Head Hunter (City Shifters the Pack #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,121
shifter blood means we heal faster. I thought a little would be enough to save your life but not... contaminate you. I didn’t want to risk you turning into something you hated.”
I swallowed the knot in my throat.
Dodge touched my shoulder, smoothing from my shoulder to my elbow with his palm. I wished he would talk faster, to just spit out what he’d done. What did it mean that he gave me some of his blood?
“But it wasn’t enough,” he went on. Dodge rested his fingertips on my sternum, right where my heart beat on steadily. “I would have had them drain me to save you, but Evershaw called them off. He donated blood. The rest of the pack donated blood. It didn’t stay in you very long, but eventually it became clear that it started to help. It started to heal you, bit by bit, from the inside.”
It didn’t sound terrible. He’d saved my life after all, even if it was a weird ass way of doing it.
“The problem is, we don’t really know how much shifter blood actually stayed in you. You didn’t heal completely, so it’s not like you’ve already turned, but there’s a possibility...” Dodge finally dragged his eyes up to mine, real regret shining in his gaze. “I’m sorry, Persephone. I knew you didn’t want anything to do with supernaturals and I still... I told them to give you my blood, knowing it would contaminate you. There might not be any permanent changes, or at least the doctors and Deirdre haven’t seen any sign of any, but it wasn’t right.”
I massaged my temples and sat up against the squashed pillows and the headboard. Hard to imagine I’d been hanging on for dear life and sweating all over the pillows only a few minutes earlier. The man gave me emotional whiplash, that was for damn certain. “Let me get this straight.”
Dodge watched me, waiting. Bracing for a screaming fit or hysterical crying or a panicked run for the door. My thoughts jumbled together until I didn’t know which way was up. So not just two major life changes in a single day, he’d dealt me another one in the blink of an eye. I must have been crazy, but this last one didn’t feel like the biggest. “You saved my life by giving me shifter blood. And I might or might not turn into a shifter at some point?”
“Yes.”
And then he waited.
I sighed, gazing at him as he waited for me to pronounce judgment. I didn’t have it in me to get mad. I’d made my peace with packs, and shifters, and witches, at some point in the previous month as I lingered in my fancy new apartment and the pack took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself. I took a deep breath and rested my chin on my fist as I studied him. I gestured at where our child had set up shop in my stomach, then my thighs and the lingering evidence of our passion. “Well, I already have a lot of you in me, so I guess some blood doesn’t make much of a difference.”
Dodge stared at me, his expression blank, and a smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. I patted his arm and wiggled closer so I could rest my head on his chest. “Can we talk about this later? Someone tired me out.”
He cleared his throat, then craned his neck to get a better look at my face. “I thought you’d be angry.”
“I’m annoyed,” I said, since it was mostly true. Particularly since he didn’t seem to know the consequences of what he’d done. “But at least I’m still alive to be annoyed.”
“So...”
I patted his stomach and closed my eyes. In the grand scale of things that had gone wrong in my life recently, it didn’t seem to rise to the top three. I was still alive and so far hadn’t turned into a wolf or even displayed wolfy tendencies. “Closest alligator to the boat, Dodge.”
He exhaled and all the tension drained out of him. He flipped the covers over us and curled around me like an electric blanket after turning off the lights. “We can wake up for dinner later.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. I slid my leg over his as I pressed against his side, wanting to feel all of him against me. His body reacted in a rush as my thigh brushed against it.