A Mate's Sacrifice: (Hot Paranormal Romance) (Ozark Mountain Shifters Book 2) (2 page)

Well, wasn’t this just the peach’s fuzz. Only Braeh could get herself into a situation like this. Who else could be sitting alone in an apartment that wasn’t even theirs and get themselves in this much of a pickle? No one, that’s who.

The guy—or was he a wolf? She still wasn’t sure about the rules—was out cold, and even though she’d promised him water she wasn’t sure if she should give him any. What if he was like a Gremlin and water after midnight turned him into a psychotic monster? He hadn’t seemed all that friendly in the first place.

Maybe she should hold off on the water.

Yeah. Seemed like a good idea.

Digging her phone out of the pocket of her sweatshirt, she sent a text to her sister.

Wolf is in the hen house. I repeat, wolf is in the hen house.

She waited, staring at the screen, but she had the sinking feeling Kerrigan wouldn’t answer. One of two scenarios: a) she was bumping uglies with the soon-to-be wolf-in-law, or b) she didn’t have cell service. Which left Braeh to deal with the stranger face-plastered on the sofa.

When several minutes passed with no
blee-bloop
to alert her to a text, she took matters into her own hands.

She was a big girl. With big-girl panties. The lacy kind, because that’s what big girl panties looked like. She could deal with this pushy… guy?—she’d call him a guy—on her own. He was clearly hurt, so how much of a threat could he even pose?
He
was the one vulnerable, not her. Besides, since he was of the wolfy variety, he was probably friends with Trager.

She’d be fine until tomorrow when Kerri was due back.

After checking to make sure her guest was still out, she went to track down her sister’s gun. She knew Kerri wouldn’t have it on her. Not with her superhuman fiancé. But even if it weren’t for him, Kerri wasn’t the gun-toting type. It was like she wasn’t even bred and raised in Alaska or something. Weirdo.

In the bedroom, she checked the night stand. Nothing but cough drops and a paperback with a nice set of abs on the cover. She raised an interested eye brow. Was Kerri Carebear kinky? Braeh shoved it back in the drawer for later.

She moved to the dresser. Top drawer… woah, mama. Talk about kinky. All that was missing was the handcuffs. Yeah, okay. So it wasn’t that risqué. Braeh had seen spicier, but this was her sister they were talking about. The last time she’d seen her, Kerri had barely graduated, and Braeh had just started high school. They’d stopped off for milkshakes and stew before heading to the airport.

Tears threatened to come but she pushed them back. She really had missed so much time. She should have visited sooner.

She closed the top drawer and rummaged through the others. No gun. Why couldn’t Kerri own a shotgun like every other self-respecting Alaskan? Missouri seemed down with those things. But no, her sister would have a handgun. Which Braeh could work with, if she could ever find the damn thing.

She groaned, closing the last drawer and scanning the room for another hiding spot.

The closet. Yeah, what the hell good is a gun shoved in a closet? But then again, this was Kerri. She’d probably forgotten she even owned the thing.

Braeh shrugged and pulled the door open.

Inside was a broad array of what she liked to call “teacher clothes”. Sweaters, khakis, and flat shoes. This was more like the Kerri Carebear she knew and loved.

In the bottom was an open box. Bending to look, Braeh saw it was full of photos. Pictures of Kerri and Ethan. Ethan. The scrawny little bastard. Braeh wasn’t one to speak ill of the dead, but she had zero qualms about thinking it. He’d messed with her sister. And no one got away with that. Not even if they weren’t alive to feel her wrath. She hoped he could feel it in his grave.

She found the .38 special in the top of the closet behind a box of old textbooks. Braeh checked it. Hadn’t been cleaned recently, but it would still get the job done if the dude on the couch caused her any problems.

Pausing mid-way through loading the bullets, she wondered if the hollow-points would even hurt him. Was it like the werewolves of Halloween ilk? Did these need to be silver bullets?

She was definitely going to have a little chat with her sister. The rules needed to be laid out so she knew what to expect from now on. God, it was hard enough to even believe that shifters existed. But when one changes right before your eyes—as Trager had—it’s sort of hard to deny.

Braeh sighed.

After returning everything to its place, she took the gun into the living room. Hottie McHotpants was still passed out with no sign of waking and Kerri hadn’t yet responded to Braeh’s text.

She grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch, yanking hard when she realized the corner was caught under his hip. Then she took it with her to sit in the chair. She was already going to have to sleep in a chair tonight, no way was he getting the blanket too. She could’ve locked herself in the bedroom, but it didn’t seem right to let a stranger in her sister’s home and then not keep an eye on him. The chair wasn’t the least bit comfortable but she didn’t plan on sleeping too soundly.

That was her last thought before she drifted off, sleeping heavier than should have been possible with a strange man on the couch.

***

She awoke hours later, to the feeling of someone watching her. Braeh peeked her eyes open to see that it was still dark outside. Barely. The sky was a weird shade between blue and gray. The color of a bruise.

Carefully, she moved her hand to her gun before fully opening her eyes. McHotpants was seated at the end of the couch farthest away from her, arms crossed, and looking ill. So… not about to attack her or anything. Good to know.

His gaze turned into a glare when he realized she was awake.

“What’s your name?” His voice was like sandpaper to her barely awake ears.

She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Braeh. What’s yours?”

The intensity of his stare eased a bit. His lips moved to form her name but no sound came out. Like he was mouthing it.

“Look, I’m new to this whole shifter thing. I don’t know all the dos and don’ts, so if you could clue me in, that might be helpful. Starting with your name.”

“Vesh.”

“Your name is Vesh?” His name sent an embarrassing shiver up her spine. It was so…
sexy
. There was nobody named Vesh where she was from.

Braeh noticed the tick in his jaw as he gave a single nod.

