Chapter 6
Jaceon
I woke up soaked in my own come. My pants were stuck to me, and my dick was still rock hard and leaking.
I did my best to sit up quietly, and I looked over at my mate.
She was curled up under the sweater with her back to me, and she was snoring softly. She had done so much fighting and running, and yet her body was relaxed enough to be in a deep sleep. What had happened in her life that would allow her to feel so safe in here with me?
She’s our mate, my dragon said.
Yes, she is, but she’s also human. She should be more afraid. It was obvious she was running away from something, and I wanted to know what it was. But I couldn’t do anything until I could focus, and this rut was making that impossible.
I had to get some of this pressure off, but I didn’t want her to wake up and see me with my hand wrapped around my dick.
I waited for the pressure to back off enough that I could walk without falling over, and then I walked over to the mouth of the cave.
I looked at her one last time, and then I shifted and jumped out.
I flew to a hot spring that was a mile or so away. It was the one I bathed in, the one I fished in. It was farther away, but I wasn’t hungry except for the taste of her.
I shifted into my human form, quickly stripped out of my pants, and slid into the water. The warmth made the pressure worse.
I leaned back and wrapped my hand around myself and stroked.
I thought about her scent and her full lips and the way her forehead creased when she was thinking and the softness of her hands, even when she was hitting me.
I thought about how she would feel underneath me.
Would she relax and take me deeper, or would she weep at the stretch?
The pressure built, and I gritted my teeth and kept going. My balls were tight and heavy as I imagined her arching into me.
I was breathing heavily, and my body was tense. I groaned and released, but all that came out of me was a single drop.
I sighed, but the pressure had eased, and I could think.
I washed up in the stream, got dressed, shifted, and flew back to the cave.
But when I got inside, she was gone.
MATE IS GONE, my dragon screeched.
I shifted and flew out. It didn’t take long for me to catch her scent.
Even from up here, I could tell she was limping.
She looked up, saw me, and sped up.
I landed in front of her, and she took a few steps away from me.
But I caught the scent of blood.
She was backing up with her hands out in front of her, and then she turned and bolted.
I shifted into my human form and grabbed her.
“Get OFF me!” she screamed.
I turned her around.
The blood smell was strong, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. There were no cuts on her arms or her back.
“Where are you hurt?”
“I’m not—”
“I can smell it.”
I had her by the arms, and I wasn’t letting go until I found it.
“Where?”
“Stop grabbing me!”
I didn’t stop.
I tilted her chin up, and there was nothing there.
I checked her neck and her collarbone, and I ran my hands down her arms again.
She stopped fighting, and her whole body shivered.
Then I smelled the thick musk of her arousal.
My eyes glowed, and I growled and pushed it down. If she were bleeding internally, this would be an emergency.
I leaned in close and pressed my nose against her neck and inhaled.
Then I held her by the hips and smelled along her ribs, her hips, and her thigh.
She made a sound, but I didn’t stop.
The smell of blood was getting stronger the lower I went, and I dropped to my knees and pulled the first shoe off.
Her sock was soaked.
I peeled it off, and the bandages underneath were coming apart.
Under those were cuts. They’d been scabbing over, but she had ripped them open.
I pulled the other shoe off, and it was the same.
I looked up at her.
“Who did this to you?”
“Nobody.”
“These aren’t from the mountain.”
“I said nobody.”
I held her gaze for a second, and she didn’t blink.
I’d seen wounds go septic on the mountain. Once the infection set in, it moved fast.
I wasn’t going to let that happen to her.
I scooped her up off the ground.
“What are you—“
I shifted with her against my chest.
“Where are we GOING?”
I could feel her heartbeat, and the rut was making my head swim.
I kept turning my neck to look down at her to make sure she hadn’t passed out,
She had her face pressed against me with her eyes shut, and I felt her shaking.
It should have taken ten minutes to get to Gladys’s.
It took fifteen because I kept looking down at her.
Gladys’s cabin came into view, and I landed.
I walked to the front door and knocked.
Gladys opened it with flour on her hands, and her glasses pushed up on her head.
“Jaceon. What’s happened? Is she okay?”
“Her feet are cut up. Bad.”
She stepped back and waved me in.
“Bring her to the kitchen. Sit here at the table where I can see.”
I carried Kendra through the front room and into the kitchen and set her down in one of the chairs.
She winced when her feet brushed the floor, and I pulled them up on another chair.
Gladys was already heading toward the back room.
“I’m getting my box,” she said.
She came back out with a wooden box and pulled out a small glass bottle filled with something dark and thick.
“This is a healing salve,” Gladys told her. “It’s going to fix these cuts fast. But it’s going to sting like hell.”
Kendra shrugged.
“Okay.”
“I mean it, honey. It’s not a little sting.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Go ahead.”
Gladys unscrewed the cap; it smelled like wet pennies.
She tipped the bottle and let three drops fall onto Kendra’s heel.
Kendra screamed and jerked back so hard the chair scraped against the floor.
My vision went bright, and a growl rolled up out of my chest that rattled the dishes in the cabinets.
Gladys didn’t even look up at me.
She just pointed at the door.
“Out.”
I didn’t move.
“Jaceon. Get out. Now.”
