She’d rip my head off if she knew what I was thinking. She’s real private. When she pisses, she turns on the sink so I can’t hear.
She wasn’t shy last night. She flung her arms wide and arched her back like pleasure was her due as a goddess on earth.
I can’t wait to watch her come on my cock. Fill her up until my seed drips from her sweet pink pussy. Put my pups in her belly.
Rut is riding me, but I’m not so weak a male that I’m gonna give into it. It helped beating the shit out of B-roster. It’s also good that Una isn’t like Haisley or Rowan—she doesn’t look for male attention. If she did, this pack would be in a heap of trouble.
Fate picked well for me.
She’s got that leg, though, and that small ass wolf. It’s not a problem. She’s never gonna not have protection from this moment on. Still.
“Stand up.”
She blinks at me.
“Put the book down and stand up.” We’ve got some time before dinner. I want to see how bad the leg really is.
“Why?”
“I want to check out your leg.”
She flushes and tucks the book to her chest. “No.”
“Come on.” I’m not the kind that’s good at convincing people. I’m more of a doer. I cross the room and grab the book, setting it open and upside down on the end table so she doesn’t lose her place. I don’t know where she found it. I honestly didn’t know I had any. I asked why she wasn’t on her phone, and she said she doesn’t have unlimited data.
Who doesn’t have unlimited data? I’ve gotta put that on the list of shit to fix. I don’t need to be up in the middle of the night worrying that lone females are gonna run out of minutes while they’re off sneaking into town.
I draw Una to the center of the room and kneel, keeping a hold of her hands so she can’t scurry away. She’s got on a long flowy skirt like the crone wears and no shoes. Her top is loose around the neck so I can see my bite. When she blushes, it darkens. I like that.
“What are you doing?” Una bats at my hands as I raise her skirt.
“Hold these.” I shove it into her arms and sit back on my heels. She’s got her weight on the good leg, propping herself up on the ball of the other foot. The scars are awful. I skim my fingers over them as gently as I can. She sucks in a breath. “Do they hurt?”
“The scars? No.”
“But the leg hurts.” You can tell. If she’s been standing or walking awhile, her face gets real serious and strained.
“Sometimes.”
“Does it hurt now?”
“A little.”
“Where?”
She huffs a small sigh. “My hip. My thigh. My knee. My calf. The joints are the worst, but sometimes, the bones ache.”
“Why didn’t it heal?”
“Abertha thinks because it was so bad, and it got infected right away, it just couldn’t. Not all the way.”
I want to kill Thomas Fane all over again.
Or I want to have been the one to kill him. Beat him to death with his own thigh bone.
Una half-steps backward, and I realize my wolf is growling. I cup her knee, stroke up, and try to give her a reassuring smile. “Don’t mind him.”
“It’s hard not to.”
“He’s harmless.”
She barks a laugh. “Now that’s a lie.”
I grin. It is.
“Okay, let’s get started.” I rest my hand on the outside of her knee. “Lift your leg to the side. I’m gonna apply pressure. Press against my hand as hard as you can.”
“Why?”
“I wanna see what this leg can do. Then we’ll see what we can do to make it stronger.”
She’s quiet for a second. I look up. There’s pain in her eyes, and it’s echoed in our bond. I scrub my chest. Shit. I thought since she’s so active, she could take a little more.
I’m about to sit her back down when she says, “It’s not going to get any better.” She lifts her wobbling chin. “You just have to accept it.”
I move my hand, testing the muscle. It’s definitely underdeveloped, but it’s not nothing. “I disagree. You’ve got a lot to work with here.”
“I’m never going to win an alpha challenge, if that’s what you’re thinking. Even if my leg got better, my wolf’s small.”
I let my hands slide down the back of her calves and circle her delicate ankles. She’s so damn lovely, still and somber, her brown hair in that neat braid.