“Nice to meet you, Vesh. I’m guessing you’re a friend of Trager’s?”

Vesh’s lip curled.

“Or… not. Listen, you’ve obviously been hurt. Let me help clean you up, and then we can talk about why you’re here. Your eye is still bleeding and Kerri would kill me if we got blood on her furniture.”

“You want to help me.” His voice was skeptical. “Even though you don’t know me. I could very well be here to kill you.”

She sat forward, resting her elbows on her knees, the gun hanging loosely from her hand. She stared at him, searching, as if she could garner his intentions with her non-existent x-ray vision.

“Nah. You weren’t looking for me. You were looking for Kerri.”

An odd look crossed his face, but then he recovered. “And what if I was here to kill her? Wouldn’t that bother you?”

Braeh laughed, a single, short sound. “
Bother
me?” She dropped her voice to a menacing whisper, and leaned forward to stare directly into his eyes. “When I was a little girl, my father taught me how to hunt. He taught me how to track my prey, and where to hit for a clean kill. But see, he also taught me how to skin our catch. It wouldn’t be that much of a difference to just, say, skip the kill part and go straight to the skinning. I mean,
if
you were here to hurt my sister, that’s how much it would ‘bother’ me.”

Vesh’s eyes narrowed, and his gaze changed, heated. He seemed to be considering her words, his stare touching on parts of her body besides just her face.

He tilted his head, finally looking away. “I wasn’t going to hurt your sister,” he muttered.

“Great. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s fix that cut.”

Braeh stood, shoving the gun in her sweatshirt pocket, and went to the kitchen. She grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, and a banana from the bowl on the counter before returning to the living room. Vesh was seated on the edge of the couch, staring at the floor as if it was the morning newspaper or something.

She whistled, two short notes to get his attention. “Let’s go. Bathroom’s this way.” She didn’t wait to see if he followed.

In the bathroom, she set the food on the counter and dug through the cabinets, locating Kerrigan’s first-aid kit, and the peroxide. Luckily, there was also some butterfly bandages. Hopefully his wound wouldn’t need stitches. She
could
do them; she just really,
really
didn’t want to. Needles and skin made no good combination, in her opinion. The thing she’d said about skinning him alive. That wasn’t something she was looking forward to either, so he’d better be telling the truth about his intentions.

The room was tiny already, but when Vesh stepped in, it seemed a thousand times smaller. On top of being exceptionally tall, he was also built. Braeh swallowed. Arms like that… what would it feel like to be held by those puppies?

Damn.

Her last boyfriend had gone the way of the toilet when he was hired to work for her father. She couldn’t be with someone who was at her daddy’s beck and call. No. She loved him dearly, but he was entirely too manipulative. It was always in “her best interest”, but still.
She
needed to be in control of her life, not anyone else. Falling in love with someone who was under her father’s thumb was out of the question.

But back to the muscles. Her ex hadn’t had guns like these.

She pointed to the toilet. “Sit.”

He raised an eyebrow, but lowered his body. She felt his eyes on her as she wet the gauze with the peroxide. Then she stepped in between his legs. He pulled back, but really, there was no other way for her to reach him. The bathroom was too awkward.

Braeh bit the inside of her cheek.

He didn’t like to be touched, she noticed. Both times she’d tried, he’d reacted strangely.

“You okay?” She kept her tone quiet and void of judgment.

Vesh stared at her for several silent moments before the tension around his eyes relaxed, and he nodded.

“Tilt your head a bit.”

He complied and carefully she pressed the gauze to where his skin was split just above his eyebrow. With one hand on his forehead, she wiped the blood away with the other so she could get a good look at the cut.

As she gently prodded the wound, the tension eased out of him. As if she was giving him a massage instead of patching him up. His eyes drifted closed. His shoulders relaxed. The creases in his brow disappeared.

Braeh twisted to get more peroxide, but his hand came up to circle her wrist. His touch was gentle but firm.

“I don’t need that.”

“It’s to keep it from getting infected.”

He shook his head. “I can heal. If you just put your hands on my face… If you touch me…” He seemed unsure. “If you put your hands on me, I will heal faster.”

Braeh wanted to laugh. It sounded like he was after a pity lay.
Yeah, baby. It’s called sexual healing.
Except he didn’t seem like the type to do that. And especially since he’d flinched away from her touch twice now. And there was something genuine about his trepidation.

If he was asking her to touch him, there must be a reason. A wolfy reason.

Braeh put the gauze aside. “Okay. Show me where.”

Vesh took her hand and placed her cool palm against his hot cheek. She liked the feel of it. Rough and stubbly, but also smooth close to his eyelids. The bruises there pulled at her heart. He’d obviously been in some kind of fight. She brought her other hand up, cradling his face, her thumbs sweeping over the dark swollen spots above his cheek bones.

He drew in a deep shuddering breath, his eyes clamping shut.

She was about to call him on his claim that this would help him, but then the craziest thing happened. The black marks under his eyes began to fade. Slowly, at first. So gradual that she almost thought she was imagining it. When the bruises were completely gone, she couldn’t deny it though.

Braeh’s heart thundered in her chest. “What the…”

She brought his head closer, noticing how hard he breathed. Time passed—what seemed like forever—as she watched the swelling around his nose go down. The cut on his lip mended. And the skin above his eye…

Braeh blinked over and over, as if it would change what she was seeing. But no, the cut above his eye was indeed, closing.

“That’s amazing,” she breathed.

His eyes opened, and his gaze was raw and purely animal. In that moment it was crystal clear that the man before her was not human. But oddly, that fact didn’t scare her.

Staring into his hard eyes, she continued stroking his cheek. They were so close, their breath mingled. “What’s happening?” she whispered. “How is this possible? Is it because you’re a wolf?”