Broken Bond - Callie Rose Page 0,17

as he upends the alcohol bottle, dousing the area.

Dare inhales sharply, his fingers digging into the couch cushions.

“You went hunting for food, or… what?” Archer asks, rolling a Q-tip over a cut in Dare’s forehead.

“Witches,” Dare repeats, his eyes scrunched shut. All three of the other shifters are pouring or rubbing alcohol into his wounds, so I imagine he feels like one big fireball of pain.

“You went hunting witches,” Archer repeats, his tone hard. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Are they coming onto our lands?” Ridge asks, intent on cleaning the debris away from Dare’s bone.

“No. I went looking for them outside our territory.” Dare’s voice is thick, his eyes still squinted shut and his face betraying his agony.

Archer rips open a new package of white gauze. “You left the protection of pack lands? Dare, why would you do that?”

Trystan scoffs. “Because he has a fucking death wish.”

Dare snarls at Trystan, one fist shooting out with deadly force. But Trystan just ducks the blow and rolls his eyes, shoving Dare back into the cushions with one hand.

“I was pissed, okay?” Dare snaps, closing his eyes as Archer uses an alcohol wipe to prod at a wound on his neck. “I went looking for witches to attack to let off some steam.”

I cringe, looking away so that no one will notice the hot tears gathering in my eyes. Dare’s hatred is like a living thing, sucking up all the air in the room. He didn’t even care who he hurt, as long as he could take his frustrations out on someone. And to think, he could just as easily have hurt me as any other witch.

“Well, we can see how well that all worked out for you,” Ridge says shortly, sounding more miffed than usual. “I can’t do much about this hole in your leg. You’re missing a half-acre of skin cells.”

“A lot of this isn’t going to be treatable with a basic first aid kit,” Archer adds. “We need help.”

“Can I help?” I lean over the couch, eyeing the wounds they’ve already cleaned. I don’t know what I’m offering—it’s not like I’m some kind of nurse or medical doctor. But I’ve done my fair share of wound patching thanks to Uncle Clint, despite the fact that we never had many medical supplies around either.

But Dare’s gaze snaps to me, and he bucks, dislodging all the gauze, tape, and bloody wipes lying on his body in his haste to get away from me. There’s chaos for a few moments as the other three men calm him and get him to lie back down.

With my heart nearly pounding out of my chest, I retreat to the kitchen, feeling as if he’s punched me in the gut.

I settle on the chair in front of my half-eaten plate of breakfast and reach for my orange juice. Only ten, maybe fifteen minutes have passed since I sat here eating with the three shifters. I’d just started to feel like we could get through this together when Dare came back and brought all my insecurities with him.

When he was less coherent in the yard, he let me touch him when we sank to the ground. I thought that meant he wasn’t afraid of me, not like I feared he would be. Instead, it seems like he’s just as disgusted by me as I dreaded. So much so that he doesn’t want me anywhere near him.

Dare may have physically returned to us, but I don’t have him back yet. Not truly.

Maybe I never will.

7

Sable

The clock on the wall audibly ticks away the minutes as I sit alone in the kitchen, agonizing over the way Dare looked at me.

My fork scrapes against the plate as I move the remaining eggs around, but I can’t bring myself to take another bite. The food I already ate before Dare came back to us has turned into a hurricane of nausea inside me, and if I eat anything else, I’m afraid I’ll throw up.

So I just finish my orange juice instead, thinking fondly of Trystan’s awkward shuffle back to the table with the glass. He was sweet then, reminding me that there’s a nice guy under all that macho bluster of his.

I may not understand what it’s like to be a shifter or to lead a pack, but I do think I’m starting to understand my companions. Trystan comes off like an asshole a lot of the time, but I feel like maybe he just overcompensates with his “alpha-ness” when he