Once Bitten (23 page)

When he
heard the door to her bedroom break, he had managed to summon enough strength
to pull himself to his feet. But it was the sound of her being struck that
brought on the change. No one hit his mate and lived to tell about it. No one.

The
transformation hurt like a bitch at first, but soon it overcame him. The next
thing he knew, he was standing in the woods with a dead warlock on the ground
in front of him. Served the bastard right.

Her
hand and the gun fell to her side and she looked up, her eyes scanning the tree
line. When she saw him, he saw the faint flicker of a smile on her face. She
stepped toward him, but then stopped. His body ached, but the wound had closed.
The internal mending would take some time, but at least his strength was
returning.

He
walked carefully toward her, ignoring his nakedness and the fact that he was
covered in blood. She had just shot a warlock at point blank range. He doubted
she cared what he had just done.

“I’m
sorry!” she cried, dropping the gun and launching herself at him. He caught
her, surprised by her sudden outburst.

She
sobbed into his chest and he stroked her hair. He didn’t say anything, he just
let her cry. Shaking, her fingers dug at his skin, the palm on her right hand
covering the mating scars on his chest. The scar pulsed as he kissed the top of
her head.

“It’s
okay. It’s all going to be all right,” he murmured against her hair.

“I let
you get hurt. I mean, I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it shouldn’t have
happened. We should’ve known those bastards were there. We should’ve been
waiting for them. They tried to kill us! They could’ve killed you! Oh God,
Gabriel, I’m so sorry. Promise me. Promise me that next time they come for us,
we’ll be ahead of them. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you!”

He
heard what she said although half of her words were muffled against his chest.
What he didn’t understand was why she was babbling on as if she was the one who
caused the entire mess they were in. Didn’t she understand that she didn’t
cause this? It was the warlocks who had caused it.

“And
now I’ve gone and killed someone. Bastard got what was coming to him, but
still! I can’t believe I…I can’t believe it. I’m so cruel. You don’t want me,
Gabriel. You can do so much better than me. I’m a fucking mess. I love you to
death, but I’m a fucking mess.”

“You…what?”
he thought he’d heard what she said, but she was going on and on like some
crazy woman, he was sure his ears were playing tricks on him.

“I love
you, damn it! Clean your damn ears. Fuck. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at
you. I can’t believe I yelled at you!” With renewed sobs, she held onto him.

He didn’t
try to say anything else lest she start yelling at him again, but when he felt
her knees shake, he tried to turn her toward the house. If she collapsed, he
wouldn’t be able to pick her up, not with his injury.

 
“Come on,” he said softly and after a
second, she walked with him, tears streaming down her face.

He led
her straight into the guest bathroom since her bedroom was covered with his
blood and the chair still blocked the doorway. The mess that was the living
room was easy for him to ignore for the moment. He would deal with it all after
he got her calmed down.

Turning
on the water, he stepped into the cold spray, pulling her in with him and
letting it rush over them. She screamed as soon as the water hit her, soaking
through her clothes.

“Shit!
What the hell, Gabriel?”

Blood
from his body swirled down the drain as she buried her face in his neck. He
didn’t answer her and no new string of expletives came from her mouth. Slowly
the water warmed and she looked up at him.

He
frowned when he saw her wide eyes and the ugly bruises on her face. Her cheek
was cut and he tilted her face into the spray to wash away the blood. When he
was satisfied that it was clean enough, he helped her out of her clothes the
best he could.

He
washed himself first, mostly because he didn’t want any traces of the warlock’s
blood on him and then pushed the soap into her hands. When she just stared at
the bar, he said, “Wash.” Gradually, she began soaping up her hands and he
helped her so that he could get them out of the shower faster. When she was
done, he cut off the shower and wrapped her in a towel. She took it from him
and finished drying herself off while he grabbed a towel for himself.

“I’m
sorry,” she said weakly, dropping the towel on the edge of the sink. He didn’t
know what she was apologizing for now and he didn’t ask. She was coming down
from an adrenaline rush and a myriad of emotions that had left her devastated.

“I’ll
get you some clothes.” He left her standing in the bathroom when he went to her
bedroom. Moving the chair out of his way was more difficult than it should’ve
been, but he managed. With the back door busted in and two windows broken, the
cold night air blew into the house without restraint. He’d have to fix all
three, but first there were other things he needed to do. Finding a pair of
sweats for her, he made his way back to the bathroom where he had left her.

She
dressed without his prompting and followed him to the living room where he
found his bag. Lila walked around the living room, her eyes taking in the
damage as he pulled on a pair of sweat pants and found his cell phone.

“Wolf’s
Den,” the familiar voice said over the line.

“Alex,
where’s Kaleb?” Alex didn’t normally work on Tuesday nights, so the fact that
he had answered the phone didn’t sit well with him.

“He left
earlier. Where’ve you been?”

Gabriel
was quiet for a second. He’d known Alex for years and while he didn’t trust the
guy enough to reveal the entire truth, he’d always had his back. The other
Cantor werewolves would soon discover that he had mated Lila so hiding it from
Alex seemed ridiculous.

“I need
you to close early. I got a problem.”

* * * *

The
house was a disaster. Broken doors, broken glass. Some of the furniture was
overturned. Blood covered the floor and there were bullet holes in her walls.
That didn’t even come close to the fact that there were two dead warlocks in
her front yard.

