A Very Venom Christmas - Kristine Allen Page 0,41
and so was the baby growing within her.
“You’re up early,” she croaked in a voice froggy from sleep.
“Mmm,” I said as I nuzzled into her neck and gave her body a squeeze.
“Careful of your arm!” she chastised. Cautiously, she turned to face me, covering her mouth with her hand. “I have morning breath,” she mumbled in explanation. In the dim morning light filtering in through the curtains, she gave a confused frown to the injured area of my shoulder. Her fingers tentatively reached out to assess if what she was seeing was the truth.
I grabbed her hand before she made contact.
“We need to talk,” I explained. She bolted up in the bed and searched the bedside table for a light. Once she’d clicked it on, she whipped her gaze back to my shoulder. Dissatisfied with what she was seeing, she got to her knees and leaned down. Nose damn near touching the healed tissue of my injury, she blinked rapidly.
“What the hell?” She cast a startled stare at me, suddenly oblivious to the morning breath I didn’t give a shit about to begin with. “You… that… how?”
“Like I said, we need to talk.”
“How long have I been asleep?” she asked incredulously as she looked down to see she was still in the same clothes she’d traveled in. Which reminded me… “Take this off.”
I tugged at the hoodie she’d been wearing since we left up north.
“This is no time to get frisky!” she sputtered, wide-eyed and flabbergasted.
“I’m not, but I’m tired of seeing another man’s club across your fucking tits,” I growled.
“Another—” She glanced down, then tore the hoodie over her head and tossed it to the floor. I groaned.
“That’s not much better,” I said as I covered my mouth and ran my hand down my beard. The shirt was tight across her tits and had a pin-up style stripper on a pole. Above it read “I got lucky at the Shamrock.”
Again, she dropped her chin to look at what she was wearing and then startled to giggle. “Oh my God. I didn’t even look at it when I dressed.”
Then she got serious. “Enough with the distractions. You better explain that shit to me right the hell now.”
“First, I need to know that I can trust you. If not, I’ll have to have Bruno come in here and wipe your memory.” Inside, I laughed my ass off. We had no Bruno and no one in the chapter with that kind of ability, though she didn’t need to know.
Her eyes grew comically wide, then hurt filled them and made me feel like a real ass. “Decker, you saved my life at least three times. I’d never betray you.”
“Babe, I’m sorry. There’s no Bruno, but seriously, I need your word.” I snickered, and she swatted me.
“I promise. On our baby’s soul, I’d never intentionally betray you. And I’d do my best to never unintentionally betray you either,” she added as an afterthought.
“You know how Snow has his motorcycle club? Well, I’m part of one too.”
“Okay. You’re in a motorcycle gang?”
“Club, babe. It’s a club, not a gang.”
She gave me a calculating once-over. “Mm-kay?”
I sighed, praying I was doing the right thing. “Some of us in my club have certain, uh, abilities.”
“Go on,” she encouraged, still disbelieving.
“You need to know, because there’s a good chance my abilities may get passed on to junior there.” I motioned to her abdomen where said junior was incubating.
“So she might be able to heal herself?” she asked incredulously. My head reared back in surprise at her question.
“You know it’s a girl already?”
“Well, no, not exactly, but I wanted it to be,” she replied with a shrug. Her dark-fringed lashes fluttered as she dropped her gaze.
“Well, I’ll be happy with boy or girl as long as it’s healthy—and I mean that. But no, my ability isn’t to heal myself. That’s someone else’s ability, to heal me, I mean.”
“Angel!” she excitedly exclaimed. “That’s why he was insisting on looking at your wound and why you said it could wait until we were here!”
She seemed so pleased with her deductions that I couldn’t help but chuckle. Most people might be freaked out that a human had the ability to heal, but she was excited. She also didn’t immediately jump to what he could do for her or someone she knew.
“Yeah, but you cannot breathe a word of this to anyone. It could put people’s lives in danger.” I grew serious.
“I understand,” she said softy as her palm cradled my cheek. “So