt?

But none of those are the questions I want to ask. Did I attack her again?

Aden’s calm expression doesn’t change, yet I get the sense he knows exactly what I want to ask but won’t. “Two days ago. And you didn’t.”

I nod, hiding my relief that the only people who died deserved to. And then the rest of his words catch up to me. “I’ve been asleep for two days.”

He snorts. “No, you damn near gave me a heart attack crashing through the house at one in the morning. You must have set off every last alarm. Kade nearly ripped your throat out. I nearly shot you in the head. And do you know what you did?”

The question drives me to my feet. Suddenly restless, I need to shower, brush the foul taste off my tongue, speak to Kade, and find out what happened in my two lost days. Did I kill Rylan, or didn’t I?

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” I say as I stalk toward the bathroom.

Shower and brush your teeth first. Speak to Kade after.

“You strode on by as if you had somewhere important you had to be, hopped onto your bed, and passed out. Kade was still threatening to rip your throat out when you started snoring.” His gaze dips to take in my naked body. “At some point, you must have shifted back to human because you were a wolf when I came to check on you. A bloody wolf.”

I close my hand around the door handle, the metal cold beneath my touch. “The time?” I ask, hating how reliant I am on Aden for information. What’s worse is the only person who would know what happened with Rylan is me, but I don’t even know how I got back to the house.

So, did I kill him? Or didn’t I?

“One. I was about to go make us some lunch.”

“Right.” I push the door open, preparing to enter the white and ocean blue bathroom.

Aden’s soft cough makes me pause. “She’s okay, by the way. All she’s done is sleep.”

I fix my gaze on the sink, carefully avoiding my reflection in the mirror above it. “She’s been sleeping for two days. That’s not a sign of someone who is okay.”

“No,” Aden admits. “It’s not.”

Fabric rustles, and I glance over my shoulder to find he’s moved inside to lean against the wall just inside my room. “The doctor recommended that she stay in the hospital for observation because of her injuries.”

I hadn’t let myself think of what would come after we got Saige away from Rylan, but now that distant event is right here, and I don’t know what my wolf wants to do with her. Yet the thought of her being injured, of requiring medical treatment, has me snarling.

Not the wolf.

The man.

“The injuries must have been bad if the doctor recommended that.” I wait, hoping Aden will say what those injuries were without me needing to ask.

“They were,” Aden admits, his voice serious. “But after what happened to her the last time she stayed in a hospital, it didn’t seem like the best idea to leave her there.”

Again, I nod. Events have moved so quickly that we haven’t talked about the report of Saige’s arrest we’d listened to on our way to the police station. But given that a doctor’s throat had been ripped out in a parking lot, Saige had literally been running for her life because all reports had agreed, the thing that killed the doctor had sharp teeth.Animalteeth.

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