MY MOVEMENTS WERE wooden as I slid down out of the SUV, the frigid air in the parking garage smacking me in the face like a cruel fist. The bitter cold rekindled the ache in my bruised and swollen cheek, making my eyes water. I raised a hand to wipe the back of my glove over my eyes, and winced as the pain in my lip flared back to life. After eight years I’d forgotten how much it sucked to heal like a mundane, injuries lingering for weeks rather than a few days at most.
The pills I’d downed before leaving Holbrook’s house were already starting to wear off, and the pain was eating up what little energy I had left. As enjoyable as it had been, our romp on the back deck hadn’t helped much either. I was stuck in a sucky kind of limbo where my lycanthrope metabolism was burning through the painkillers but wasn’t able to help speed my healing. Curling one arm around my ribs, I shuffled along, my breath a hissing wheeze that made me sound as though I’d been smoking a pack a day for thirty years.
“You sure you’re up to this?”
I looked up from the scuffed toes of my boots to find Holbrook standing close. I hadn’t noticed him come around the vehicle, his hand hovering near my elbow without touching, ready and waiting in case I needed his support. The pills he’d forced down my throat hadn’t been able to insulate me against the pain that throbbed in my ribs every time we hit a bump, but they’d effectually dulled the rest of my senses. If the renewed ache in my chest was anything to go by, I think it was a safe assumption that the trip from his house had been filled with nothing but potholes.
While his doting white knight act was sweet and should have made my toes curl with giddy schoolgirl affection, I instead bristled at needing his help in the first place. It was unfair of me to resent him seeing me vulnerable, but I’d had to be self-sufficient for so long that it was hard for me to admit that I wasn’t quite as much of a badass as I’d believed. It was jarring and disconcerting to realize that the painkillers had dulled my senses and muddled my mind to the extent that he could sidle up on me so easily, however unintentional it might have been. My thoughts were foggy, and I felt out of touch with my senses, but I doubted that I’d be able to move much at all without the drugs to smother the pain.
“I’m fine.”
Ignoring the safety of Holbrook’s proffered hand, I continued to shuffle my way towards the door leading into the building. Although it was no more than twenty feet or so from the SUV, I was already breathless and covered in a sheen of sweat by the time we reached the door.
I guess whatever Alyssa pumped me full of last night has finally run its course.
Under the guise of waiting for Holbrook to fish his security badge out of his pocket, I leaned back against the wall, the chill from the concrete bricks seeping through my borrowed coat and shirt to cool my clammy skin. My head was spinning from the exertion of walking the short distance, my mouth flooded with saliva as I fought off a wave of nausea. I regretted the coffee I had nursed on our drive over, the giant cup of Starbucks churning like acid in my stomach.
Refusing to let the pain win and send me running off with my tail between my legs, I clenched my jaw against the desire to whimper like a wounded pup. I almost sagged in relief when the door buzzed and he pulled it open, releasing a flood of warm air that eased some of the chill in my cheeks. I pushed away from the wall with a grunt and ambled through the door as fast as my shaking legs could carry me.
I followed Holbrook’s familiar silhouette in a daze, tracking him by the ever present eddy of crackling energy that he left in his wake as much as the scent of his skin. I came to a swaying stop and was surprised to see that we were standing in the doorway of Santos’s office. Somewhere between the parking garage and the division chief’s office my brain had checked out, leaving me disoriented and confused. I wobbled on my feet for a moment, and reached out for the door frame to steady myself, trying to ignore the tremble in my hands and the sweat that slicked my palms.
Crap on a cracker, that’s not good, I thought, struggling to clear some of the fogginess from my mind while wiping my hands off on my jeans.
Considering that I had a psychotic werewolf on my tail, and had added an FBI agent to the list of people that wanted to see me dead, my lack of focus wasn’t a good thing. Blinking rapidly as if the action could help to brush away the cobwebs, my gaze settled on Santos and I was struck by the barely restrained anger radiating from him.
He seemed to loom larger than the last time I’d seen him, the muscles in his shoulders straining against the cotton of his shirt, his hands curled into fists at his sides. Looking closer, I could see a thick vein in his neck pulsing furiously. A bitter smell, like stale coffee sizzling on a red hot stove, rolled off him in waves, and it took a tremendous amount of effort not to wilt beneath the weight of his stare.
“Excuse my language, Ms. Cray, but where the fuck have you been?” he asked, his face flushed crimson.
“I…what?” I floundered, taken aback by his flare of anger.