Chapter 2
TWO
Lucien
Icame awake with a gasp, the pain searing my abdomen the first thing I noticed as I sucked in oxygen as if it was my last breath on earth, every muscle going tense as my fight-or-flight instinct roared to the surface.
The second thing I noticed was the sweetest perfume I’d ever smelled, hanging in the air like a delicious, seductive cloud.
It was fresh, citrusy orange with sugary peach, and something earthy.
Cotton? Yes, that was it. Summertime and desire all rolled up in one sweet package.
Something niggled at me, something that felt important, but I couldn’t place it. All I felt was pain, pain and cold hands plastered to my chest. And the damn magic cuffs that were still on my wrists.
As my awareness came back fully, I realized that those cold hands belonged to the omega healer, and her magic was cool, fighting against the burn filling me from the inside out.
We made it out. Relief had me sagging deeper into the bed, even as my body protested the tiny movements.
“Brielle?” My voice came out as a dry croak, but it got her attention. Her eyes flew open, and when she saw that I was indeed awake, her shoulders slumped with relief and fatigue.
“Thank the Goddess. You’ve been out for a while, and I was starting to worry…” She trailed off, seeming to think better of whatever she’d been about to say. “Let me go get Olivia. She just ran to the bathroom, and I’m sure you’ll want her with you while you’re recovering.”
Her kind smile was confusing.
Olivia?
It took me a moment to remember the other healer, and I squinched up my forehead when I realized who she was talking about.
Why the fuck would I want her at my bedside?
Olivia was stunningly beautiful, sure. Most wolf females were gorgeous, so it made sense that she was no exception. The first time I’d seen her at the pack castle was imprinted in my brain like a photograph.
She’d been standing in one of the big, old windows, like some romance movie bullshit. But the way the light highlighted her cheekbones, the shine of her red hair… She was an angel, and I knew in that moment that she was too good for the likes of me. Too pure.
I’d decided then and there that I would never touch her. She reminded me of someone I’d loved, someone too innocent for a bastard like me.
Poison. You poison everything you touch.
I gritted my teeth as my father’s words echoed in my brain, forcibly putting them aside, as always.
But the lovely, timid female couldn’t do anything for me that Brielle couldn’t, as far as I knew.
Whatever floats her boat, I thought idly, deciding not to question it. I was still fuzzy, my hazy memories of how we ended up here not sticking with me at the moment. It was torture, Samuel’s appearance, a Jeep, and then nothing.
Weeks of torture would do that to a man.
The pain and the heat came back to the forefront, and for a few moments, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling and wishing for some cold water as I dragged every breath through a sandpaper throat.
Cold packs. Popsicles. Jell-o. Hell, I’d lick an icicle at this point if that was all that was available.
I must have a fever.
Before I could ponder the implications of that, Brielle appeared back at my bedside, grinning as she pulled the other healer along with her.
“Here she is!” The announcement was unnecessary.
A lot of my body was busted to shit right now, but my eyes worked just fine.
She was every inch as breathtaking as the first time I’d caught sight of her.
And the scent was hers. Fuck, why had I never noticed before how mouthwateringly amazing she smelled?
I kept the thought to myself, though, because it was unwise to piss off the people who handled your medical care.
Best to stick with the basics. Even if the she-wolf in question had crystal-green eyes I wanted to get lost in.
Her hair cascaded over her shoulder in soft red waves, hints of gold shining from them even without the sun to light her up.
Little freckles dusted her cheeks and nose, and I was suddenly overcome with the urge to pull her down closer, so I could kiss each one.
What the fuck? I did not kiss noses and wax poetic about eye color. Delirium was a bitch.
“Could I have some water?” I snapped the question, unnecessarily harsh, but the healers didn’t flinch.
“Of course! Olivia, you stay with him. I’ll run and get some ice from the kitchen.” Before either of us could protest, Brielle darted from the room with speed I’d never seen her use before. Wolf speed.
Part of me knew that was an interesting development, but I wasn’t quite sure why in my haze. I was going to have questions when I felt better.
Damn, I hoped I felt better soon. Every part of me hurt like I’d been run over by a train, tossed off a cliff, fallen down a waterfall, and hit every damn rock on the way down. I raised one arm, scratching at my eyebrow. It also burned, but in an itchy, distracting way.
“No, don’t do that. You don’t want to pick at a scab while it’s healing.” Olivia’s soft voice sent a shiver through me, a tingle down my spine that was surprising given my wrecked physical state.
A scab? I wanted to scoff, but with my slow healing right now… I supposed it was possible I’d have marks. It wasn’t going to stop me from scratching them.
She grabbed my hand, easily stopping my weak efforts to scratch, and it was like the whole room shifted around me.
I blinked once, slowly, trying to urge my sluggish brain to figure out what was going on.
Mate.
My wolf’s voice startled me so badly, I actually jerked on the table, the motion bathing me in fresh agony. My wolf rarely spoke. Rarely enough that I could count on one hand the number of times in my long-ass life he’d done it, and never since Lilly.
He hadn’t responded to me before when I’d tried, so there was no small measure of relief that he was back despite the pain jerking around had caused my fresh wounds.
But mate? What the fuck did he mean by that?
Maybe I was hallucinating. It made more sense than my wolf trying to tell me my mate was in this room. I was ninety-seven percent certain that my not finding her in hundreds of years meant I didn’t have one, or maybe she’d already died before I got to meet her.
Life was a bitch like that sometimes. But I didn’t want a mate when it boiled right down to it. That was just another person to lose.
