Chapter 15
Janice stifled a yawn, stretching before she winced at the pain it caused in her chest and shoulder.
It had been a long time since she’d last had to work while injured.
. . Or, well. Work while injured and not have Warren put some of his magical healing water and salve to calm and soothe her injuries.
Sighing, she held her shoulder and rotated her arm to try and work out the stiffness standing in one position had caused her.
Her chest was tired and though she’d had her brother help wrap a bandage around her chest and shoulder to limit unnecessary movement and provide support, she still felt as though her arm, chest and shoulder were giving her more problems than she was used to.
Probably because she’d been fortunate enough to not get hurt for the past several years and now she was spoiled when it came to the treatment of her injuries.
Pain radiated across her chest and her breath caught on a soft hiss, her actions coming to an immediate halt.
She needed to take some more pain killers.
“Hey, I’m gonna go back and get something to drink,” she announced, trying to keep the soreness from her voice as she kept a hand on her shoulder.
She was starting to think she’d need to get out the needle and thread tonight.
Stephany waved her off, obviously uninterested in what Janice had going on, and Janice took that as her opportunity to exeunt.
She was almost to the break room when Sascha rushed up to her, asking lowly, “What’s wrong with your shoulder?”
Janice’s first instinct was to lie. To say she’d hurt it falling out of bed or something. After all, freak accidents did happen, but the idea of lying to Sascha made her stomach turn badly enough she thought she might vomit on the floor. Instead, she said honestly, “I hurt it last night.”
Sascha frowned, walking into the breakroom with her and watched as Janice dug a bottle of painkillers out of her purse. “Did Warren do that to you?”
Janice breathed a laugh as she grabbed her water bottle.
“No.” She shook two of the colorful pills in the bottle’s cap before shooting them and chasing them down with water.
“I didn’t see Warren last night.” She smiled.
“Besides, the man’s a lamb. If he ever hurt me, he’d be all over me trying to make sure I’m alright. ”
Sascha narrowed her eyes on Janice, clearly not believing her. “Has Warren ever hurt you before?”
Janice breathed another laugh. “Not in the way you’re thinking.
” She peaked around the other woman to the door to make sure no one was coming in.
“He can get a little bite happy in the thick of it. I’ve come away with imprints of his teeth and scratch marks, but he’s never hit me.
Don’t worry.” She neglected to consider the time he had and how she’d basically cum at his command in response.
. . She also stridently denied the little thrill of excitement that ran through her at the thought of him getting dominant and smacking her on the ass again.
Sascha frowned, studying her as Janice took another drink of water. “So then, how’d you hurt your shoulder.”
Janice shrugged and then winced at the pain it caused. She dropped her shoulders slowly. “I got careless. But it’s really nothing to worry about.” She waved the other woman off and took another drink of water. “A couple days and I’ll be good as new.”
Sascha approached her then, eyes narrowed with suspicion. Janice continued to smile pleasantly. . . That is, until Sascha started sniffing at her like a basset hound. Janice’s expression fell, eyes wide with disbelief. What the fuck was this woman doing?
Sascha jabbed her with a finger in the chest, growling out the word “Liar,” but Janice couldn’t hear it through the blinding pain and the yelp that escaped her.
In the next moment, Janice was on her knees, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath and waited for the pain to pass.
When it did and she could stand again, she felt her power flare with her rage, her eyes tingling as she turned on Sascha.
“Are you insane?” She bit out. She could feel her power sizzling beneath her skin, ready and waiting for her to give it a target.
“Even if you doubt me telling you the truth, what sense does it make to aggravate an already active injury?”
Sascha didn’t flinch. “Tell me the truth. What happened to your chest?”
Janice clenched her fists and her jaw, willing herself not to strike the other woman. This was Sascha. Her best friend and sister, not some nosey stranger. They could get through this with words.
“You promised not to lie to me.” Sascha said fiercely, but there was something in her eyes. A pain of some kind.
“I’m not.” Janice sneered firmly. “I hurt myself by being careless last night. It will take at least a couple days to heal. What more do you want from me?”
“The truth.” Sascha said harshly.
“That is the truth.” Janice bit out.
“Not the whole truth.” Sascha shot.
