22. Chapter 22
Riley
“Hi Dad.”
“Hey Bug, I’m worried about you. There’s too much intracranial pressure. Can you ask your implant to help you regulate it?”
I tilted my head. “How did you know I have an implant?”
He leaned over and tugged one of my braids.
I hadn’t worn braids since I was ten. “Because I love you and want to keep an eye on you. Can you do that for me? Close your eyes and concentrate. I know your head hurts, but this is important.” It was quiet as I looked around and saw we were the only ones in the cockpit. He still wore his ranger uniform.
The helicopter bounced, and he looked around. “Hurry, Riles. You can do this. Close your eyes and concentrate.” Reluctantly, I closed my eyes and asked the implant for help as everything faded.
The next time I opened my eyes, I stared up at the knotty pine ceiling above my bed in the bungalow. My mouth tasted like copper, and my head still ached, but it was manageable now.
Parker’s face swam into focus above me, his eyes black and sharp with worry. “You scared ten years off my life. Next time, tell me when you plan to do something that idiotic.”
I was in no condition to argue, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to sit up. My head protested with a vicious throb that made the room tilt. Parker’s hand settled on my shoulder, holding me down with gentle pressure.
“Easy. You’ve been out for almost two hours. Conall and the fMRI machine are almost here.”
Conall would collect and partially process the threads, and the machine would finish processing and hold them until they could be identified. I could hold out that long.
“How bad was it?”
Parker’s mouth went flat. “There was blood everywhere. It looked like you’d been beat up or shot. The sheriff and Beau nearly had a coronary.”
The front door opened, and I heard Conall talking to Freda. Even before I saw him, my body knew. The bond flared, a warm current cutting through the implant’s cold hum.
He filled the bedroom doorway a second later, his dark hair wind-tousled and his normally gray eyes burning yellow-gold at the edges. Drew followed behind him, his white hair and black-framed glasses askew, holding an armful of equipment.
Conall crossed the room and sat beside me, taking my face in his hands. His touch was careful despite the fury rolling off him.
“Why didn’t you tell me so I could be here?”
His voice was quiet and controlled. I shrugged a shoulder, then winced as fresh pain lanced through my skull.
“You would’ve tried to stop me.”
“No, I would have stopped you. No more. You won’t keep risking yourself like this.” His jaw worked as he tried to contain his temper.
Drew set his equipment down on the dresser, then pushed his glasses up his nose. His energy was calm and focused, the steady hum of a Strategist already running calculations.
“Yell at her later. She’s hurting, and the threads may not hold much longer.”
Conall helped me sit up, his arm around my shoulders, solid and warm. Then he pulled me into his lap and tucked my head against his chest. “You know the drill. Open for me, love.”
His warmth wrapped around us both and carried the scent of desert rain and sage. I closed my eyes and directed the first signature toward him. Carefully, he pulled the thread from me as I breathed through the pain. He transferred it to the fMRI, and Drew worked his magic.
I wrapped my arm around Conall’s hard waist as he began the last signature.
A tear slipped from my eye as Conall slowly gathered the thread, and when he had it all, I collapsed against him.
He processed and transferred the signature to the second container on the fMRI machine, and the screen lit up with cascading data.
Waveforms, frequency patterns, the raw architecture of Wilson’s energy signature as it unpacked and decoded.
My body slumped, and my head still throbbed, but the worst of the backlash had passed, and the implant was stabilizing and recalibrating with cold efficiency.
“General Wilson,” I whispered, “or someone in a military command role, stood at that desk and reviewed those maps.”
Conall’s hand found mine, his grip almost painful. “We’ll talk about the fact that you went back there without telling me later.”
I met his gaze. The gold was receding, leaving his eyes a sharp, penetrating gray. “There wasn’t time.”
“You make the time.” His words were low and hard.
Drew glanced between us, then wisely returned his attention to his screen. “This is going to take a while to process. I also need my lab.”
Conall stood and scooped me up in his arms. “We’re going to the smaller cabin. Will you ask Freda to send her belongings over?”
Parker raised an eyebrow. “You wanna stay here, Bug?”
“No, she doesn’t,” Conall answered for me. He strode out of the bungalow with me in his arms and Parker following us.
“How’re you feeling?” Conall asked.
“My whole body hurts, and I feel like I’m going to throw up,” I admitted.
He squeezed me to him. “Talk to me. Why would you go back there to Spool without telling anyone?”
I laid my head on his shoulder and sighed. “We need solid proof Wilson was there, not just circumstantial evidence, but something we can use. The threads are the closest thing to a smoking gun there is.” Parker opened the cabin door and pulled back the covers. Conall set me in bed.
“You’re my mate, and you don’t get to make these kinds of decisions without me.” His voice had gone quiet. “That’s not how this works.”
My head spun as I looked up at him. “I can’t watch them take anyone else from us, and I’m tired of hiding and being scared. It’s time for me to make a stand.”
Conall stared down at me. “You’ll have to expose yourself for us to use it.”
“I know.” I swallowed.
“Fucking hell,” Parker muttered. “I’ll go get your shit. I can’t stay here and not yell.”
Conall walked out and came back with a glass of water. “Drink.”
I drank, hoping my stomach would keep it down. When I’d finished, he took the glass and set it aside.
“You need to get clean.”
He was right. I had dried blood under my fingernails, and dried sweat coating my skin. Conall helped me undress with careful efficiency as the clawfoot tub filled.
A small whimper escaped as he set me in the steaming tub, and the hot water soaked my aching body.