“Shh, it’s going to be okay. Try to hold still. You’re really banged up, and moving is going to make everything hurt worse.”
No shit.
I didn’t lash out at her, though, sending angry thoughts to my wolf instead.
We don’t have a mate. What’s wrong with you?
I didn’t expect an answer, not really. But his response would have knocked me on my ass if I weren’t already lying down.
The red-haired female is our mate. She bears our marks.
Holy hell.
The red-haired female could only be—
“Olivia?”
“Yes? Do you want a pillow? Hang on.” She set my hand carefully at my side, moving slowly so as not to jostle me, then jogged over to a cabinet, pulling a plain white pillow from inside.
I watched all of this in silent shock, barely remembering that I should lean forward a bit and help her tuck it behind me when she held it up for me with a soft smile curving her lips.
I shifted a few times to get it settled, and the pillow actually was better than lying flat on my back on the barely padded exam table, but my brain was too scattered to focus on it.
There was no way. My wolf was desperate to latch on to a female because I was bad off or something.
This sweet, young female couldn’t be mine.
She practically radiated innocent, never-been-kissed energy.
I rode a motorcycle and fucked like a demon every chance I got.
Not to mention, I was old enough to be her great-grandpa, times a few extra greats, and she was what, maybe twenty-five?
Goddess’s tits, if my wolf was right, something had gone cruelly wrong in the universe.
Brielle returned with the water, wordlessly proffering the cup and bendy straw. I took a few pulls, but my gaze was fixed on Olivia.
My mate.
The thought was strange even inside my head.
It just couldn’t be true.
I spat out the straw, needing information more than hydration. “How old are you? Twenty-five? Thirty?”
She blinked at me as if I’d sprouted a third eye. “Twenty-four. Why?”
I closed my eyes and let my head fall back against the pillow with an ungraceful thunk.
This had to be a joke. A very sick joke. Twenty-four? She was barely out of her teens.
“My wolf is just confused, that’s all.”
“Your… wolf is confused. Okay. Well, confusion can be normal after the kind of beating you’ve taken. A concussion can make you forget a lot of things. What are you confused about? Maybe I can fill in some details.”
Nothing but kindness, despite my off-the-wall reactions to her. Typical healer. What the fuck was I going to do with a healer as a mate? Was she going to be happy with my lifestyle? No, and there was no way in hell I could change enough to make her happy.
I chuckled, the sound too dark to be real humor. “I must have cracked my head pretty damn hard for him to be insisting that you’re my mate. Right? You’re practically an infant.”
Judging by the crushed expression and slump of her shoulders, not to mention the way my wolf snarled his displeasure as soon as I saw her reaction, I’d put my foot in my mouth. I instantly hated myself for it.
But maybe it was for the best.
It was flippant and probably rude for me to say it like that, but that was who I was. Nearly four hundred years into my existence, I wasn’t changing anytime soon. And maybe, just maybe, the part of me that was pissed off at the world right now wanted to lash out at someone.
Even if that someone was young and beautiful and innocent.
She didn’t answer right away, her eyes fixated on her linked hands as if they held the secrets of life, and the whole room grew so still, you could have heard a flea jump.
“It is just a concussion, right? There’s no way you and I could be a match.
It’s absurd.” It was an asshole move, doubling down after I knew the first remark had hurt her, and I knew it before the words left my lips.
But some sadistic part of me wanted to push her away, even as everything inside me screamed to hold her close, to cherish her.
I had to, though, to save her from me. Everyone who was good in my life died, and she wouldn’t be an exception. She was too pure, too soft.
I was damaged, tainted. And nothing about my life was soft or good, ever.
She took a step away from the bed, then another, and, without a word, ran from the room.
I watched her go, wanting to call after her as remorse twisted in my chest, but I didn’t.
All I’d said was the truth; my wolf was confused, and she was way too young for me.
Too sweet for me. It was for the best that she left.
It was in her best interest that she stayed the hell away from me so her wolf didn’t get tangled up, like mine. There was no way she wore my marks.
A pretty, young thing like Olivia? She had a mate out there somewhere. A good, upstanding, respectable one. Fuck, maybe Samuel. He was the straitlaced type.
I pointedly ignored the jealous surge in my chest at the thought. My neck ached as I scanned the rest of the room, my gaze falling on Samuel sitting on the side of his own bed, Kane at his side. They both stared at me with horrified expressions.
Samuel—who I knew briefly from our time running from Petró’s pack and a few brief meetings before they’d left Romania to establish Pack Blackwater in Alaska—was the first to speak up.
“What the hell is wrong with you, man? She’s a nice girl.
You can’t just go around saying shit like that.
You’re going to have to apologize when she comes back. If she comes back.”
I snorted. “You haven’t known me very long, but I never apologize for the truth. My wolf is just jacked up about the torture. It’ll pass.”
“I don’t think it will,” Brielle said, a grim tilt to her mouth from where she stood next to the cabinets full of medical supplies.
“Your wolf grabbed her while you were unconscious and claimed her as his mate. She’s got marks down her side that she didn’t have this morning.
I picked up on it through the omega seal while she was in the bathroom checking them out. ”
My palms were suddenly sweaty, and blood rushed through my ears in a rapid whoosh whoosh whoosh. The acrid scent of astringent was too loud in my nose, suffocating. Everything was too much, even the silence that followed the omega’s words.
Olivia was my mate.
The red-haired beauty was my perfect kryptonite and also the only female my wolf would ever want for the rest of my life. But there was no way I would claim her.
I couldn’t let my wolf claim her.
Just fucking perfect.