Janice flinched at that. Sascha had never been this insistent to be in her business before.
Before, if she was hurting, Sascha would have accepted the answer that an injury was due to carelessness and they would have been able to move on.
. . So what made today so different? “Why do you care so much?” Janice asked at last, her power settling unhappily.
“Because I love you.” Sascha confessed, but it was almost as though the admission pained her somehow. “And I want to help. But I can’t do that if you won’t let me in.”
Janice sighed heavily, propping a hand on her hip and bringing up the hand of her uninjured arm to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Sascha, there are some things you can’t help me with.”
“I’m willing to bet quite a lot that I can.” The other woman said with absolute certainty.
Janice frowned at the other woman, bunching her brows in confusion. How could she be so certain she could help when she didn’t even know what the problem was.
Warren huffed a growl as he shouldered his way into the break room, hissing, “You’ve got company” as he set down Janice’s day coffee and muffin.
They both merely stared at him in disbelief— he wasn’t supposed to be back here— and he wrapped an arm around Janice’s shoulders, before leading her from the room.
When they passed through the doorway, Janice was surprised to be face to face with an abashed Stephany, who looked as though she’d been caught peeping. . . Or perhaps eavesdropping.
When they were back in the front, Warren leaned his head towards her and took a deep drag of her scent before asking, “What’s wrong with your shoulder?”
Janice set her jaw. Of course, he’d be able to smell her ointment. The man spent their time together practically inundated in smelling her. He was bound to notice the moment she changed something about her daily routine. “Nothing,” she said tightly.
He leaned forward, eyeing her, then frowned.
Then he began prodding gently at her shoulder.
She was about to tell him to stop when he hit her damaged muscle.
She tried not to wince at the pain the action elicited.
“My car.” He said fiercely. He stopped touching her shoulder. “Now.” Then he stalked out of the bank.
Janice heaved a demoralized sigh, shoulders hunched with defeat. She’d never seen him so angry before. It was like the most important people around her no longer cared about her sense of boundaries. Turning, she almost ran smack into Sascha, who stood with arms crossed.
“I just got off the phone with Ansell. He’ll be here in five minutes. And I told Addie you and I are going to be clocking out for a while.” The woman’s smile was tight. “Go clock out and meet me at Warren’s car.” Then Sascha was storming off.
Janice dropped her head back and groaned loudly. First Sascha, then Warren, and now Ansell? Could this day get any worse?
Apparently it could. Three minutes later, Janice sat on the back lip of Warren’s open hatch back with Sascha and Warren standing over her, arms crossed and expressions disapproving as they waited for her to take her shirt off.
It was the most uncomfortable gathering she’d ever been a part of. She just thanked the heavens that the bank was backed up by a long patch of grass and then a thick line of trees that separated it from the neighborhood that backed this side of the shopping center.
“Take— It— Off—” Warren bit out for what had to be the twentieth or thirtieth time. The man was pissed. Far more so than he’d been the other night when he’d seen the left over marks from her hallucination of Ansell and the man’s favored riding crop.
Janice just sat there. Quiet and stubborn as she felt the right to be. She wasn’t about to strip in the back of the parking lot for them. Didn’t matter if they were her best sister-friend and her boyfriend in a united front. She wasn’t doing it.
A hand grabbed the side of the hatch back door and Ansell swung into the frame. Janice immediately felt herself bristle. She didn’t want him here.
The newcomer looked at Sascha. “You said to bring my bag, but didn’t say what’s wrong.”
Sascha pointed an accusing finger at Janice. “She won’t take off her shirt.”
Ansell’s quirked and confused eyebrow was the correct reaction to that contextless statement. “I don’t see why she’d have to.” He looked between Sascha and Warren before throwing an uncertain glance at Janice.
Janice turned up her nose and turned her head away from him with an aggravated huff. She didn’t owe him anything. Least of all an explanation of her cooperation. Or lack thereof. It was her body, she’d treat it how she saw fit.
“Very well.” Ansell said stormily. “Take off your shirt, Janice.”
The command sent a frisson of emotion trembling through her. She could feel it in her soul and every cell of her body ached to comply, her resolve shaken. She wanted to take off her shirt. She wanted to give this man what he wanted, anything he needed.
