Chapter Eight
Trent
The wolf held my gaze for a long beat, eyes full of resignation, like he’d been hoping I’d let this stay vague a little longer. Tough. The blood was already pooling on the floor, and my hands were itching to do something useful for once in my godforsaken life.
“Don’t make me beg,” I whispered. “I’m running on fumes and trauma here. Have mercy on me, okay?”
He pulled back, paws scraping a little as he repositioned himself. I scrambled out of the way, dragging the leather jacket with me. It had become my leather emotional support.
The air around him got weird—not visibly, exactly, more like the way a room felt right before a thunderstorm broke. The hairs on my arms lifted. My ears popped.
Then the fur was retreating, melting back into skin the way frost retreats off a windshield.
Bone slid under muscle, the long muzzle shortening, the wide chest narrowing, the spine resettling into a shape I knew.
It happened faster than I could process and slower than my brain wanted.
I caught flashes—a paw becoming a hand, the sweep of ink down a forearm that hadn’t been visible thirty seconds before.
And then Preacher was on his knees on the hardwood in front of me, head bowed, one hand braced on the floor, breathing hard. Naked. Bleeding from a long, ugly slice across the meat of his shoulder that ran down toward his collarbone.
My eyes snapped to the ceiling so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. “Oh my god.”
“Trent.”
“Holy fuck. You’re naked. Naked kind of naked.”
“Babe.” His voice was rougher than usual, scraped raw, like the shift had taken something out of his throat on the way through. “I’m not gonna apologize for the lack of pants.”
“Could you…” I counted the tiles on the ceiling, forcing myself not to outright gawk at his body. That would be rude. I wanted to be rude. “Could somebody… Crowbar! Bring him pants or a bed sheet! Bring him a washcloth. I don’t care!”
“Crowbar’s giving us a minute,” Preacher said, and there was something tired and amused in it. “Eyes on mine, Trent.”
Dragging my gaze up his body, I tried, I genuinely tried, not to drool over anything until they landed on his face.
He was watching me with the kind of patience that said he’d wait all night if he had to.
“You’re still naked,” I said.
“You’re very observant.”
“Where anyone can see you.”
“Still batting a thousand.”
“You were just a wolf.”
His smirked. “You’re tracking, sweetheart.”
Considering the size of the cut on his shoulder and the fact I’d just watched him rearrange his entire skeleton, I clamped down on the reaction and pointed at the wound.
“You’re bleeding on my clothes, sweetheart.”
Preacher glanced down at the smear of red across the thigh of my jeans like he hadn’t noticed. “Guess I am.”
I was not going to survive this man. Folding his jacket over the arm of the couch, I tried to stand, but my foot slipped. “Shoot. This isn’t working.”
“I got you.” He ignored the wound like it was a paper cut and offered me a hand.
The silver rings were gone, his knuckles scraped. I put my hand in his anyway, and he hauled me up like I weighed nothing, securing me against him when my knees became unsteady.
His chest was bare, and I was pressed against it, his skin warm and solid, smelling like the woods, copper, and him.
“Pants,” I said into his collarbone while glued to the problem. “Please. For my sanity. Pants.”
A low rumble moved through his chest under my cheek, and it took me a second to realize he was laughing. He was enjoying this way too much. “Okay, Trent.”
“And then you sit. And I look at that cut. And then we talk about Candyland.”
“Crowbar is rubbing off on you.”
He kept one arm around my waist and walked me backward down the hallway, slow enough that my legs could keep up. His blood was leaving a trail of small, dark coins on the hardwood behind us. I kept my eyes pointed firmly forward, or backward, through a doorway and the bedroom I’d woken up in.
Preacher eased me down onto the edge of the mattress and crossed to the dresser.
I made a study of my own hands while drawers opened and closed.
Cotton rustled. By the time I risked a glance, he was pulling a pair of soft black sweatpants over his hips, low on his waist, and reaching for a clean T-shirt.
“Don’t,” I said. “The shirt. Leave it. I need to see what I’m working with.”
His brow lifted, but he set the shirt aside without comment and turned to face me.
In the warm light of the bedside lamp, the cut looked uglier than it had in the common room. A diagonal slash across the meat of his shoulder, maybe four inches long. The edges were clean, telling me the blade had been sharp.
I pressed my palms flat against my thighs to stop them from shaking then pushed off the bed.
“Bathroom?”
He nodded toward a door I hadn’t noticed before, tucked into the corner past the closet. “First aid kit’s under the sink. Top shelf above it has gauze and tape. Suture kit’s in the drawer to the right.”
