The beach. The way she looked at me. The firelight in her eyes. The gunshots.
Viktor began to shake. Terrified he’d wake her, he gently extracted his arm from her hold and sat up against the headboard. He lifted one trembling hand to his injured shoulder, but found it undamaged, the skin taut but otherwise unharmed.
Margot was there, he recalled, staring down at the slumbering form of his mate with wide eyes. I was shot, and Cam…
Camille ran after the shooter.
He felt his gorge rise as he remembered the sight of her slim back getting smaller, running away from him. He remembered watching from behind the boulder as bolts whistled by her head. He remembered the visceral terror of seeing her scale the cliff with her claws. He remembered the exact moment his excellent night vision failed him and he lost sight of his mate as she vaulted over the cliff’s edge.
Sweat broke out over his bare chest as he raked his fingers through his tangled, salt-crusted hair. This was no leisurely wake-up after a sultry evening. This was the morning after what was very nearly the greatest tragedy of his life.
Gods, I almost lost her.
Not to another man. Not because he’d done something stupid. He almost lost her because she’d fought to defend him.
A lump grew in his throat until it felt like he couldn’t breathe, let alone swallow, around it.
No one had ever defended him before. That was an alpha’s job. He was the one who defended his pack, not the other way around. While they took his safety seriously — he was their leader, after all — no one had ever gone so far as Camille had. Not even when his father was at his worst, his most cruel to his vulnerable cub and mate, did someone risk their life to protect him. He was grateful that since his father’s death, there had been little opportunity.
Viktor’s eyes watered as he traced the edge of the bandage again. Remorse and pride and tenderness and horror waged a war in his chest. He was gutted, and yet he felt stretched too far; his strong, shifter’s heart rendered brittle by the love he felt for her.
Camille shifted and rolled onto her back, one arm thrown up to rest on the pillow above her head. His blankets were tangled around her hips and long, lithe legs.
Gods.
Viktor held his breath as he took her in. His mate was so beautifully wrought it made him hurt.
Lavender skin stretched over trim muscle and elegant, sloping bone. Her waist was a neat dip above lean hips. Her ribs, moving slowly with every deep breath, were a divine arch. Her breasts were soft swells tipped with dark nipples. Her neck was long and bare, stretched in a way that tempted the coyote into a frenzy — triggering that deep, instinctive compulsion to lick and kiss and bite.
It was the most arresting sight he’d ever had the privilege of seeing, and it was utterly spoiled by the clear bandage carefully applied over the wound in her side.
It was a series of jagged lines, five in total, that split her beautiful skin to reveal the yellow fat and pale blue flesh beneath.
Claw marks.
He ground his teeth as he probed at his own healed shoulder. Why hadn’t Margot tended to Camille? Why was he fully healed and his mate wasn’t?
Camille was no fighter. She was born elvish-strong and trained like all of her kind were, but he was certain she hadn’t been in a real fight before that moment on the beach.
For all that her mother was a spiteful, self-centered woman, she did her best to shield her twins from violence. Whisking them away to Napa did more than keep them out of the Solbourne family’s reach. It also kept them away from potential squabbles and that oh-so-elvish need for dominance and territory.
Camille had been inadvertently cosseted by her mother and had likely run on nothing more than instinct and adrenaline when she fought the shooter. For all her spine, she was delicate, breakable.
And she still risked her life to protect me.
Viktor pressed his palm against his chest, as if that small gesture could contain a heart that had never belonged to him.
The sound of someone walking barefoot through his den snapped him out of his staggering realization. Too quick for the average eye to follow, he had the sheets pulled up over Camille’s shoulders and his body between her and the door.
In a voice so low only a shifter’s ears could pick it up, Benny called out through the door, “Vik, you awake in there?” He paused, waiting for an answer, before he continued, “I thought I heard you moving. If you’re awake, come out soon. The pack’s worried sick and I’ve got a pushy sovereign incoming.”
Instinct prowled close to the surface of his mind. His coyote gnashed its jaws, too caught up in the fever to care that Benny was a dear friend, not a foe. It took several deep breaths for him to get that protective rage back under control.
Benny was in his den because he was guarding his alpha and his alpha’s mate. He was doing the work of a good packmate, a loyal second.
Still, his coyote balked at the idea of someone being in their den when his mate — not even marked yet, gods help them — lay vulnerable and injured in their bed.
He can’t come in here.
Viktor wasn’t used to being out of control or quick tempered. He was as easy-going as a dominant alpha coyote could be, really. It was jarring to admit to himself that, should Benny step through that door, he couldn’t say his friend would safely make it over the threshold.
Careful not to jostle Camille, Viktor slid out of bed and planted his bare feet on the cool floor. He was in his boxers, he noticed, and though he was grimy from spending so much time laying in the sand, a quick check showed that he was no worse for being shot.
Margot really is something, he thought, trying to tamp down his agitation over the fact that he was healed while his mate wasn’t. Standing up to quietly find a pair of pants, he rolled his shoulder experimentally. Not even a twinge.
He’d been to his fair share of healers with a myriad of gruesome injuries. Not once had he come away feeling better than he had the day before. Margot hadn’t just patched him up: she made him stronger.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he pulled on a pair of sweatpants before he padded back to the bed. Camille had moved slightly; just enough to fall into the divot he’d left and bury her pert nose into his pillow.
His breath quickened again as he leaned down to press a featherlight kiss to her cheek. She stirred, her head turning towards him with sleepy yearning, but he didn’t dare disturb her more than he already had. His mate needed her rest. As soon as she woke naturally, he’d take her to see Margot. With her skills, she was the only healer he trusted with his mate’s health.
After he quietly left his bedroom and closed the door behind him, Viktor found Benny in the open living area. He was on the couch, which had been hastily made into a bed with a throw pillow and one of the spare blankets he kept in the ottoman by the feed screen.
Incredibly, Benny looked worse than Viktor felt.
“You look like shit,” he announced.
Benny stood up from the couch and turned to scowl at him. The skin under his eyes was dark, his hair was a mess, and he hadn’t changed clothes since Viktor saw him last. Worry grooved his rough features. “Damn,” he breathed, circling the couch to haul Viktor into a hard embrace. “Damn, Vik. Fuck. I thought we were going to lose you.”
Viktor clasped his hand around Benny’s nape and drew him close, bringing him into the shelter of his alpha’s embrace. He felt his second shudder, as if a great tension had finally begun to loosen inside him.