Forced By the Alpha (Sparkle Hollow Wolves #7)

Chapter 9 - Sienna

While Franco removed his shirt, I turned on the faucet in the bathtub, filling it to the brim with warm water. Even if he was as unhurt as he claimed, he needed to be cleaned. The blood that had dried on his skin would need scrubbing.

“I can stand in the shower,” Franco objected.

“That blood is caked to you,” I pointed out. “It’s going to need to be scrubbed off, and you don’t look like you’re in any state to do it yourself.”

He shrugged, dropping his torn, bloodied shirt to the floor before removing his jeans.

“Can I leave these on?” he asked, pointing to his boxers.

Heat rose to my cheeks as I nodded and moved toward him. I visually inspected his legs and feet to make sure there were no open wounds. Once he was in the tub, they would be submerged in water, and I wouldn’t be able to see. Plus, I didn’t want the hot water to loosen the scabs over any partially healed injuries and cause him to bleed more. But as he had said, there was nothing amiss.

“See?” Franco sighed from above my head. “There’s nothing there. Are you satisfied now?”

“Not even a little bit. Get in the water, and I’ll check the rest of you,” I instructed.

He clambered into the tub awkwardly and settled himself against the back. His eyes closed, and he sighed in relief as the warm water submerged him up to his chest. I watched as his face relaxed into a more peaceful expression, admiring his high cheekbones and the line of his jaw. His blond hair was in disarray, as always, and I found myself wanting to wash the blood from it and feel the locks in my hands.

As I watched him, I realized that the water was beginning to turn redder than I expected it would. A line of blood was trailing out from him at an alarming rate.

“Sit up,” I barked.

“Why?” he replied groggily.

I pulled him up by his shoulders as he protested the sudden movement and saw a large gash across his back, reaching from his shoulder to his waist.

“Dammit,” I cursed. “I knew you were hurt. The water is increasing your circulation and making you bleed faster. If I don’t close this, you’ll pass out in a minute. Hold still.”

Franco nodded in assent as I set about using the same incantation I had used on the rest of the pack earlier today. My strength had returned somewhat, but I still wasn’t at one hundred percent. As soon as the flesh had knitted itself back together, I felt a drain on my energy. I took a steadying breath as I eased Franco back into a relaxed position against the ceramic surface.

“I need to get my crystals so I can focus on finding your other injuries,” I said.

Franco mumbled something indistinguishable as I stood and hurried as fast as I could back to the bedroom. By the time I returned to the bathroom, Franco’s eyes were closed again and he had begun to sink further down into the water.

“Wake up,” I told him sternly. “If you fall asleep in the water, I’m not strong enough to pull you out again.”

He repositioned himself and opened his eyes as I grabbed my opal and began searching for internal injuries. His demeanor was more subdued than usual. Wherever he had been and whatever he had done, it hadn’t been good. Luckily, he was a captive audience for me to question.

“This might take a while,” I told him.

“I’m not sure I can stay awake,” he admitted.

“I’ll talk to you while I work so you can focus,” I said. “Let’s start with why you’re covered in blood?”

“Next question,” he said evasively.

“What injured your back?”

“Something that’s dead now.”

“Franco, I’m serious,” I said. “You also have a broken collarbone. I’m going to fix that now.”

I started my spell, and Franco gritted his teeth as the splinters of bone melded themselves back together inside him. The femur I had fixed earlier was easy compared to the delicate structure located in his chest.

By the time I was finished, we were both covered in sweat from exertion. I wiped my brow and began my questions again.

“Where did you go?”

Franco sighed as I began washing his hair, removing the blood and dirt so that I could see what other injuries remained.

“When Dylan stopped by earlier, he said that there was a disturbance that needed to be checked out,” Franco said. “I started heading that way. I wanted to clear my head of everything that’s been going on, but the curse took hold of me. I’ve been keeping my bloodlust at bay the best I could while you’ve been here so that I didn’t frighten you, but even I can only hold it off for so long.”

I rinsed his hair and began searching with my crystal again, locating only minor cuts and scratches that would heal on their own with time. I poured soap into my hand and began to wash his neck and chest. He sighed again as his eyes closed.

“Stay awake,” I reminded him. “You said the bloodlust took over? What happened next?”

“I can’t remember,” he said with a sigh. “But when I came to, I was face-down in a field, next to the dead animals I killed.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been hard,” I said quietly.

“Not the hardest thing I’ve dealt with before,” he replied wryly.

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. Anyone would feel guilt finding out that they killed something without remembering the attack.”

“Stop,” Franco commanded harshly.

I obeyed and stopped cleansing him immediately. The alpha order left me no choice. My hands were covered in soap and blood as I stared at him with wide eyes, unsure of how to proceed.

“Not that,” he sighed. “You can keep washing me, if you want. I mean that you need to stop looking for humanity where there is none. Any sense of compassion I once had died a long time ago.”

I returned my hands to his chest and continued washing him, pondering his statement.

“I don’t believe that,” I told him quietly. “You’re not as broken as you think.”

“Or maybe you just don’t know my whole story. Did Killian ever tell you about our childhood?”

“No.”

