by Roxie Noir
“Yeah?” she said.
She was almost certain that she was awake, anyway.
“How do you feel?”
Charlie considered this question for a moment, watching the face of the man she’d been hunting hovering in front of her.
He doesn’t know what I was doing, she realized. He’d never have saved me otherwise.
“Shitty,” she said. That, at least, wasn’t a lie.
The two men in front of her face smiled. Then the third one showed up in front of her, holding a glass with a straw.
“Drink,” he said. “We’re supposed to keep you hydrated. You lost a lot of blood.”
The second the water hit her lips, she felt its coolness rush through her body. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was, and she slurped the water down in huge, greedy gulps, before Hunter pulled the glass away.
“Hey,” she managed to get out.
“The sedative I used has a tendency to make people nauseous for a little while after they wake up,” he explained. “You gotta take it bit by bit.”
Charlie just nodded, her cheek rubbing against the wood of the kitchen table. Hunter stood, lightly touching her bandages.
“Give it another hour or so, and I think she’ll be ready to be moved,” he said.
His gaze was totally professional, but it wasn’t until Charlie felt his finger securing her bandages a little better that Charlie realized she was completely naked. On a stranger’s kitchen table.
Better than being dead, she thought, trying to find the bright side.
She opened her mouth, then closed it a couple of times, still trying to get the hang of things.
“Is there,” she finally asked, “a sheet or something?”
Hunter, the guy who’d sewn her up, smiled.
“That’s a good sign,” he said. “She’s at least aware of what’s going on around her.”
“Yeah, and I’m naked on a table,” Charlie said.
The other two men in the room looked amused, and the dark haired one left, coming back with a soft, old quilt.
Hunter stood, and Charlie realized that he was completely packed up again except for a few orange medicine bottles.
How long was I out? She wondered.
“Antibiotics,” Hunter said, holding up a bottle. “Twice a day.”
“Painkiller,” he said, holding up another bottle, “not more than every eight hours. This is the serious shit, and I’m not giving you more, so save yourself the addiction and the withdrawal.”
Charlie just nodded. She’d seen what painkiller addiction could do first-hand.
He held up one last bottle. “Sedative. Cut them into quarters and don’t take more than one quarter. They’re designed for livestock,” he said.
Charlie’s eyebrows went up. “Why do you have livestock pills?” she asked.
“I’m a veterinarian,” he said, lifting his case. “And my pig-headed, stubborn cousin should be taking you to a hospital. You know, one for people?”
Kade growled. If Charlie had been able to move, she’d have taken a step back at the sound.
Hunter just rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow afternoon,” he told Charlie. “Get some rest, and feel free to remind these two that they should feed you real food, not just bring in a whole deer from the forest and expect you to gnaw on it with them.”
“Thanks,” said Charlie.
Hunter nodded at Kade and Daniel, then left through the front door. She heard a car start and then leave.
Then she was alone with the two of them.
They stared at her, expressions unreadable, and Charlie stared right back.
Her head swam with everything that she needed to do: she was thirsty, she had to pee, and the table was uncomfortable. She really needed to get her pack so she could call her commander and tell him that the mission had gone pretty wrong and, oh, she desperately needed an airlift because she had gotten herself into the middle of something she wasn’t even sure she fully understood.
She needed to come up with a story about why she’d been in the forest that wasn’t about Kade.
Of all the scenarios her team had managed to come up with, attacked by wolves and nursed to health on a table by a nearly-feral bear and his mate, both of whom really seem excessively attractive hadn’t been on the list.
Charlie was going to have to wing it.
4
Daniel
Daniel heard Hunter drive away, and suddenly, he felt completely lost. Human interaction had never been his strong suit, to say the very least, and now there was a naked woman on his kitchen table.
A naked woman who really, really made him feel weird inside. He felt like an avalanche struck him, utterly without warning, leaving him a tangle of competing impulses and confused signals.
He wanted to tear off his clothes, shift, and forage for dinner. He wanted to leave behind these very distinctly human problems and go claw some trees, tromp through a river or two.
Stay human, he told himself. Shifting can’t solve your problems, it can only put them off.
He made a fist with his right hand and squeezed it in his left, then looked at Kade, who was standing in front of the fireplace, glowering at the woman.
Hard to believe it was already going so poorly.
“So,” he said at last, after the silence had grown totally unbearable, “What’s your name?”
“Right,” she said, half-smiling, even though half her face was still lying on the table. “I’m Charlie.”
“Charlie?”
“It’s short for Charlotte.”
“I’ve never heard that before,” Daniel said.
See, you’re having a conversation! he thought.
Charlie shrugged, then winced.
Seeing her in pain tugged at something deep inside Daniel, something that snarled.
“I’m Daniel,” he said. “This is Kade.”
“You said that already.”
Right. Daniel went silent, wondering what the next step in conversation with a human was supposed to be.
“Could I get that water again?” she asked. She lifted her head just slightly off the table, looking around for the glass.