I went and gathered what I needed, mostly because moving gave my hands something to do besides trembling. The bathroom was as neat as the bedroom—dark tile, a thick gray towel folded on a hook, a single toothbrush in a glass. No clutter. No sign of anyone but him.
When I came back out with my arms full, he was sitting on the edge of the bed where I’d been, elbows on his knees, watching the door for me.
“Sit up straight.” I dropped the supplies onto the nightstand. “And don’t move. I’m running on cornbread, terror, and the discovery that my—” I cut myself off. “That you are a wolf. So my hands are not at their steadiest. I’d rather not stab you on accident.”
“Won’t move, bossy pants.” He shifted just enough to square himself with me, his spine straightening and his shoulders rolling back, despite the injury, like it was habit instead of effort.
I stepped between his knees before I’d thought about what that meant. By the time it registered, his thighs were on either side of mine and his face was nearly level with my chest. I was trapped between his legs, feeling the heat coming off his skin.
His knees pressed in a fraction, not pinning me, just there, like he had decided I wasn’t going anywhere and didn’t feel the need to say it out loud.
Focus, Trent.
Pretending I wasn’t affected, I tore open an alcohol wipe and got my first good look at the cut. Not as deep as I’d thought, but still deep enough.
“This is going to sting.”
“I’m a big boy.”
His voice dipped lower, rougher, like the shift had not fully let go of him yet.
Yes you are.
Get your head out of his pants.
I cleaned the wound. He didn’t flinch, didn’t even tense.
Preacher just sat there breathing slow and even while I wiped blood away in long, careful strokes.
My free hand was braced against the warm slope of his uninjured shoulder.
I needed something to hold on to, and his body was the closest available option.
Under my palm, muscles shifted in a controlled, deliberate way. He was not reacting to the pain. He was reacting to me.
“You’ve done this before,” he said quietly.
His breath brushed against my collarbone, warm and steady, and entirely too close for comfort.
“Mike.” I dabbed at a stubborn smear. “He’s not careful with himself. I learned out of necessity.”
“You’re good at it.”
His gaze did not leave my face, not even when I pressed a little harder to clear the blood. He watched me like every movement mattered.
“Don’t compliment me while I’m holding a needle near you.”
I reached for the suture kit, and my fingers brushed his chest for balance when I shifted. His skin was hot under my touch, and I immediately regretted the contact.
Preacher didn’t pull away fast enough, and neither did I.
His mouth twitched while I focused on the threading. The suture kit was a nice one. Better than what I’d had to work with on Mike’s kitchen-table emergencies. The curved needle slid cleanly through skin the first time I pushed it through.
Preacher didn’t make a sound. He just watched, trusting I wouldn’t screw this up.
“You don’t have to be tough about it,” I said, eyes on my hands. “Wince. Curse. Something. You’re freaking me out.”
“Doesn’t hurt much.”
He said it so calmly I almost believed him.
“It absolutely hurts. You’re sweating.” His being tough didn’t bother me. But we were alone, no eyes around, and I wanted him to know he could lower his guard when it was just us. No judgment.
“Different reason.” A bead slipped from his temple, tracking down along his jaw before disappearing into his beard.
My hand stilled mid-stitch. I lifted my eyes to his, and the air in the room suddenly became stifling.
He didn’t look away when I caught him watching me. If anything, his grip tightened just slightly where his hands rested.
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t do that. I’m holding sharp objects, and your skin is open. You’re also very naked from the waist up, and I am a man with limits.”
Few, but I had them.
“Noted.”
I went back to work. The next stitch went in cleaner than the first. I found a rhythm—pierce, draw, knot, snip—and let my hands do what they knew while my brain focused on things that didn’t involve how badly I wanted to kiss him.
“Born that way?” I asked. “Or were you bitten, or whatever the lore says? I don’t know how this works. I’ve seen exactly one werewolf movie, and it was the lamest thing I ever watched.”
“Wolf shifter and I was born this way.” His voice was careful, like he was watching how I took every word. “My lineage goes back further than anybody bothers to count.”
“So it’s not a virus?” Like it had been in the movie. It was the only comparison I had to go on. After what I’d just witnessed, I was going to binge-watch a ton of them.
“It’s not a virus.” Preacher jerked when the needle got stuck, making me jerk my hand away and tip backward.
“Sorry!” I said as his hands cupped the back of my thighs, steadying me.
The movement pulled me a fraction closer without either of us acknowledging it. My free hand pressed more firmly against his shoulder. “The tip of the needle—”