He was an immovable mountain determined to not let her pass, and his eyes were glazed over. Even though he was looking right at her, she knew he couldn’t see her—he was looking too hard into his past.
“Just trust me, Damian,” she whispered.
His attention snapped to the here and now. She thought she saw a stricken look on his face, but then it was gone as if it had never been there.
“Just this once,” she promised.
His golden gaze poured over her, and then it was like he was seeing her again—here, in the flesh, beside him—and he swallowed. “Okay,” he said, relenting. He passed the bracelet over. “Do you remember where it was?”
“I really fucking hope so,” Andi muttered, pulling all of her silver rings off to throw them to the ground.
Together they worked on Zach. She cut the delicate tissues keeping loops of bowel in place with her bracelet’s edge, attempting to avoid arteries and organ damage. Damian gently pulled the looping organ out of him, putting it in a messy pile beside Zach’s hips as they gutted him like a Halloween pumpkin. Austin breathed down their necks the entire time.
Where had she seen that glimmer earlier? Was it even there? What if it’d been some sleepless trick of her imagination? What if Zach died right now—because of her? After seeing Jessica die, she couldn’t fucking take that. And how the shit-fuck-hell were they going to get all of these pieces back inside the man? Just because she wasn’t a butcher didn’t mean she was a surgeon. And none of this shit was sterile and…and…and…
“You’ve got this. It’s okay,” Damian told her.
She didn’t dare look over at him.
“Keep going.” He put his hand on hers, and she found the strength to go on.
“Moon’s nigh,” Austin growled. “Step away before—”
“I’m not losing him,” Damian said. Oh God, how many times had she heard doctors say that right before they did lose someone?
“But you lost Michael,” Austin went on, and it was like he was speaking around too many teeth.
Andi tugged up one more layer. She’d torn a small artery, so the basin of Zach’s abdomen was filling up with a slow bleed, but… “Oh my God,” she whispered, as something small and silver glimmered inside of him like a fish.
“Found it.” Damian’s hand darted into Zach and lifted a small-shining-something the size of a half-dollar before ripping it into shreds—right before Austin’s fallen wristwatch began alarming. Damian’s expression stayed intense as he took two quick steps away from the bed—even though Zach looked like half of an all-you-can-eat cannibal buffet. What the fuck?
“Moon’s full,” he told her before she could ask like that was an explanation. “Either it works or it doesn’t.”
That made absolutely no sense to her. “We can’t just leave him like that!” She ran for the bed, and Damian caught her, picking her up and turning her around so that her back was to the bed.
“Don’t look!” he commanded sharply as she tried to turn her head.
Andi obeyed him but only barely, especially when worrisomely disgusting sounds began behind her. “Why?” she asked in a hiss.
Damian brought his forehead to hers to trap it, his golden eyes shining bright. “Do you ever stop with the questions, princess?”
She shook her head, rocking it against his. “No. Never.” And then she winced as it sounded like bones began to break, accompanied by a wet slurping that had no place in a hospital. He closed his eyes as if in prayer, and then when the sounds stopped he rose up to look, and it was like she saw a mighty weight lifted from his shoulders in real time, as he happily sighed.
“Okay,” Damian breathed, before giving her a triumphant grin. “It’s over. Don’t scream.”
Andi slowly turned around, like a contestant on a game show nervous to see what she’d won. Both men were gone, and in their place were two motherfuckingly huge wolves now panting behind her. Each of them was the size of a couch, wide shouldered but lean and long from nose to tail-tip. One of them had the same rust colored fur as Austin’s hair in mottled splotches across its body as it shook its shaggy head, and the other was an almost scatter-camouflage combination of white, black, and gray.
Damian walked over to them like he knew them because—she realized—he did. “I’m glad to see you back in one piece,” he addressed the one that had to be Zach. “I don’t know what the fuck you did to yourself, though. We’ll figure it out later—when you can talk.” He then went over to the sink and started washing his hands.
They were werewolves.
Her hands. Were covered. In werewolf blood.
Andi pressed them away from her, holding them out at arm’s length. Zach’s wolf whined while Austin’s gnashed its teeth at Damian, before giving her a baleful look.
“Yeah, I know,” Damian answered in response, like he understood them, drying his hands off before pulling out his phone. “Max is already on his way.”
Andi didn’t care who the fuck Max was right now; she couldn’t take much more strange tonight. “So…Austin…and Zach are werewolves?” Her voice went high as she said it aloud because it was so dang crazy, and yet here they were, carnivores the size of pro-linebackers, and she was close enough to see their claws and fangs. She skittered around the edge of the room to where the sink was, and then Austin growled. She quickly stepped to hide behind Damian.
“Well, I can hardly deny it when she’s standing right here, gentlemen,” Damian said. “Plus, she’s saved your life twice now, Zach. That’s a blood debt. If you ask me, you both owe her.”
Andi tried to wash her hands super thoroughly without turning her back on the two massive killing machines, and it was hard—especially when the gray one shuffled around Damian to look at her more clearly. Its eyes were blue and piercing under an intelligent brow.
“Zach, Andi. Andi, Zach,” Damian said.
What were you supposed to do when you were introduced to a werewolf? Andi thought of curtsying and then stopped from manically laughing at herself but only barely.
“Hi puppy,” she squeaked instead.
Damian laughed. “Wait until I tell Grim that.”
Andi tentatively reached her hand out, and Damian’s mood changed. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped. She yanked her hand back and held it to her chest like it was wounded.
“Petting a werewolf? Maybe? Should I have asked for permission first? I don’t know.”
“You don’t pet werewolves,” Damian said, every word punctuated with disbelief.
“Why not?”
He blinked at her. “Because…they’re…they’re monsters.”
Zach went down on all fours like the world’s largest stuffed wolf and let his tongue loll out as if to debate that fact.
“So?” she asked, biting her lips and creeping up on Zach slowly. His ears were as big as her hands, and they looked so soft.
“They’re also men, the vast majority of the time. Just because they’re fuzzy now, don’t let it fool you.”
Andi crossed her arms. “So, it was entirely okay for me to have my hands in Zach’s guts when he was a man a few minutes ago, but right now, I can’t pet him?”