Page 50 of Sweethearts and Savages
The guy in the corner was still bloody, but it was crusted and dried. There was a gash on his cheek and above his brow, like he’d walked into a door frame, and they both still oozed blood gently. He looked up at me, his brows drawing together.
“Look, I told the pretty vampire lady everything I know. They’re probably in Yellowknife now, gutting my best friend.” A shudder wracked his body and I realized it was emotion. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or shaking, but both slightly tugged at my heartstrings.
I set my bag down at his feet, grabbing his chin and raising his face. He had a pretty face, I realized, beneath the swelling and the blood. Almond-shaped eyes warred with pale white skin, and I decided he was Eurasian. Some melting pot of genetics that had created a visually impressive offspring.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
He frowned again, making the wound near his eye open more and blood start to drip down his temple. He hissed at the sting of pain. “What do you mean?”
I opened my kit and pulled out gloves and a suture kit. “I mean that yourfriend”—I couldn’t keep the derisiveness out of my voice, despite my assertion to myself that I would keep my cool—“stole an Omega. She is soft by nature. Forgiving. Loving.Healing.If he is somehow worthy of your sadness, she’ll have seen it too, and she will argue for leniency. It’s in her nature, despite the fact that he took her from her family, from the people who loved her, to torture her for information.”
He just watched me as I set up my kit. “Your eyebrow and cheek need stitches. Any other injuries I should know about?”
“My ribs.”
I grabbed my stethoscope, lifting his shirt and looking at the bruising that was distinctly fist-shaped. You did not fuck around with the King of the Shifters. I lifted my stethoscope to his back to ensure one of his broken ribs hadn’t injured a lung.
He continued to stare at me, his eyes running over my face. “You’re very pretty.”
I gave him a dead-eyed stare. “Gay.”
He shrugged. “Just an observation.” He took a shuddery breath and winced. “I’ll tell you what I told them. Ke— My friend, he wouldn’t hurt her. If she’d been a guy, we might be having a different conversation; he has a lot of anger towards men. Not as much as he has toward Eden, but he’d never hurt a girl.”
I snorted. “How noble.”
I put some numbing cream around the areas I intended to suture. I didn’t think he’d like me coming at him with a big needle filled with local anesthetic. It needed time to work though, so I stepped back and appraised him.
He appraised me right back. “What kind of supernatural are you anyway?”
I shook my head. “Not supernatural. Just a human.”
He raised his eyebrows, making his wound ooze more. He had an expressive face, and it was like his eyebrows couldn’t help their movements. “A human? What are you doing in a school of supernaturals?”
I weighed up my answer. He obviously didn’t have the blind vendetta his friend had, but then again, he could just be a very capable spy. “They took me in when a fanatical organization killed my family.”
He tilted his head. “Kell believes Eden steals children and kills humans. You being here doesn’t really counteract his claims.”
Silence was heavy between us, and I could see him grit his teeth at the fact he’d just slipped.
Kell. The name of his friend, the one who stole Enit, was Kell. I filed that away, but I’d reward the slip with a little truth of my own.
“In a way, I guess they did. But those children they stole? Cast out from their families and Packs, or worse, orphans thanks to bounty hunters and skin traders. The Hounds, an organization of zealots, killed my family and stole me and my brother. Kept us in a glass cage and studied us. They were humans. If Eden stole us, they stole us from a lifetime of imprisonment.”
The guy—Cedric Frostmore, according to his file—went totally pale. “The Hounds?”
Now it was my turn to tilt my head. Hmm. He knew more than he was letting on about this world.
I picked up the needle and began to suture his face. “The Hounds were, I mean are, an organization as old as history itself. The North American branch is gone, wiped out by Eden, but there are more worldwide.” He winced as I tugged the thread into a knot. “They originally just wanted to eradicate all supernaturals, but as time passed, they succumbed to greed like everyone else, and realized there was better money in selling them. Unique supernaturals could be sold for millions of dollars, shipped all over the world like chattels. More mundane supernaturals, like shifters, were usually sold as sex slaves or into underground fighting rings. Some, they kept to study for scientific or breeding purposes.” I swallowed hard as old horrors rose up and threatened to consume me.
He chewed his lower lip, even though it already had a split in it. It opened again and blood welled at the edge. “But you’re human, you said so yourself. Why would an organization that specializes in supernaturals want a human?”
I scoffed. “So narrow-minded. We call ourselves, as a collective, preternaturals. Anything out of the ordinary is a commodity. I have hyperintelligence. My brother has telekinesis. Working with human samples is far easier to replicate with modern science than the magic of other supernaturals. Who wouldn’t want an army of telekinetic and hyperintelligent soldiers? We were an investment.”
“You’re a genius?”
I didn’t know if I should be amused or insulted by his shock. “Mmhmm. Certifiably.”
“Uh, cool.” He worried at his lip again and I flicked at it with my fingers, tugging it gently from between his teeth as I would do to an errant child. “Look, uh… You didn’t tell me your name?”