“Looking back, I’m not sure who had it easier. Our mother was a weak woman with a terrible taste in men. My father abused all three of us until my mother took Killian away and left me behind. That was when my father began to pay attention to me for something beyond a body to punch when he had drunk too much. I was always a fighter, like him, and he decided to turn me into a miniature version of himself: hard, cold, and evil,” Franco spat.

“Your wrist is broken,” I said. “This is going to hurt.”

I said my spell again, and a small pop emanated from Franco’s wrist as he swore.

“How’s that feel now?” I asked.

“Better,” he said with another sigh of relief.

“What happened with your father?”

“After twelve years of waiting, he finally died,” Franco continued. “I took over the pack exactly as he planned. By that time, I had spiraled into self-loathing and hate, along with the rest of the pack, who had been forced to do my father’s bidding for so long. We weren’t a large pack, and I decided we should move away and start afresh. As rogues, we traveled around the country, taking what we wanted and not caring much about the consequences. Our only rule was that we didn’t mess with women or children. Even hell-raisers have boundaries.”

“And Killian joined you?” I pressed.

“I found him when he was part of the Moonstone pack. I had found a place where I thought we could settle permanently, but my beta had just died. I needed someone I trusted to help me fight the wolves who were already in the area. But Ki couldn’t handle everything I asked of him and left me again,” Franco said bitterly.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I couldn’t imagine having any of my siblings leave me behind.”

“Half-sibling,” he corrected me with a shrug of attempted indifference. He winced at the movement when it irritated his recently healed collarbone.

“I think you’re clean if you want to get out now,” I said, grabbing a towel. “There are some smaller injuries that I’m going to put a salve on. I’ll grab it while you get dressed.”

I took my time grabbing the small potion I had stored in the kitchen as Franco dried himself off and got dressed. The last thing I wanted was to walk in on him changing, but I had a feeling he would need help getting to the bed.

“Are you decent?” I asked, knocking on the door.

“Never have been,” he joked. “But I’m dressed, if that’s what you mean.”

The door opened, and Franco leaned on me as I walked him toward his room and helped him into bed.

“Don’t fall asleep yet. I still need to put this on you,” I said, uncapping the bottle. “Keep going with your story.”

“You won’t like this next part,” he warned.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m listening.”

“It was shortly after Killian left that my pack encountered your father on the road near Sparkle Hollow,” he began. “We needed money, and he looked like an easy mark. But we were wrong. He cursed us—all of us, anyone who claimed fealty to me—and turned us into what we are today: savage beasts who can’t help but take and can never feel happiness.”

“Bestial hunger,” I said in sudden realization, my eyes wide.

Franco lifted his eyes to look at me. “So, you know the spell.”

“Not the exact spell, but I’ve heard of it,” I admitted. “It doesn’t just work on werewolves, but it brings out the darkest parts of whoever it’s used on. They go into a rage if they don’t sate whatever their need is. It’s essentially a greed spell.”

Franco nodded. “We were violent toward him, and now we cannot help ourselves.”

“That’s why there are no children,” I replied with a sigh. “I wondered why everyone here was over the age of twenty.”

“We can’t give, only take,” he agreed. “And there’s no way for us to stop until the curse is removed. If it isn’t, our entire pack will die off, slowly, through violence or age.”

I opened the bottle of salve and began rubbing it on the marks covering Franco’s chest. Whatever animal he had killed had put up a fight, but the scratches weren’t deep.

“This will stop any infection and help you heal faster,” I told him. “I’d use magic, but I’ve already used so much today.”

I did my best to focus on my task, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Franco’s sad story. I was horrified by everything he had been through. Even now, with the bloodlust coursing through his veins for so many years, he was still trying to find a way to save his people.

“I want to help you,” I said after a few minutes of silence.

“You already have,” Franco replied. “I’ll be healed by morning.”

“Not with that,” I said. “With the curse. I’ll help you find a way to get rid of it. I didn’t understand before what it had done to all of you. I want to make it right.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

His ice-blue eyes seemed to melt as we stared into each other’s eyes. My hands caressed his chest as I finished rubbing the salve into his skin, but I couldn’t seem to make them stop. I didn’t want to stop.

“Sienna,” he whispered.

I didn’t even think about what I was doing when I leaned forward, wrapped my arms behind Franco’s neck, and kissed him. His lips were warm and inviting, and he smelled like a mixture of iron from his wounds and the salve I had made from chamomile and rose oil.

He drew in a sharp breath as I climbed onto his lap and straddled him, deepening our kiss as I twisted my fingers into his hair. His tongue caressed my lips as he gave in to my passionate embrace and placed his hands on my hips.

My lips parted, allowing him to explore my mouth with his tongue. His right hand found the crook of my knee as he turned me onto my back and covered my body with his, keeping my legs wrapped around his waist.

“Sienna,” he said as he pulled back. “You have no idea how badly I want to keep kissing you.”

“But?”

“Today has been a long day for both of us. I’m not sure we have the energy for this,” he said wryly.

I sighed. As much as I wanted to see where this was leading, I knew he was right.

“Lay down,” I said.

Without hesitation, he curled up next to me and placed his head on my chest. His head was comfortingly heavy as I wrapped him in my arms securely, comforting him. My lips brushed the top of his head as his breathing deepened, and he fell asleep. Before I realized it, the soothing pressure of his head lulled me to sleep as well.