“Yes! Yeah, sure, here you go,” Daniel said, grateful for something to do.
As Charlie gulped eagerly, he glared at Kade, wishing his mate would do something to clear the awkwardness.
She drained the glass, and Daniel lifted it away from her face.
Suddenly, Kade spoke up.
“What are you doing here?” he said. He hadn’t moved from his spot by the fireplace, his thick arms still crossed over his chest.
Daniel heard Charlie swallow.
“Here?” she asked.
“What were you doing in the forest?” Kade asked.
Daniel had heard that tone of voice a million times before. It was the no-nonsense one that Kade used when he was trying to talk it out with the wolves, or when he was reporting on shifter activity to his bosses. There was something else this time, though. A soft edge, something that Daniel knew only he could hear.
Charlie exhaled, hard. She took a moment to answer.
“A week ago, two wolves turned up dead,” she said, slowly.
“We know,” Kade said.
“Since there have been ongoing ...disputes... between the wolves and the bears in this area, they sent me to see if we could figure out what happened,” Charlie said.
“Who’s they?”
“A joint task force of the FBI and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.”
Kade raised his eyebrows.
“It’s a pretty weird partnership,” she admitted.
There was something in the girl’s voice that gave Daniel pause. Why would they send just one person out, especially when something could go so wrong like this?
What isn’t she telling us? He thought.
“What do you think happened?” he asked.
Again, Charlie seemed to choose
her words slowly.
“They sent me because the only thing wolves trust less than bears is humans,” she said. “We knew that if we went in, arrested everyone, and tried to get you all to talk, you’d clam up faster than we could say boo.”
She had a point.
“But it seems like the wolves don’t want me around for some reason,” she went on.
She paused, and Daniel could practically see the wheels in her head spinning.
“We thought a bear killed those wolves,” she finally admitted. “I’m not sure of that anymore.”
Daniel and Kade exchanged a glance.
“You think wolves killed their own people?” Kade said, his gruff voice sounding a little surprised.
“I’m not sure,” Charlie said. “But it’s more complicated than we originally thought.”
There’s still something, Daniel thought. She’s holding back.
He took another look at her face, the pain shining through clear as day, and he felt that same snarl he’d felt before.
The same snarl that said, I’ll protect her at any price.
He wished he knew what was really going on. The silence between the three of them stretched out, and finally Charlie spoke up again.
“Thank you for saving me,” she said, quietly.
Kade just nodded, and Daniel stood there, feeling like he had too many limbs and also like conversation was impossible.
Then her stomach rumbled.
“You should eat,” Daniel said, remembering what Hunter had told them.
He took a quick mental inventory of their kitchen.
Not a lot of human food.
“Do you like... plants?” he asked, frantically trying to think what to feed Charlie. Since it was autumn, their garden had mostly withered away, and it wasn’t like they’d exactly been canning and prepping for the snows.
He and Kade tended to sleep a lot more during the winter.
“What about that stew my mom brought over a couple weeks ago?” Kade asked. He hadn’t moved a muscle from his stance in front of the fireplace. “Is it still in the freezer?”
“I think so,” said Daniel, grateful for the task of making dinner for the three of them. “Is there enough?”
“Has my mom ever cooked a meal that could feed less than a dozen people?” Kade asked.
He had a point.
Kade walked to the kitchen, going right past Charlie without even looking down at her. Daniel could see her eyes tracking him, her head moving slightly, a fresh look of pain coming over her.
As he passed Daniel, Kade gave the other man a hard, grim look, his jaw set. Daniel nodded. Since neither of them was very good at conversation, half their communication went something like that.
That particular look meant, this isn’t over.
Kade went into the kitchen, and Daniel heard the freezer open.
“Daniel?” said Charlie’s voice. She sounded a little weak, but in her circumstances, who wouldn’t?
He walked to her and crouched down so that he was at her eye level, careful to keep his distance. Being close to her did something to him, and he couldn’t trust that it was entirely good.
After all, Daniel knew better than anyone that his instincts were mostly wrong.
Her eyes searched his. They were warm and brown, a single gold fleck in her left eye. Her light brown hair was damp with sweat, and he had to fight the urge to smooth it back, run his hands down her shoulders and arm. The urge to hold her close and tell her that she was going to safe, with them, forever.
“Can you help me up?” she asked. She sounded almost defeated, and Daniel got the sense that she didn’t ask for help much.
“Hunter said to wait a little while,” he said, feeling dubious.
That prompted a small smile from Charlie, and her cheeks went the tiniest bit pink — a welcome change from the near-white she’d been most of the day.
“I’m really uncomfortable,” she said. “And I already got blood all over your table. I don’t want to make it worse.”
Daniel almost smiled, then stood, considering the problem.
Charlie put her hands under her shoulders and tried to push herself up, the muscles tensing, but she sucked air in between her teeth and collapsed back onto the table, a sheen of fresh sweat blossoming across her face.
