Page 40 of Sweethearts and Savages
Apparently, I was wrong.
I was a healer, and I knew that I should have a visceral opposition to the idea that this guy would be tortured when he reached us, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. Even if he had nothing to do with Enit’s disappearance, he was a human who was up to something. You didn’t repeatedly try and break through a firewall without a good reason. I was nervous and anxious, and when Bohdie reached out to hold my hand, I grasped it like it was my last lifeline.
Enit had been gone for an entire day. Twenty-four hours in the hands of god knows who, someone who could be assaulting her. Torturing her.
Micah looked toward me and Bohdie. “Go get some rest. We’ll call you if there are any developments. Stacey looks like she’s about to drop.”
I wanted to argue that I was fine, but logically I knew that my body was exhausted. I could feel it in the heaviness of my limbs. I also knew that Micah was getting Bohdie to rest in a way only another Alpha understood—he was telling him to take care of his Pack. I was his Pack.
The idea filled me with more contentment than I thought it would. Once we got the heart of our Pack back, I wouldn’t take it for granted.
Bohdie led me from the room, across the drive and into my apartment. No one had told me that relationships would feel like this, that they’d be fraught with so much drama.
Though really, drama had chased me since I was a child. Maybe I wasn’t fated to be truly happy.
We stepped into the living room, and my thoughts spiraled darker and darker. Maybe I was cursed, though I was a scientist and didn’t believe in that shit. But still, it was kind of hard to argue. Maybe it was Enit who was cursed. Maybe it was the whole supernatural race, though I assumed there were those who had average lives.
Bohdie grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me to look at him. “We’ll get her back, Doc. And then we’ll be there as she heals, just the same as last time.”
I looked up into his face and did something I hadn’t done since I was four. I cried. Great, soul deep, aching sobs that bubbled up from my diaphragm and spilled over my cheeks. Bohdie stared at me agape for a second and then dragged me into his arms. I stood in them stiffly, as embarrassed as I was devastated. I was crying like she was dead, but I’d know if she was. Not because we had a metaphysical bond—that was more likely to be Bohdie’s domain one day—but because I would hear Christopher and Carmen’s grief hit them like a palpable blow. They were metaphysically connected. Enit had told me that when they were younger, they’d been able to talk to each other using ESP, like a Pack bond created from necessity. They’d grown out of it as they aged and had settled into easy lives filled with love, but in times of great stress, the connection could still operate over short distances. And they knew she was alive. They mightn’t be able to communicate with her, but they could feel she wasn’t dead. It wasn’t much of an assurance, but it was the best we’d get.
I let Bohdie hold me, knowing he needed this connection just as much as I did. He needed to hold what remained of his Pack, otherwise he’d feel even more adrift than I would. At least, that’s how I justified it to myself, this complete collapse of decorum. I was a healer, and I knew the only thing that would make the Alpha better was the return of his Omega. Taking care of me would be like putting a bandaid over a bullet wound, but it was all I had to offer him at the moment.
“It’s okay, Stace. It’ll be okay,” he soothed, stroking my back like I was a child. There was nothing sexual about the contact—we still didn’t feel that way about each other and I doubted we ever would. Enit was everything, for both of us.
If she never came back…
I doubted that either of us would survive. Oh, we’d live, but we wouldn’tlive.We’d be shells of the people we were, because Enit had made me who I was today. She’d been my touchstone for longer than she knew.
She needed to come home. They needed to rescue hernow.
Because I needed her more than anyone knew.
20
Kell
Ididn’t know what to do with the broken werewolf who was still sitting on the rug in front of my fire like a faithful fucking hound.
She hadn’t spoken to me since I’d made her a peanut butter sandwich. Not that she’d spoken to me much before that anyway. I eyed the scar that crowned her skull, just visible under her stark white hair.
“How’d you get the head injury?” I grunted, mostly because the silence was getting to me. Her blue eyes flashed but she stayed stubbornly silent. I ground my back teeth, trying to rein in my glare. “I could make you talk, you know? It might be slow, but I don’t have anything else to do for the next twelve days.”
Her body froze. “What then?” she asked, her voice rough from lack of use.
It took me a while to understand she meant what would happen after twelve days. I shrugged, mostly because I didn’t have a fucking idea either, but I hoped it looked more mysterious than stupid. “That’s up to you.” She snorted, and I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You. Dead. Just don’t know.”
I reared back in surprise, firstly because that was the longest sentence she’d said to me yet, and secondly, because of the look of pity in her eyes.
“Better you kill.”
What the fuck was wrong with this girl? “Are you actually sitting there trying to convince me to kill you? Because that's the exact opposite of what normally happens.”
She raised an eyebrow, her expression saying “Kidnap many girls, do you?” But her face dropped into a grimace. She pointed to herself. “Parents. Deadly.”
This was the worst cryptic shit I’ve ever heard. “Fuck! If I get you a pen and paper, can you write to communicate?”
