So I shook my head. “Just take me back.”
A part of my brain that wasn’t feverish knew this was unfair on Nate, especially when I saw the tense line of his jaw and the strain around his eyes.
I curled into a ball on the passenger seat and breathed through the ache as we drove slowly toward Amourgeles. Even though I wanted Nate to go faster, I knew he wouldn’t. It was the middle of the night, and the roads were unfamiliar. I wasn’t so far gone that I’d put the babies at risk by suggesting it.
Still, every minute of that trip felt like torture.
There were no other cars on the roads, and the village was completely dark. The large wall loomed in the distance, and finally, I could breathe slightly easier. My body eased its giant cramp, but the anxiety in my chest doubled.
I tried to get out of the car, but my legs felt weak. Nate scooped me up in his arms, striding to the door at the base of the wall and thumping on it so loudly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d woken the whole village. He pounded on it until it sounded like distant thunder.
I wriggled in his arms, and he lowered me to my feet, his arm tightly around my waist so I was propped against his body, just in case I did anything as audacious as to topple over.
Finally, the door was wrenched open by one of the two guys who looked similar, but different. Erus, I think. Definitely not the one who’d opened it the first time.
“Nate? Wren? What’s wrong?”
With the door open, something came over me. It was like something else had possession of my limbs as I pushed past Erus and climbed the stairs two at a time. I ran down the halls, though I didn’t know where I was going. I only had a feeling that pulled in my chest. I needed something, and I knew it was this way.
So close.
I already could feel the yanking sensation easing, like the world’s most uncomfortable game of Marco Polo. I ran past theshocked face of Tryp, hesitating slightly beside Teron’s rooms. Another set of stairs had me going down, down, down.
Close. Close.
A huge door stood in front of me, and I knew it was there. Relief was behind those doors. Pushing it open with strength I didn’t know I possessed, I launched myself into the darkness beyond. It was a bedroom coated in shadows, no windows, just a huge four-poster bed in the middle of the room. There was a lump in the center of the bed, gently snoring, and just the sight made me sigh with relief.
Almost there. Almost.
I climbed into the bed, shifting around the blankets until I could find skin. Only touching would help ease the fever that was wracking my body. I knew it in my soul.
Milo rocketed up in bed, his naked chest almost colliding with my face as I climbed up his body. “Wren?”
The first touch of my skin on his was like the best painkiller in the world flooding my body. Muscles that had been pulled taut in my body relaxed, and I sagged. My jaw cracked as my teeth unclenched. But still, not quite right. Needed one more thing.
“Shift. Please shift. Change. I need…” What? What did I need? This was craziness.
Milo stared at me with wide eyes, but he dropped his glamor, and then the bull was in front of me. I climbed up his body, curling up on his huge chest like a cat, tucking my face beneath the huge line of his blocky head.
I sighed as the rest of the tension left my body. As endorphins flooded my veins, my brain crashed, and I let go of my last grip on consciousness.
Voices filteredin and out of my hearing, making the swirling darkness of sleep slip away.
“Tryp woke up the doctor from the next town over and raided his practice. I’ll get what I can get shipped over from the mainland as soon as possible.”
Something squeezed around my arm, and I opened my eyes, blinking slowly, because wading out of sleep seemed harder than usual right now. I looked directly into Teron’s golden eyes.
“We have to stop meeting like this, Wren Mahone.” His smile was soft and reassuring, and I found myself smiling back.
I looked over at the blood pressure cuff wrapped around my bicep. “I feel good now. Probably don’t need that,” I slurred. I was on my side on the warmest bed ever, even if it was a bit hard.
Actually… it wastoohard.
It all flooded back to me, and I realized I wasn’t on a bed. I was on a broad, inhuman chest. “Ohshit.”
Embarrassment had me trying to move, but two big hands landed on my hips, keeping me in place. “It’s okay. Stay until the blood pressure machine finishes its reading.”
I looked up at Milo, my cheeks flooding with heat. I’d basically assaulted this guy. I’d climbed his body like a tree and just gotten comfy. I hadn’t even given him an explanation, just forced him to drop his glamor.