The Healer's Hellion - Miranda Bridges Page 0,3
asking. We both know they are gone, but maybe I’m asking as their child instead of a grown woman, unable to let go until the last possible moment.
The male nods once, tightening his hold on me as if to show sympathy. “You avenged them,” he says. “You can take some solace in that.” He grips my chin and turns it, pulling my gaze away from the bodies. “You’ve seen what you needed to confirm their deaths. Do not look more than necessary, for each second doing so will darken your soul. Instead, remember them as they were, not as they are.”
I want to jerk from his hold and run my gaze over my parents once more to see them because despite what he’s saying, it’s like I can’t let go. Even though it will pain me, I want these last seconds with them.
Instead, I close my eyes and breathe deep. The male releases my chin and presses his palm to my cheek, forcing me to lay my head on him. I’m grateful he’s making me look away because I know he’s right. The warmth from his touch seeps into me, and he doesn’t remove his hand until we are outside of my house.
“Who are you?” I whisper. I should’ve asked long before now, but my brain has been stunted by the trauma I just experienced. Slowly, reality is starting to set in, and even though I’m not ready to process it, I do allow a tiny bit to trickle in.
“My name is Braxton.”
I wait, staring up at him expectantly, but he doesn’t say anything else. I find this slightly irritating. “What are you?”
“My people are called Dravians.”
I blow out a breath of frustration. This guy is obviously very stingy with his information. However, I don’t have a problem hounding him until he tells me what I want to know.
“Just to be clear, you’re not human, right?”
He shakes his head.
“What are you going to do with me?”
He halts, lowering his chin to meet my stare. His gaze crackles with intelligence, making his eyes swirl with intense calculations and deductions. And yet I catch a spark of something else. Like the center of a flame, it burns, growing brighter the longer he looks at me.
“That,” he says, pausing for the barest of seconds, “remains to be seen.”
Chapter 2
“Braxton!”
At the shout, both he and I turn in the direction of the speaker. Another Dravian male beckons us with his free hand while his other grips a bloodied sword. The satisfaction I get at seeing the yellow blood is intense, and I let it spread through me. If I could make all those alligator fuckers explode, I would.
“I found a human who is in need of your care,” the male says. His gaze slides over us, and he puts his sword in its scabbard before extending his arms toward me. “I can take her for you.”
“No!”
The vehemence that erupts from Braxton has me and the other male doing a double take. What in the world?
Braxton clears his throat and shakes his head once. His voice is calm when he speaks as if he didn’t just roar a second ago. “I need to keep this female with me.”
The stranger’s brows gather, but he doesn’t argue as I glance back and forth between the two males. Braxton has been nothing but gentle with me since I met him a whopping five minutes ago, but it’s not like I prefer him over another. Actually, I don’t want either of them touching me, and I blame my trauma as the reason I’ve allowed Braxton to hold me until this point. Well, that and the fact that I didn’t want to lie incapacitated in my house with my parents’ bodies.
“Put me down,” I say. “I’m over my shock, and I can walk just fine.”
Braxton hesitates, his fingers on me tightening until I give him a pointed look. “Very well,” he says with an exhale. He sets me on my feet, eyeing me with a laser focus as if I’ll topple over at any minute. When I prove otherwise, he takes my hand in his, surprising me. “You will stay by my side at all times. Only until the threat is neutralized will you be free to walk without an escort.”
“Okay,” I say with a shrug, knowing I’ll be safer with him than on my own. My parents are dead, and even though I blew those gators to smithereens, I’m not sure I’d be able to do it again if