The blistered welt on his shoulder was caked with mud. I didn’t want it to get infected, so I washed my own hands and arms and then scooped up handfuls of the now-cooler water and drizzled it over his shoulder. Then I grabbed the bar of soap and lathered it up. As gently as I could, I carefully scrubbed his shoulder. He winced with pain as my fingers brushed over the tender wound. As I washed away the grime, I found a second welt on the back side of his shoulder. An exit wound—the bullet had passed clean through his arm. Both wounds looked like they’d been cauterized by the burning reaction of silver meeting werewolf flesh. It looked painful as hell, but at least I didn’t have to worry about his bleeding to death.
I worked the soap down both of his arms and then across his back and then down his chest—trying all the time not to linger on the thought of how much bigger everything about his body was now. Daniel had always been well cut, but with a slighter build. However, his muscles were larger now than I remembered, firmer. Even his jaw and cheekbones were better defined. Everything about him was perfectly shaped, like Adonis himself lay in my bathtub.
After I finished washing his body, I lathered shampoo into his hair and washed away what was left of the week he’d lived in the woods. As I leaned over him to brush his now clean, wet, hair off his forehead, he lifted his hand and touched my arm.
He opened his deep dark eyes and stared into mine for a moment. “Thank you,” he said quietly through chattering teeth. He closed his eyes again, convulsing with a shiver.
I clasped my hand over his forehead and realized his skin felt positively frigid now, even though the ice in the water had long melted away.
Had I done something wrong?
I took a moment to change into clean yoga pants and a cami, and threw my dirty clothes into the washer with a heaping scoop of detergent to destroy the muddy evidence. Then I fetched a pair of pajamas from Jude’s unused room for Daniel. He let me help him into the flannel pajama pants, but he refused the flannel shirt. “Don’t want to overheat again,” he said through his pale blue lips. I wondered if kissing them would help him warm up. Instead, I draped a dry towel over his shoulders and led him to my bed. He barely made it before his legs gave out from under him.
“I don’t really know what I’m doing,” I said as I tucked him under my bedspread. “Maybe I should go for help.” Leaving him was the last thing I wanted to do, but if he needed more help…
“No,” he said, grasping my hand tight. “Please stay with me.”
I nodded and crawled into the bed next to him. I pressed myself against his side to help warm him with my body heat. But it wasn’t long until he was burning up again, and I had to bring ice packs from the freezer to press against his forehead. At one point he shook and screamed, clutching at the sheets, as if some sort of invisible force was trying to drag him away.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go for help,” I called desperately over his cries. “Maybe Dr. Connors would—”
“Don’t go.” Daniel shook his head. He grabbed me in his arms and held me to his bare chest—clutching on to me like a drowning swimmer to a lifesaver. “I need you here with me tonight. So I don’t go away again…”
And then I realized what was happening—Daniel wasn’t suffering from some sort of illness, and not from a reaction to silver. There was an internal battle raging inside his body.
Daniel was fighting to stay human.
I wrapped my arms around him and clung to him with all my strength—it was up to me to ensure he survived this fight.
Chapter Nineteen
ANGEL
WEDNESDAY MORNING
I didn’t let go of Daniel. I held him through fits of burning hot and freezing cold. Through screams of pain, and low wolflike whimpers that barely passed his bluish lips. Finally, well after three in the morning, he gave a great sigh and his grasp on me loosened. His skin felt neither hot nor cold, and his labored breaths eased into a normal rhythm. The tension in his taut muscles slipped away, and everything about him became heavy with sleep.
I watched him for a long while. Smoothed his golden blond hair off his face, and caressed my fingers lightly along his perfect cheek and jawbone. Careful not to wake him, I brushed kisses against his forehead. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to drink in everything about him. It felt as if I’d been stuck in some sort of hell-like limbo, with the week he’d been gone seeming more like a century.