Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Otis
Hailey was in the large communal bathroom, sitting on the vanity in one of Louis’s oversized hoodies and a pair of yoga pants she must have left behind when she was last here—or Louis had stolen from her because he had a serious case of unrequited love at the time.
She gave me a sad kind of smile. “Can you change my bandages for me? I’d get one of the others, but they go all ragey when they see the bandages, let alone the actual cuts.”
I let out a little sound of affirmation, because I was sure that if I opened my mouth, something just as ragey would come out. I grabbed the first aid kit from beneath the counter and set it open beside me.
I started carefully peeling away the edges of the bandages. As I began to see the wound on her face, I rumbled deep in my chest. It was a sound that usually meant the person hearing it was about to come to a swift and messy end.
There were two distinct lesions to her head, both supporting her statement that the attacker was holding her from behind.
One was just below her chin, as if the guy was aiming for her throat.
“You tucked your chin to protect your throat. Good girl.” It was ragged and messy, but not too deep.
The other wound ran along her cheek, from her jaw toward her ear.
It was much deeper and was obviously there to cause pain and fear.
She hissed a breath as I peeled off the bandages.
It was held together with butterfly bandages and gauze, but it needed more.
“This needs stitches,” I told her sternly.
She shook her head, wincing. Syke had been blocking her pain all night on top of the painkillers we gave her in case Syke’s focus lapsed. “I told Syke I didn’t want to go to the hospital.” Her eyes stubbornly met mine. “I don’t like hospitals.”
I didn’t ask why. Everyone had their own reasons, and it might have made me a coward, but I didn’t think I could take hearing tales of Hailey’s fucked up childhood and the sight of her injured at the same time.
“We could find you a plastic surgeon,” I told her as I cleaned the area the best I could.
She huffed a bitter noise through her nose. “You don’t think they’ll still all be clamoring to be my mate if I’m no longer beautiful?”
My eyes snapped up to hers. She was making a joke, but there was very real anger and fear in her eyes.
“I think you could go five rounds with a woodchipper and they’d still love you.
” I shook my head as I put ointment on the wound.
“I can confidently speak for all of them when I tell you that your physical beauty isn’t the thing they admire the most about you.
It’s the inner light that attracts us all like moths to a flame.
Your light, resilience, and bravery. You’ve caught them in your spell. ”
“Even you?” she asked lightly, giving me room to change the subject or laugh off her question.
I met her sparkling blue eyes. “Even me. Tilt your head back.” She did, no questions asked.
“The reality in dating a creature is that very few date for conventional human beauty. Your lives are fleeting, and your beauty even more so, so when you capture the heart of a monster, know it has nothing to do with the human ideal of beauty and everything to do with your heart and mind.” I placed a bandage over the one near her chin, taping it down gently.
“This won’t deter them from loving you. It’ll make them overprotective and growly for a while, but only because they almost lost you before they had you.
” I tilted her face down to mine. “If anything, it might make them love you even more, because while human beauty might be unnecessary, human bravery is a rare and beautiful thing we covet.”
I placed the bandage over her cheek, trying not to rumble at her once more. She sighed softly. “That’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak,” she teased, dissipating the heaviness of the moment. “I’m not sure I’m worthy of all that.”
“Then perhaps we see you more clearly than you see yourself.” I taped the last of her bandages. “Syke knows a demon who could give you stitches without having to attend a hospital. Would you feel comfortable visiting him? Syke would be with you the whole time.”
She screwed up her nose then winced as the expression pulled the cut on her face. “Yeah, okay. That should be fine.”
I cleaned up the mess, trying not to look at the blood soaked bandages too hard in case I completely lost it. I might have to burn them, because the scent of her blood was going to keep Eric and Louis on edge for the rest of the day.
“Otis?” she asked softly. “Can I ask you for something?”
I looked down at her. “Anything.”
“Can you, uh, switch to your minotaur form and just… hug me?” She sounded so unsure. “Only if it wouldn’t make you uncomfortable. There’s just something about the minotaur that makes me feel like no one in the world could ever get through you to hurt me.”
I was already shifting. My man form was really large, but I grew another foot both height and width wise when I shifted. I relaxed into my form and bent down to pick her up off the counter, otherwise she was precariously close to other, more intimate parts of me.
She wrapped her arms over my shoulders and pressed her face tightly between my pecs. When she sucked in low, long breaths, I wondered if I’d been wrong all these years. Maybe my calling wasn’t helping creatures navigate a world that hadn’t been made for them.
Maybe my calling was this—holding this beautiful, damaged gift in my arms and protecting her against anything that might hurt her.
I held her easily, and she clung to me like she was inhaling my strength by osmosis. I didn’t rush her, just stroking my thumb up and down her spine. My hand spanned half her back in this form.
She was so small and delicate and… fleeting. In eighty years, she’d be dead. Could I give my heart to this beautiful creature, knowing that in such a short amount of years, she would break it through no fault of her own?
I was a coward, because I didn’t know. Well, not consciously. I had a feeling that perhaps the beast inside me had already made up its mind, but I could hold out a little longer. I could protect her without giving her my heart or bonding her.
Finally, she pulled back and released a shaky breath. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, little one. Day or night.” I didn’t intend for that to sound like an invitation, but in the minotaur’s rumbling voice, it sounded way more seductive than I intended.
She laughed and straightened her legs so I could set her down on her feet. “We should go back out there. The guys will be going crazy.”
Nodding, I held the bathroom door open for her.
I felt like I’d given too much away, and another part of me was frustrated that I hadn’t taken the leap.
There was no time for regrets, though, because there was a huge stack of pancakes on a serving tray on the table, and everyone was sitting down, waiting for Hailey so they could eat.
Ilyas had been manning the phones overnight, and he stumbled into the common room. His eyes immediately landed on Hailey, the fresh bandages, and the bruised aura around her.
Lightning flashed in his eyes, and the air around him grew electric. If I had any doubt that Ilyas cared, it was gone now. He managed to rein himself in and sit down opposite Hailey at the table.
Louis pressed against her side like he was trying to make them one person. He was going to be extra needy for the rest of our shift and probably the rest of… well, forever. She seemed to enjoy the comfort though.
“Syke, I wonder if you could get in touch with Verano and see if he is willing to treat the wounds on Hailey’s face. They need stitches to heal properly.”
Syke was already pulling out his phone. “Verano owes me. He’ll do it.”
“Tell him the team will pay.” We all knew we meant personally, not out of the center’s budget. I didn’t think Hailey would accept the payment from us rather than from the center’s coffers.
Syke’s phone pinged immediately. “He’s just coming in from the solstice celebrations. He said if I want it done, it has to be now, or when he wakes in four days.”
I nodded. “Now it is.”
Hailey hesitated. “My shift starts in like thirty minutes.”
Shaking my head, my ears flicking around my face with agitation, I gave her a soft smile. “We can handle it. Go get patched up properly. We’ll talk about everything else when you return.”
She gave me a long look but eventually nodded. “Let me put on my shoes.”
We all watched her go, this fragile human who seemed to have burrowed her way to the very heart of the team.