18. Annabella
Chapter eighteen
Annabella
He was still in the chair.
That was my first conscious thought; Sam Shaw was slumped in the chair beside my bed, one arm hooked over the back, chin dropped to his chest.
He’d stayed.
I’ll be here when you wake up. And he was.
I didn’t know when he’d come in and sat in the chair, but at some point, he’d come in, and fallen asleep.
He looked like absolute hell for it. Same clothes from yesterday, creased and wrinkled.
His hair at odd angles. Dark smudges sat heavy under his eyes, and the scruff along his jaw had crossed from roguish into genuinely unkempt territory.
I watched the rise and fall of his breathing, noticing the way his hand rested loosely on his thigh.
Stop. I dug my nails into the mattress. You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone.
But my wolf let out a low, contented sound deep in my chest that I did not authorize.
Sam’s breathing changed.
One second, he was out, the next his eyes were open, sharp, focused, scanning me and then the room in a single sweep before his brain caught up with the fact that there was no threat. Just me, sitting upright, watching him like some kind of creep.
“Morning.” His voice came out like gravel over sandpaper.
“You look terrible.”
“It’s my natural glow.” He straightened in the chair, rolling his neck with a crack that made me wince. “How’re you feeling?”
“Better. Ribs are still—” I gestured vaguely. “But better.”
He nodded, and something eased in his face. “Thomas is due to check on you soon. Said he’d be by first thing.”
I studied him. The exhaustion wasn’t just physical. It had settled into the lines of his body.
“Sam. You need to sleep. In an actual bed.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I’ve functioned on less.”
“That’s not the selling point you think it is.”
His mouth quirked into a ghost of a smile. “I told you I’d be here.”
“You were. You are. Promise kept.” I held his gaze. “Now go shower. You smell like something that crawled out of a gym bag and died.”
“That’s a slight exaggeration.”
“Is it? Because my wolf has opinions, and none of them are complimentary.”
Sam didn’t answer right away. He leaned forward in the chair—slowly, deliberately—and his scent thickened around me. Wood smoke and chocolate and that edge of lime, and underneath it something deeper, muskier. Something that made my wolf roll over and bare her throat.
“You sure about that?” His voice had dropped, rough and low, and his gaze tracked down my face to my mouth and stayed there a beat too long before dragging back up.
His eyes had gone dark. Not the sharp tactical focus I was used to; this was heat.
Pure, undisguised, I know exactly what you’re feeling right now, heat.
My skin prickled. Every inch of it. Like his attention was something physical, something I could feel moving over me.
Because he could scent it. Every treacherous thing my wolf had been broadcasting since I opened my eyes.
The way she’d curled up and settled when she found him in that chair, the low hum of contentment I hadn’t been able to suppress.
Everything my mouth was denying, my body was screaming at a frequency only he could hear.
Damn it!
The door opened, and Thomas filled the frame, medical bag in hand, reading the room in a single glance.
“Ah.” His gaze went from me to Sam and back. “Patient awake and alert. Good. And you,” he fixed Sam with a stern look, “are still here. Despite my very clear instructions to go home.”
“I told him the same thing,” I said.
“I’m fine.”
“Shaw, you look like a man who’s been sleeping in a chair for three days. Because that’s what you are.” Thomas set his bag down and pulled up a stool. “Go home. Shower. Eat something that isn’t vending machine coffee. She’ll still be here when you get back.”
Sam looked at me.
And there it was: that silent question. The one that had nothing to do with showering and everything to do with permission. Was I okay with him leaving? Did I want him to stay?
I wanted him to stay. Damn it, when had that happened?
“Go,” I said. “You kept your word. Now go before Thomas sedates you, because from the look on his face, he’s considering it.”
“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Thomas said mildly.
Sam held my gaze for another beat. Then he nodded, pushed himself out of the chair with a stiffness that told me exactly how much his body was punishing him, and headed for the door.
Thomas looked from me to the empty doorway, then back. If he’d caught any of what had just happened—and given that he was a wolf with a functioning nose, he absolutely had—he kept it off his face.
“I’ll check those burns now.” He set his medical bag on the side table and started unpacking, movements unhurried. “Take a minute, if you need one.”
I needed more than a minute. I needed Sam’s scent to stop clinging to the chair, and I needed my wolf to stop whimpering at his absence like a kicked puppy.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Waited for the room to stop tilting. Stood.
Small victories.
The ensuite was to my left, but the window pulled me instead. I needed air that didn’t smell like Sam Shaw.
Outside, Three Rivers was awake. A pair of massive gray wolves trotted down the center of the street, passing a woman out jogging.
None of them broke stride. No one flinched.
No one crossed to the other side. In a yard across the way, kids played football, a wolf pup bounded after the ball while a little girl in pigtails shrieked with laughter.
An adult wolf, rust-colored and rangy, dozed in a patch of morning sun nearby, one ear tracking the children.
