She jabs the needle into Grayson’s neck and pushes the plunger down, sending the vile-looking green liquid inside straight into his veins.
My focus stays on him when he collapses. I curl around him, impervious to his heat, my own body no longer feeling any of the impacts of the curse after my change. And with my eyes closing, I let out a huff, melding myself to him.
It’s all going to be okay.
The survivors will be cured, and the Ironwood pack will be in an uproar until Dad and I have our next reckoning.
But…
I curl tighter against Grayson as a shudder passes through his unconscious form.
He’s alive. The others have a chance at a life now, free from curses and wars and bloodshed in the guise of rightness. We have a cure.
I’m free.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
“Ihate being stuck in this bed.” Grayson stares with a forlorn melancholy, pathetic enough I stifle a laugh.
“A few more days and you’ll be good to go.” I stroke my fingers along the top of his hand. “You forget how weak you are until you try to walk again. It’s like the flu. You’ll go all dizzy and end up falling ass over head.”
He groans. “I swear, if you tease me again about falling on my way to the bathroom?—”
“I’m not going to.” I swallow down another giggle. “Although it wasreallyfunny to watch you crumble. And the sound you made! I’ll never forget it.”
“No, you’ll never let me live it down. There’s a difference.”
I figure I’ll save those teasing moments for special occasions, if I need to find the upper hand or he ticks me off, but I keep the thought to myself.
He hasn’t shaken my hand free yet. I keep expecting him to, for some reason.
The low building sits on a plot of land near the outskirts of town but surrounded by enough maintained landscape to make it feel like part of the community.
And the deed is held solely by one man, who turned the empty interior into a makeshift care unit and hospital. Colt.
Apparently vampire princes have more money than they want people to know about, and we’re lucky to be on the receiving end of it. His goodwill allowed us the space for as long as we need, to allow the rest of the moon-mad wolves to recover.
Boy, did we need it.
When I’d shifted back to human, my leg wound had healed. The change into alpha smoothed out my skin like none of the injuries happened.
I made sure I was the last to receive the cure.
Then, working through the night, we got the rest of the injured under control and came up with a plan.
By the end of the day, with help from hired hands who didn’t require us to ask their names, we had the space settled. Supplies were delivered hours later while the witches dropped from exhaustion and the vampires slept.
I oversaw the arrangement of the room.
So what if I gave Grayson the best seat in the house?
His cot overlooked a row of windows and the view of the gardens between this building and its neighbor.
The survivors needed a safe space to acclimate to being normal again. Those of us who survived, anyway.
“You’ve got those lines between your eyes again,” Grayson murmurs. He squeezes my hand. “You’re thinking too hard.”