Conall knelt beside me, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and washed and conditioned my hair with methodical tenderness.
His fingers worked through the tangles, massaging my scalp and making my eyelids heavy.
“You have no idea,” he murmured, “what it does to me when Parker calls and says you’re bleeding and unconscious.”
“I have some idea.” I reached for his hand. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
His thumb traced the inside of my wrist, and the bond purred. “But you’re not sorry you went alone and didn’t tell me.” I didn’t want to lie to him, so I kept my mouth shut.
He carefully scrubbed me clean and helped me out, wrapping a towel around me. When he tucked me back into bed, he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“Sleep. I’ll be here.”
I did sleep, deep and dreamless this time, and woke to a dark room. Conall sat in the armchair by the window, reading something on his phone, the light catching the angles of his face.
He looked up when I stirred. “How’re you feeling?”
“Better.” I sat up and moved my neck. “My little friend has been busy.”
“Little friend?”
“The implant and I are starting to figure a few things out. It’s aware and separate, but we’re learning to live in the same body.”
Conall blinked. “When we get to a place where we’re not working in crisis mode, you and I need to have a long talk.” He set the phone down and sat on the edge of the bed, one hand resting on my stomach. “How’s the head?”
“It’s good.” The throbbing had subsided to a dull, manageable ache. My little device steadily pulsed, back to its efficient baseline after it’d figured out how to relieve the pressure in my skull. The whole process both disturbed me and left me grateful.
He walked over and set his phone down on the nightstand, then leaned over me, his hands on each side of my head.
“Drew is still processing the strands, then he needs to double-check the Database. He says we’ll have something by morning.”
My fingers curled around his forearms. “God, I hope I’m right.”
He leaned in and ran his lips over my collarbone. “You scared me. I want to fuck you, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m feeling better. Come here.” He came, his mouth finding mine in the dim light.
The kiss was nothing like his careful tenderness when he bathed me.
It was hungry and desperate. His teeth caught my lower lip, and his hand tangled in my damp hair.
Frustration and anger still simmered in him, but beneath it, possessive lust raged.
The implant struggled to categorize the emotions flooding my system.
Dopamine and oxytocin crashed against its attempts to maintain order.
I mentally pushed back and told the thing that sex was healthy and a good way to release emotions.
The cold receded, and Conall’s scent and taste settled my mind.
We made love in the near-dark, his mouth skimming my shoulders, then trailing down to my breasts.
I arched against his hot mouth, panting in the dark.
His body moved against mine, controlled at first. When my nails curled into his shoulders, he thrust into me, speeding up as I wrapped a leg around his waist to feel him deeper.
His hands were everywhere. My hips, my breasts, tangled in my hair. Each touch carried a frustrated tenderness.
He pulled out and rolled me over, then drew up my hips and mounted me from behind, reaching around to stroke me as he pistoned inside.
His wolf reveled in this position, and Conall’s own lust spiked.
My breath stuttered as his pleasure rolled through me, and when he worked my center, I came with a soft cry.
Tiny strands of pure energy swirled around us, sharp desire hitting us both, triggering his own orgasm a few strokes later.
His knot swelled and caught me, sending me headlong into another high.
Long minutes later, our breathing evened out as his knot receded. He gathered me against his chest, my head tucked under his chin, his heartbeat steady against my ear.
“I’m still angry,” he murmured into my hair.
“I know. Resonant here.”
His fingers traced slow circles on my back, and for a while, neither of us spoke. The Pack Council, Wilson, the bunker, Spooling. I pushed it away as I curled into his side.
Morning came too soon. Drew knocked on the cabin door just after sunrise, his brows furrowed. Freda stood next to him, quiet and watchful. I threw on Conall’s shirt and tried to tame my hair.
“We need to go,” Drew told Conall. “Malachi called an emergency Council session because the Northeastern Pack is threatening to retract its vote.” He turned to me. “You need to prepare yourself. The signatures came back on those threads, and you were right. One of them is Wilson’s.”
“Who’s the other signature?” Drew glanced at Conall, but I pointed at him. “No, you don’t need to ask his permission. I pulled the thread. I deserve to know.”
The tech specialist pushed up his glasses. “It was Senator White.” I’d already guessed, but I wanted the confirmation.
“Fuck,” Conall ground out. “This keeps getting worse. Come with me.”
He had no idea how much I wanted to. Our bond was still new, and our relationship had begun with misunderstandings and betrayal. We were still learning each other and rebuilding trust. Time together was what we needed, but we both had responsibilities.
“I can’t. I still have an active case here that probably ties in with my father’s disappearance. We’re going to follow up on a few things, then I’ll meet you at the new Packhouse in a week or so.”
He kissed me hard, his hand cradling the back of my head. “Be safe, and don’t pull anything like you just did without talking to me first. Promise me.”
“I won’t.”
“I want your formal promise, a stór.”
Rolling up on my toes, I cupped his cheeks. “I, Riley Blackthorne, promise you, Conall Segerson, that I won’t put myself in danger again unless I have a very good reason.”
The air shifted around us as the promise bound me, and he exhaled. “That was a half-assed promise, but I’ll take it.”
After they left, Freda stared at me for a few seconds, then softly closed the door behind her.
Anger and hurt mixed with her usual energy.
We needed to clear the air, but I also sensed she needed time to process first. I crawled into bed and pulled Conall’s pillow to me as I listened to the helicopter rotors fade.
A foreboding, melancholy sense crept over me.