I looked through the window at Kendra.
She was gripping the table with tears running down her face, but she was breathing, and the cut on her heel was already knitting together right in front of me.
I went and stood on the porch with my fists clenched and the dragon snarling in my chest.
I gripped the railing until the wood groaned.
Then another scream, shorter this time, and then it went quiet.
A few minutes later, the door opened, and Gladys waved me in.
Kendra was sitting at the table, flexing her toes, and her feet were smooth like nothing had ever happened.
She was smiling, but there was sweat on her face.
The oil had healed her, but I knew it had hurt like hell, and that riled my dragon up.
We were supposed to protect her.
I opened and closed my hands.
“Now this is the thing about that medicine. It’s healed on the outside, but that skin is still new. You absolutely cannot walk around. I mean bed rest. If you stand on it, it’s going to rip right open, and we are going to have to do this again,” Gladys said.
There was no way in hell I was going to let her go through this again.
I growled without meaning to.
They both looked at me.
“I understand,” Kendra said.
Gladys nodded and started screwing the cap back on the bottle.
Then she sat down in the chair next to Kendra.
“Jaceon, have a seat. You want me to get you something to eat? I can warm you up some of that lasagna I made.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“And what about you, honey?” Gladys asked.
“Actually, I could eat.”
Gladys got up and walked over to the kitchen counter.
I looked at Kendra.
She was still touching her feet like she couldn’t believe they were healed, running her fingers over where the cuts had been.
I stood there watching her, and I hated that she was ignoring me.
I wanted her curled around me so I could listen to her heartbeat and make sure it was steady.
I wanted her hands on me instead of on her own skin.
The dragon was pacing under my ribs.
“So, honey, what’s your name?”
“Kendra.”
“Kendra. That’s a pretty name.”
Gladys was at the counter with her back to us, talking over her shoulder while she put a plate together.
“How’d you end up all the way out here, Kendra?”
Kendra looked at me like she didn’t know what to say
What was I going to do if she told Gladys I had taken her?
“I was hiking and hurt my foot– no big deal,” she said. She was lying with a straight face and no shake in her voice.
That worried me.
“I tell everybody when you get up here, there’s a certain type of boot you need, or you’ll tear your feet up.”
“Yeah, I didn’t really think it through,” Kendra said.
Gladys walked the plate over and set it down in front of her.
“We get a lot of influencers up this way. They come out here and take pictures and videos talking about how beautiful and easy the hike is, and then people show up thinking it’s all fun and games.”
“Actually, my mother is an influencer.”
Kendra picked up the fork.
“She actually lives in Shadow Wolf Creek with her mate.”
“Ahh. You don’t say.”
Mate was a shifter word.
Gladys looked over at me, hands on her hips.
“Okay, Jaceon, I know you said you weren’t eating, but I’m going to pack you up some anyway.”
I was still standing there. Every part of my body was irritated. I had just heard Kendra screaming in this kitchen, and now they were standing here acting as if nothing had happened. I wanted to pick her up and fly her out of here.
Gladys walked back out and handed me a little pack.
“Come here, Jaceon. I need to show you something.”
I looked at Kendra, not wanting to let her out of my sight, and then I walked to the kitchen behind Gladys.
“Is everything ok?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s fine. What do you mean?”
“I have known you for two years, never seen you even go on
a date. And now you have this woman in here; you can barely keep your eyes off her.”
“What are you insinuating?” I said. I could feel my skin heating up.
She put her hands on her hips. “Don’t take that tone with me. Your shifters go kind of crazy if you don’t get a mate for so long. You’ve been up there holed up for years. I’m trying to make sure you haven’t lost it and gone unhinged.”
I scoffed. A curl of smoke flew from my nose, but Gladys wasn’t intimidated. She was still standing there watching me. She wanted an answer.
“Everything is fine. She is my mate!” I said. She squinted her eyes and looked at me, and then she tipped her head.
“Alright then, Jaceon. I trust you.”
I grunted and walked over to Kendra.
“I’m still eating.”
“We are leaving.”
“Don’t worry, honey, I packed plenty,” Gladys said.
Kendra smiled at her and set the fork down.
I bent down next to her chair. I slid one arm under her knees and one behind her back, and I lifted her slowly.
I kept her feet clear of everything, tucked up against me where nothing could brush them.
“Thank you, Gladys.”
“Mmhmm. You take care of her, Jaceon.”
“I will.”
I carried her out the front door and into the clearing. The sun had moved while we were inside. I held her against my chest for a second, and then I shifted. She didn’t flinch this time. She tucked her face against me, and I took off into the sky.
When we made it back, I carried her over to the spot where she’d slept the night before and laid her down and propped her feet up.
“You don’t have to do all that,” she said.
“Yeah, I do.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
I sat back on my heels and looked at her.
I reached for the sweater Gladys had made me and laid it across her the way she’d worn it. I tucked it in around her, glanced at her feet, and touched the skin to see if it was warm. She giggled and tucked them in herself.
The dragon was quiet now.
I sat back against the wall of the cave across from her.
I wasn’t going to sleep tonight. I was going to sit here and watch my mate sleep and think about who had hurt her and how they still had the audacity to breathe.