Chapter 21

Kody took hold of Mila’s arm when she stepped away from the elder. He seemed to have noticed the tremble in her legs.

Even though he was burning hot with excitement from the full moon, he looked calmly down at her, leading her back to her cabin. “Does it hurt?”

Mila nodded, trying not to show on her face just how much. “Yes, it stings a little, but it will heal soon.”

“I’ll help her,” Jed said as they reached the cabin door.

He had a slightly wild look in his bright red eyes. The blood still actively dripping from her self-inflicted wounds had him a little on edge. Mila could hear a rumbling in Kody’s chest.

Mila pulled her arm out of Kody’s grip. “Yes, Jed can help me.”

Kody blinked in surprise. “Are you sure..?”

She rolled her eyes and took a deliberate step inside. “I think we both know that I can handle him even if he does go feral. I’ll be fine. Enjoy the full moon.”

As soon as she said it, his eyes darted back to the other wolves. She didn’t know why he was lingering. The elder wolves were already herding the younglings on to some tame activities. It was time for a different celebration to begin for the wolves that were of age.

Mila could practically smell the pheromones. The air was getting thick with it, heating up as wolf couples began feeling amorous under the light of the harvest moon. Jed’s nose wrinkled.

Still, Kody hesitated a moment longer. Mila turned away from him. Perhaps the young male was feeling awkward about the rut that was about to take place. Mila couldn’t be bothered by it though, she had lived too long. Jed followed her inside, closing the door firmly on Kody.



Rather than start the bath, which was sure to make her fell better, Mila sat down on the edge of the cot. She breathed slowly, her whole body racked with pain.

“How badly does it hurt?” Jed asked softly.

A wry smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “It feels like all my skin has been shredded.”

She glanced up at Jed’s humorless face. His eyes were practically glowing and his nostrils flared. Her still bloody wounds made him thirsty, but he controlled himself. “That’s not exactly funny.”

“No,” she agreed, letting her head hang. “Can you bring me some water, please?”

He filled up a glass and the pot that Winnie and Dillon had left to heat water. Using a rag, Jed began cleaning her shoulders. “Should we be giving you stitches?”

She snorted. “No need. It’ll take a few days, but I will heal fast enough without stitches.”

The rag he pressed to her wounds was icy. He hadn’t done the human thing and heated the water to disinfect. It helped instantly, but though slowed, the bleeding didn’t entirely stop and soon the pot of water was pink with blood.

She glanced at his shining red eyes, aware of his thirst. He was kneeling in front of her, cleaning away the blood on her legs. A tick had started going in his jaw.

“You can drink,” she nodded to the cloth in his hand. “I don’t mind or anything.”

She had expected him to drink the bloodied water, but instead, she felt the soft brush of his tongue at her wrist. She flinched slightly and trembled.

There was a light tingling sensation from the cut there and she could feel it closing up several times faster than it normally would. She hadn’t really thought about it, but now that she felt it, she realized that vampire saliva did, in fact, have healing properties.

It was an insignificant detail about his species, she wouldn’t have expected it to work on her. It was usually meant to heal the skin of humans to hide traces of feeding. She’d never have thought to try it since human remedies didn’t work on her body. She never experienced illness the human way and wounds healed fast enough without the added help.

She pulled her wrist away from his feather-light grip to look at it. “Amazing.”

He was looking up at her through his lashes, his eyes even brighter than before. Curiosity had her eager to press her arm back toward him to see more of his healing. She watched closely this time as he swept the tip of his tongue smoothly over the torn skin of her forearm.

The tingling was more intense on the longer cut, but it was healing as she watched. The outer humanoid skin knit together cleanly without even a hint of scarring. It was as though he’d just zipped it shut.



Perhaps she should have been more wary. Maybe even frightened when she saw his throat convulse after tasting her blood. It wasn’t generally in her nature to be scared though and after their spar, she was certain should could take him in a fight, particularly if he was healing her wounds.

Without fear, she extended her other arm. He was moving slower than was normal for him. She could see each of his delicate movements when he extended her injured arm away from her body, dipping his head to the cut on her wrist.

His tongue was cooler than a human’s would be. His breath almost chilly on her skin. It instantly relieved the stinging pain in that area before he’d even pressed his mouth to it.

There was a stiffness to his jaw when he licked the cut clean of the still moving blood. He pulled back with an expression like a human sampling a wine while trying to look professional.

Awkwardness colored the situation, made no better by the now howling wolves. The excitement was building outside. If she were alone, she would have been able to ignore it easily, but with Jed kneeling before her, tending to her lacerations, she felt awkward.

Like fear, it wasn’t exactly natural for her to experience self-consciousness, but the more he healed her, the more it tingled. Without meaning to, she let out a soft moan.

He released her arm at once. “Does it hurt?”

She was a little low on blood pressure to be able to blush, but she closed her eyes and shook her head. “No, it just tickles.”

She waited, but he didn’t move. Her arms were clean of their cuts, but her legs and torso were still bleeding. She opened her eyes to look at him and saw that he was hanging his head.

“Do you need to stop?” She asked, not really wanting to quit before the job was done. It was much nicer to be healed instantly than it was to wait, but if he couldn’t continue be it because of his thirst, lack of saliva, or just good, old-fashioned propriety, she couldn’t force him.

He shook his head. “We should get the cuts on your back so you can lie down properly.”

Before she could say anything more, he’d swept behind her in his usual, vampirically fast manner. She could feel his hesitant breaths on her shoulders, but he said nothing as he pressed his mouth to the cuts.