He looks at me like we’re strangers before the light settles into his eyes.
“What happened?”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he got hit by a car. Cuts on his face ooze and a thousand tears along his shoulders and arms leak some kind of noxious smelling clear fluid.
What remains of Colt’s shirt is knotted at his hips and I search his face. Some part of him has to be the man I’m falling for.
He has to be.
Grayson’s brows furrow and his jaw clenches. “I attacked Colt. I don’t remember much. I came to as the sun was rising but he wouldn’t let go of me. Then he started to burn.”
The glare softens on his features.
“I got him under cover as fast as I could. He’s fine, shaken up, in and out of consciousness. But his wounds are healing.”
He shuffles toward me, ignoring the witches. He stumbles to his knees with too many feet separating us and I close the distance and lean into him. His arms band around my legs and he clutches me to him, our pain ebbing together.
Holding me like I’m the single anchor in the darkness.
I sob, bending to hold him right back, his cheek pressed to my stomach.
“Look, we’re running out of time,” RJ reminds us. “Mandi, your blood might be the only shot we have at getting a cure. Otherwise…”
I know.I know.
The madness will more than likely take him before his next shift. And who knows when it will be or what will trigger him. Right now, moonlocked or not, I’m the only wolf we’ve got.
But I’m not the one we need.
Chapter
Eighteen
Grayson and I hold each other, his shoulders shuddering and his arms tight to keep me in place.
I’m not going anywhere.
Golden afternoon shifts into dusk and Colt stirs beneath the blanket. A slight shuddering shifts dirt free of the makeshift door to Lacey’s hideout but I can’t move.
“I’m sorry.” Grayson’s voice rumbles through me.
His veins pulse with red and black—the same as the big top tent. They bulge from his skin, thicker and wider than they were before.
The potion slowed our madness but it’s there, crawling under our skin, growing with proximity.
I have no words for him to make this situation better. Somehow I deliver some anyway.
“You couldn’t help it. You were trying to save me.”
He pulls away and the moment is gone. I glance up at him and, this close, the quickening of his pulse is a signal, bright and loud.
The scent of him sends my mind racing until he grabs my hands, lifting them for his inspection.
His eyes narrow. “Did I do this?”
He brushes his thumb over the gash on my palm. Newly pink as the skin struggles to heal itself against the curse.
“I grabbed a piece of stained glass.”