I pressed my palm flat against the glass.
In Ashridge, I’d have rocks thrown at my head in the schoolyard.
The word “abomination” scratched into our front door with a key, deep enough that it took Mom and me every evening for two weeks to sand it out.
Lucas’s father liked to remind us that we were lucky they let us stay at all, that most Packs would have drowned me at birth.
My breathing hitched. Pull it together, McGrath.
“Ready?” Thomas asked from behind me.
I made my way back to the bed and sat. He reached for my wrists, his movements slow and telegraphed, still treating me like someone who might bolt.
I held out my arms and let him unwrap the bandages.
The silver burns looked better. Still angry and red, but the blisters had gone down, the skin starting to knit.
“Healing well,” Thomas said. “But I’d like you to Shift. Best thing for you.”
I stayed silent.
“Is that a no?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t tell him that I wasn’t sure I remembered how.
That I hadn’t fully Shifted in years, and the thought of trying made my stomach lurch.
What if it went wrong? What if I got stuck halfway between forms, some twisted half-thing that proved everything they’d ever said about me?
My partial Shifting was one thing, isolating the change to a hand, an arm.
But a full Shift? Fur and flames, I couldn’t risk it. Not here.
I walked over to the window again. “Thomas, I need a phone.”
He looked up, then nodded to the side. “Sam left one in the nightstand. Charged and everything. He said you’d ask.”
Of course he did. I hated that he knew me well enough to predict that, and I hated more that it made something warm curl in my chest.
I grabbed the phone. My fingers weren’t entirely steady, but Thomas had the good grace to pretend he didn’t notice.
“I’ll give you a minute,” he said, and stepped into the hallway, pulling the door half-closed behind him.
I stared at the screen. Three days. I’d been unconscious for three days, which meant it had been over a week since my arrest. Over a week of silence. Aunt Jo would be out of her mind.
I typed fast, keeping it short.
It’s me. I’m safe. New number. Are u okay? Is Ellie okay?
I pressed send and held the phone against my thigh, counting heartbeats. Four. Seven. Twelve.
The reply came at fifteen.
We’re fine. Ellie’s fine. She asks about you every day. Where are you? What happened? Lucas came by asking questions.
My stomach dropped. Lucas came by. Asking questions. Which meant he already knew something had changed.
Don’t tell him anything. I’m handling it.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Ellie learned a new word. “Catastrophe.” Uses it for everything. Spilled her juice this morning and announced it was a catastrophe.
My throat closed. I pressed my fist against my mouth.
Ellie was okay. Right now, in this moment, she was okay. She was learning ridiculous words and being loved by people who would do anything to protect her.
Kiss her for me. By starlight and shadow.
The reply was quick.
By silver streaks and moonspell. Stay safe, sweetheart. Please.
I locked the phone and set it face down on the nightstand.
Thomas reappeared in the doorway. He frowned at the phone but all he said was, “Everything all right?”
“Fine. How long until I can leave?”
Thomas didn’t look up from rewrapping my wrists with fresh gauze. “That depends. Where are you planning to go?”
I had to get to Ashridge first, prove to Lucas I was out and could keep paying, then I needed to regroup. After Adarcan, I was even more determined to take down the Council and shut that place down. But I needed to think about how to approach Simon now.
“Not telling, huh? Well, in that case, two weeks.”
Two weeks? Nope. Not happening. “I can’t stay here for two weeks.”
“You can, and you will. You nearly died, Annabella. Your body needs time to do what bodies do when they’ve been through hell.”
Before I could argue, footsteps came up the stairs accompanied by a smell so good my stomach cramped.
Wally appeared in the doorway carrying a tray loaded with scrambled eggs, thick-cut toast, bacon, and a pot of something that smelled like proper coffee, dressed in a crisp pale-blue shirt and pressed slacks. Even at seven in the morning, the man looked like he was about to host a garden party.
“Thomas, I know you said light foods only, but it’s been three days, and if I have to make another bowl of broth, I’m going to lose my mind.” He set the tray on the side table with a flourish. “She needs protein. She needs carbs. She needs food that doesn’t make her want to cry.”
“I said ease back into solids—”
“These eggs are fluffy enough to qualify as a cloud. That is easing.” He turned to me, hands on his hips. “Look at you! Vertical and everything. Much better color. Still too thin, but we’ll fix that. Are you in pain? Do you need more pillows? Thomas, did you bring the stronger—”
“I’m fi—”
“You’re gripping that windowsill like it owes you money, sweetheart. That’s not fine, that’s stubbornness.” He paused. “Which, honestly, I respect. But sit down before you fall down. I just ironed this shirt and I refuse to wrinkle it catching you.”
Despite myself, my lips pulled up.
“There!” Wally pointed at me like he’d struck gold. “Almost a smile. I’m counting that. Sofia’s on her way over, by the way. I’m warning you, though, she has opinions.”