“I can’t do anything,” she said, speaking between her teeth, frustrated. “Maybe if you could — I don’t know, grab my legs and sit me up?”
Daniel narrowed his eyes.
“Daniel?”
“Sorry,” he said. Sometimes I forget to talk, he thought.
No, say that out loud.
“Sometimes I forget to talk,” he said, out loud this time. “Try rolling onto your right side just a little, and I’ll slide my arms under you and just lift you off.”
“I’m pretty heavy,” she said, sounding worried, even as she looked at his arms.
Daniel grinned.
“Trust me,” he said, feeling confident for the first time all day.
Charlie took a deep breath, gritting her teeth again. Daniel felt that deep down twinge again, and the urge to smash something — the wolves who had messed her up, even the pain itself. He hated feeling so helpless.
Slowly, she managed to roll onto her side, slightly, exposing her entire body to him. Any other time Daniel would have been nearly knocked over, he knew. She was one of the most gorgeous, stunning women he’d ever seen, mind-blowing curves and all, and here she was, naked on his table.
The grimace of pain on her face was kind of a turn off, though.
Quickly, he slid his hands beneath her ribcage and her hips.
“Try to relax,” he said. “This is probably going to hurt.”
“Go ahead,” she gasped.
In one motion, he lifted her and stepped away from the table, hearing her grunt of pain through her teeth. Her legs fell as he stepped back and he lowered her, slowly, until she had both feet on the ground and he was just supporting her torso.
“Told you I was heavy,” she said. He could see the sweat beading down the back of her neck, and he fought to keep her steady without just lifting her again.
He snorted.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Trust me.”
Even with her feet on the ground, she was bent over, her back still flat, and she grabbed Daniel’s upper arm with one hand.
He swallowed. Warmth blossomed through him at her touch.
It’s nothing, he reminded himself. She’s just trying to stand.
Her other hand caught at his and he grabbed onto her tightly, moving to stand in front of her. Charlie’s eyes had gone unfocused, and he could see that she was fighting down sobs of pain, biting her lip as she did.
Gradually, she straightened up, pushing herself against his arms. She was strong, stronger than he’d thought at first. Sweat ran down her face, over her chest and between her breasts and her face went pale, but finally, she was standing.
Her hands were still in his, and she took a long, shuddering breath. Daniel glanced at her body quickly, fighting against the heat he felt rising inside him.
This is the wrong time, he thought. The wrongest possible time.
Charlie’s eyes opened, and finally they focused on him.
“Thanks,” she said, sounding slightly embarrassed.
“Of course,” he murmured.
He fought the urge to brush the sweat off of her face, or to move her hair out of her eyes, or to kiss her on the forehead.
“Could I have that quilt back?” she asked.
“Right. Yeah, of course,” Daniel said, looking at her hands still holding his, tightly. “You okay?”
Charlie took a deep breath and then released him, swaying a little and then standing on her own.
“I’m okay,” she said.
He draped the quilt around her shoulders. She had goosebumps, and Daniel remembered that it was starting to get cold — not only was he dressed while she wasn’t, but shifters tended to run hot.
“Hold on for a second,” he said, and left the room.
He went to their bedroom. Half was perfectly tidy — Kade’s military precision coming out — and the other half was his, socks and pants strewn across the floor.
Daniel stepped over two flannel shirts, a towel, and one shoe to get to the closet on his side, then yanked the door open.
After about a minute of rummaging, he found what he was after, the faded blue soft in his hands.
Really? He thought, rubbing the material with his fingers for a moment.
Then he thought of Charlie, her eyes with the gold fleck, and the deep stir she caused in him.
Really, he thought, then stood and shut the closet door.
5
Charlie
As soon as Daniel stepped out of the room, Charlie wished he hadn’t left. He’d had a look in his eye like he’d suddenly remembered something marvelous, and then scampered off.
She swayed on her feet, just a little. She wanted to sit but didn’t quite trust herself to walk the few feet to the chair. Standing was hard enough, but walking required balance and core strength and at the moment, she didn’t have much of either.
So she stood in the middle of the room, a kitchen table behind her and the fireplace in front, shivering, wishing that Daniel would come back.
“Dinner!” Kade shouted from the kitchen.
“Okay!” Charlie said.
She looked down at herself, and tears rose to her eyes. She hadn’t felt this helpless or, well, naked for years.
At last Daniel came back, something blue and flannel in his hands, just as Kade came out of the kitchen, carrying a soup ladle like he might be about to stab someone with it.
She could feel his eyes on her body, just for a moment, and she turned her head away.
It didn’t matter how hot he was. He was a gruff weirdo, stern to the point of being mean.
Also, he’d killed two wolves. Charlie didn’t think for a moment that the wolves had killed two of their own.
It had taken the wildlife coroner — another new job that only existed in the shifter states — about thirty seconds to point out that the claw and bite marks were much too large to be anything but a grizzly bear.