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“What the hell, Abernathy!” Adrian hissed. “Why are you doing all this now? We’ve been just fine these last eight years.”
No, we hadn’t.
And I was tired of it.
“Finn…” Bianca was suddenly behind me, pulling at the back of my shirt. “It’s fine.”
The outward explosion of my fury abated at the feel of her presence behind me, and the tension in my shoulders released. I was still angry—more than I’d been in a long time—but I couldn’t do anything that would affect her further.
“It’s not fine.” I turned my head and glanced at her. She was still looking away, unable to meet my eyes, and I felt my eyebrow twitch. “But I’ll drop it.”
The ‘for now’was an unspoken warning. And I could sense the werewolf’s understanding in his anxiety.
Right now, though, Bianca was upset—and she was my priority.
I dropped Adrian, and the wolf slid to the floor, hands pressed to his neck as he stared at me. “Come on.” This was no time to tip-toe around, and I grabbed Bianca’s elbow, pulling her with me as I started down the hallway.
Bianca fell into step beside me, breathing heavily, and I slowed my pace. I was walking fast—but not that fast. She should have no trouble keeping up.
What did he do?
I glanced back, noting that he was slowly moving back to his knees. I hated the fact that he could still move.
“Would you like me to teach him a lesson?” Kiania asked. “I won’t kill him.” I pressed my lips together, only needing to contemplate it for a half-second.
Yes.
She didn’t reply, but she didn’t have to. We turned the corner and I breathed out a low whistle. Bianca didn’t even notice. She still stared at the floor.
I hoped Kiania spent some time tossing the shifter around. And for now, I would just have to trust her to handle it. I had to see to Bianca.
The nurse wasn’t in her office when we arrived, but the empty room was probably better anyway. Especially since once Bianca finally noticed where I was taking her, she’d tried to run away.
“See?” I held on to her elbow as I nodded at the empty desk. She pulled slightly as we moved past the sheet-separated rows of beds. “No one else is here. And it’s not a real hospital.”
“Oh.” Before we arrived, she’d been stiff with fear, but now she gazed around the room with wide eyes as her tension faded. “It’s just us,” she said finally, allowing me to lead her to one of the beds on the opposite end of the room. It was under a window with a big oak tree directly outside, so I hoped that might help.
“It’s just us,” I repeated, releasing her arm as she gingerly sat on the edge of the bed. She winced at the movement, and I curled my hands into a fist. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, biting her lower lip. She was a terrible liar, at least about this sort of thing.
“Then why are you still holding your stomach?” I asked her. “Why is your hair messed up?”
She wouldn’t look at me. “Girl stuff.”
I hesitated, my breath gathering in my throat as I briefly considered this.
The dreaded words.Girl stuff.
Did she think I was stupid? “What did Adrian do to you?”
I had no doubt she was trying to get me to leave her alone—girl stuffwas usually her code for ‘I really, really don’t want to talk about this so please go away.’ She believed it grossed me out, and while it kind of did, I normally respected her boundaries and let the subject drop.
But I couldn’t this time.
“Okay.” I forced myself to breathe out slowly, and my nerves frayed over what I was about to do. I held out my hand to her, watching as she looked at it with a wariness that didn’t sit well with me. “Let’s go back to class then.”
“O-okay,” she said, placing her hand in mine. For a second, my heart lightened. It always did on the rare occasion she touched me.