His voice came again, hard, but it whispered over her body like a gentle caress. “Now.”
She had no idea when she’d complied, but the sound of Sascha’s gasp and Warren’s inhale drew her attention to the fact that she was suddenly sitting on the back lip of the hatchback in nothing but her bra and the bandage Kadir had helped to wrap her chest and shoulder with that morning.
Janice clenched her jaw, crossing her arms carefully over her chest, despite her pain. She had no idea how Ansell had managed to get her out of her shirt, but she wasn’t happy about it.
Ansell sat his bag beside her as he leaned over her and began shifting around her to unwrap the long bandage that offered her shoulder support. She swatted his hand away hard.
He stilled and the look the man gave her could have been registered as a threat in a court case. “Hit me again, woman, and I’ll do worse than last time.” He yanked her into position and she winced, even as Warren growled lowly. “Behave.” He said gruffly.
Janice wanted to argue back, but something inside her shrank back from his anger. She stilled, allowing the man to remove the long bandage from her, but that didn’t mean she had to help him.
After several minutes of raising and dropping her arms and wrapping around and rolling up the bandage, Ansell huffed irritatedly. “Could you at least hold your arms up?”
Her voice was thick and defiant when she growled the word in his face. “No.”
He gave a frustrated hum, but continued until he finally finished and was able to set the bandage aside.
Then he slowly began to peel the gauze and medical tape she applied that morning.
She lifted her hand to slap his again and he froze, fixing her with a sort of unhinged look. “Not the day.” He warned severely.
Janice huffed unhappily and turned her head away.
She wanted to cry all of a sudden. These were two people she was supposed to be able to trust and a man she hated more than she cared to admit.
None of them should have known about her injury.
So why was it that they were all so deeply entrenched in her business?
She could come up with a few excuses for Warren and Sascha, but not Ansell. Especially Ansell.
Ansell huffed as he finished peeling off the homemade bandage. Warren and Sascha bristled.
It was Warren who growled malevolently, “Who did this to you?”
Janice looked at the ground.
“A question we’d all like the answer to.” Ansell grumbled as he opened and began digging in his bag.
Janice stayed quiet.
“Was it your brother?” Sascha asked into the silence that stretched between them.
Janice tried to stifle a wince.
Warren’s eyes went wide as though the thought had never occurred to him. Then he fixed her with a dire expression. “Was it?”
Ansell frowned around the group, confusion gripping him. He looked at Janice. “You have a brother?”
She clamped her jaw stubbornly and the urge to strike the defiant woman reared at him.
It was like she only responded to violence.
His gaze lit on the long rake wound over her right breast. Then he traced the faint scars that marred the rest of her torso.
There were a few scratches on her inner wrists, from what he could see, that had begun to fade enough he almost hadn’t caught them and he would have bet that he’d find more scars if she took off her pants.
Had her brother done all this because she was so stubborn?
His magick flickered angrily. SkinWalkers were known to be the most physical of the races.
It wouldn’t have been too far a stretch to assume her brother had inflicted every injury because she refused to stay in line.
But that didn’t explain all of the wound marks he could see.
He grabbed Janice’s chin and forced her to look at him. “Do you have a brother?”
“That’s none of your business.” She hissed at him, ignoring both Warren and Sascha blatantly.
He assumed she would have spoken to them if they’d put their hands on her.
Something inside him urged him to kiss the woman on that defiant mouth of hers and he promptly shoved her away. “You’d both be better off if I simply detained you.”
Sascha echoed Warren’s sharp inhale and Ansell cut his eyes to them.
“You both know full well how dangerous this time of month can be.” They had the decency to look chagrined.
“Unless the two of you plan to monitor them and ensure they don’t have any more complications, they’ll both go under lock and key. ”
Janice’s eyes widened as she stared him and he turned his attention back to rifling in his bag.
He pulled out several things to clean and rebandage her wound properly.
It might be better if he sent the woman to the Medical Center after all.
He could get Janice and her brother out of his hair in one swift move.
He cut a brief look at Sascha, who looked horrified at his assertion.
If only he wouldn’t feel so guilty about it every time he looked at Sascha’s face.