She was
waiting for police sirens. She was waiting for the cops to come in and drag her
off to jail for murdering someone. Granted, he was a warlock and he had shot
Gabriel. He had come with the intention of killing both of them, so she thought
perhaps she could get off with self-defense. Although shooting him in the head
when he was dying on her lawn might not count as self-defense.

Murdering
someone went against everything she believed in. It went against everything she
had ever learned in her training as a nurse. She was supposed to help people,
not shoot them in the head. But then again, her patients didn’t relentlessly
pursue her with the intention of killing her. The tangled web of emotions would
take her time to sort out. For now she had to focus on what had to be done and
she had to focus on keeping them safe.

“You
should put some shoes on,” Gabriel said after he disconnected his call.

Glancing
down at her feet, she hadn’t even realized she was padding around without
anything protecting her from the glass. She was lucky she hadn’t stepped in any
of it yet. Nodding her head, she went into her bedroom and found a pair of
flip-flops. They’d keep her from getting anything imbedded in her feet and she
could toss them out when they got blood on them.

Gabriel
had disappeared when she came back into the living room. She didn’t bother to
search for him since she guessed he had gone outside. She wasn’t willing to
follow him out there so she concentrated her efforts on cleaning up the mess
inside the house.

She
used an old towel to mop up the blood and glass in the living room. Her garbage
can filled up quickly and the house began to reek of cleaning products. When
headlights lit up the living room, she went over to the window.

Alex
stepped out of the red pick-up truck and met Gabriel in the front yard. She
didn’t talk to the tall blond much, but she saw him just about every time she
went into the bar and he’d always been nice to her. She watched them talking
until Gabriel motioned toward where she knew the body of the warlock lay. Shuddering,
she turned from the window and got back to the task at hand.

She
worked for what seemed like forever to get the house free from signs of
destruction. She cleaned up the blood and picked up the remnants of her back
door. Closing the screen door was the best she could do until she got a new
door.

When
the front door opened, she went into the living room. Alex and Gabriel were
lugging in large pieces of plywood.

“Congratulations,”
Alex told her with a smile.

“I’m
sorry?”

“On the
mating.”

For the
life of her she hadn’t been able to figure out why he would congratulate her,
but it made sense after he explained it.

“Oh.”

“I’m
sorry about everything else,” he said. “We’ll get you fixed up as best we can
until you can get a door and window.”

“Thanks.
And thanks for coming out here.”

The way
Gabriel moved and shifted his weight told her that he was still in pain. He
needed to rest, but knew he wouldn’t until everything else was taken care of.
She was grateful he had been able to call on someone to help them. If he had
needed her help disposing of the warlock’s bodies, she didn’t know if she would’ve
been able to do it.

Gabriel
set the plywood against the wall and turned to her. He set his hands on her
shoulders, his eyes filled with concern.

“You
look exhausted. Why don’t you go and lay down?”

She
hadn’t realized how exhausted she was until he said it. “I can help. You’re the
one who should be resting. You’re the one who got shot.”

“I’m
fine. Alex and I will handle this. Go rest.”

There
was no use in arguing with him. She could tell from the determination in his
face that it would just be a waste of energy. Slowly, she nodded her head and
went into the guest room, leaving the two men to their work.

When
she woke up a few hours later, it was to the smell of coffee. Somehow she had
managed to sleep through the hammering and anything else the men had done. She
pulled herself from the bed and made her way into the living room.

The
house looked more like her home than it had the night before. The furniture had
been straightened but it was still impossible to forget what had happened. She
noticed her coffee table was missing, along with a lamp. A fire blazed in the
fireplace.

Glancing
at the back door, she saw that it was boarded up with two sheets of plywood.
Another sheet hung over the window in the living room. More money she’d have to
spend to fix the damage.

Gabriel
was lounging back on the couch, watching her as she came into the living room.
He held an empty mug, his chest still bare.

“It’s
all taken care of. You can go back to bed,” he told her, standing up.

She bit
her lip. “I don’t want to go back to bed.”

“Then
don’t.” He headed toward the kitchen and she followed behind.

“I’m
sorry—”

“You
don’t have to apologize,” he said, sitting his mug down on the counter. “I
understand why you freaked out like you did. It’s not every day someone
experiences what you did last night. Or even anything you’ve been through the
past several days.”

“I
shouldn’t have yelled at you,” she said, coming up behind him and wrapping her
arms around his waist.

He
sighed and looked out the window as she pressed her cheek to his back.

“Did
you mean what you said?” he asked suddenly.

“What
part?”

“The
part where you said you loved me.”

Releasing
him, she stepped back and he turned to face her. “Did you mean it?” he asked
again.

“Yes.”
Of course she had meant it, but then it occurred to her that after everything
they’d been through, going so far as to become his mate, she had never told
him.

And he
had never told her he loved her either. The thought hit her hard, like a punch
to the gut. Maybe he didn’t? Although she wanted desperately to believe that he
did.

“Do—”

“Yes, I
love you,” he said before she could finish the question. “I’ve loved you from
the first moment you walked into the bar over two years ago. You were sweating,
your face was red and you had a shit smear on your scrubs that you never even
noticed. I listened to you talking to Carey. Sixteen hours you had worked that
day and were exhausted.”

She
couldn’t believe he remembered that. “Jesus, Gabriel…”

“You
sat there and told her that you were having doubts about your ability to be a
good nurse, that you may not be cut out for the job. You were terrified of
fucking up. You were insecure, stinking, and drunk as a skunk. And I fell in
love with you. When you smiled at me, there was only you. There will always
only be you.”