“It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” Wyatt said in a gravelly voice. But he had eased back enough to look at her throat with an expression that said he wanted more death as recompense, too.
“Wes,” Wyatt said low. “Her hand.”
“Yeah,” Weston said, lifting her ruined fingers gingerly. It hurt so bad, like someone had shoved her arm into a fire.
His eyes were the pitch black of his raven’s when he lifted them to Harper’s. “This’ll hurt.”
“Do it,” she gritted out. Waiting and mentally preparing wouldn’t work. It would only make it worse. Shifter healing was fast. Too fast sometimes for broken pieces.
Wyatt pushed his weight against her, pinning her to the side of his dented truck. And just as she let out a scream at the pain of Weston resetting her bones, Wyatt kissed her, hard.
It wasn’t the sweet kisses from when they were kids, or the passionate ones they learned about when they were old enough for intimacy. This one was fear and anger and loss all wrapped up into one breathtaking instant. Weston was done, and tears of pain streamed out the corners of her eyes, but Wyatt didn’t release her. His lips softened, and he moved them slowly against hers, drinking her in until the pain eased and Harper went limp with exhaustion in his arms.
Wyatt bit her bottom lip gently, then disengaged and rested his forehead on hers. His breath was shaking, just like hers, and his eyes were closed tightly. And now she wanted to cry for reasons other than pain. She’d never thought she would get a chance to be held by him again, much less kissed. And it felt so good, so right. His lips were like a homecoming after a long trip.
Her cheeks heated with shame. “My dragon wasn’t there.”
“I know. It’s okay.” Wyatt folded her into his arms and strode around the back of his truck, the others following slowly.
“Aaron, Change back,” Wyatt clipped out. “We need to leave.”
A grunt of pain sounded from behind them, and Harper looked around Wyatt’s wide shoulder to see Aaron limping after them, holding his torn neck together. I’m okay, he mouthed.
That was close. Too close. She could’ve lost so much tonight.
Ryder yanked open the passenger door, and Wyatt set her inside, buckled her quickly while the boys piled in the back. And when Wyatt was behind the wheel, he slammed the door, revved the engine, and gunned it out of the parking lot as sirens sounded in the distance.
The law wasn’t lenient on shifters. It never had been, not since they’d established rights over twenty years ago. No damage had been done except for Wyatt’s dented truck and the final death of the Queen of the Asheville Coven. Law enforcement should give Wyatt a damned trophy for making the area safer from her fangs, but they wouldn’t. They would cage him if they figured out what had happened in the parking lot of Drat’s. Vampires had secured their rights like shifters had. Regardless of how long a vampire had lived, or what evil deeds they’d done in the shadows, a death was a death to the police.
The air was too heavy in here, and when Harper looked in the back seat, Weston was pulling off his shirt. He wadded it up and pressed it against her bitten neck, staunching the warm wetness that had been trickling from the wound.
Ryder had his face buried in his hands, and Aaron was naked from his shift, staring out the window with a haunted look.
And Wyatt…Harper wanted to hold his hand to silently tell him she was okay, but he felt so heavy right now she couldn’t move an inch closer to him.
“Cut it out, man,” Aaron muttered.
Wyatt didn’t answer. The only sound was the acceleration as he hit the gas on a straightaway.
“Wyatt!” Aaron yelled. “I said cut that shit out or I’m going to Change again!”
Wyatt snarled a feral sound. When he tossed Aaron a shut-the-fuck-up glare over his shoulder, his eyes weren’t human at all.
“I couldn’t find my animal. I’m sorry,” Harper murmured. Her skin was cold, but on the inside, she was burning. Maybe she was in shock.
“It was the alcohol,” Wyatt growled out. “And you’re a fucking dragon, Harper. Stop apologizing.”
Weston adjusted his shirt on her neck, applied more pressure. “You shouldn’t have left her unprotected.”
“He was going back in for my shoes,” Harper said. “It’s not his fault.”
“Bullshit!” Weston barked out. “This is all his fault.”
“Wes,” Ryder drawled, relaxing back against the seat. “Cut him some slack.”
“Why the fuck should I? Wyatt, you disappeared. You bolted. You pushed us all away for all these years, and do you know who you hurt the most by that?”
Wyatt twitched his chin and winced, like Weston’s words physically burned him.
“Harper!” Weston bellowed.
“He’s made his apologies,” Harper murmured.
But Weston wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. “You got her pregnant. You almost killed her. You almost took her away from all of us! And then you ran and did even more damage. You gave her The Unrest, Wyatt! You! She bonded to you. You were her fucking treasure, and you ditched her.”
“Weston!” Harper yelled, yanking his shirt from underneath his hand just to make him stop touching her. He was speaking about personal things that he didn’t understand. “That’s enough.”
“And then you bring her here and force her into some fucked-up war with the vamps. That’s what this is, right? We just killed the queen of a coven. The queen. And I saw that look in her eyes, Wyatt. That vamp wanted to kill Harper. And judging from the scars on your neck, I’d say that’s on you, too.” Weston rammed himself backward against the seat and crossed his arms. “We should’ve never come here.”