Helpless (Steel Demons MC #5) - Crystal Ash Page 0,69
that.”
“I didn’t either before meeting them. It weirded me out too, at first.” I grinned. “But it has its perks.”
“I can imagine,” she snickered.
We heard moving and rustling behind us, and turned to see the Sons untangling as they roused.
“Mornin’, ladies,” Dyno yawned. “Mari, I’ll take my lighter back.”
“Damn it. How’d you know?” I tossed it back and he caught it in midair.
“You’re not the first person to lift my shit while I’m sleeping.” He scrubbed his face. “Did y’all make any coffee?”
“No time.” T-Bone’s voice was gravelly as he sat up. “We gotta get movin’. Mari, can you wake up your guys?”
“On it.”
As I walked toward Larkan and Shadow’s sleeping spots, I heard T-Bone ask Kyrie, “You hungry, little lady?”
Larkan woke up with just a small shake to his shoulder. I went to rouse Shadow with more caution, remembering how Jandro had to lock him up at night because of his violent nightmares. I advised him not to take a sleeping pill last night, considering we had to be up in a few short hours.
Shadow looked peaceful, if a bit pale. His face was softer in sleep, without his perpetual glower. I stroked the back of my fingers against his cheek. He seemed to like it when I touched his face. If only he knew how many times I thought about touching him like this.
He stirred but didn’t wake. His face turned, the soft bristles of his beard leaning into my hand. I lifted a finger to push his hair back, exposing the deep scar carving through his cheek, eyelid, and brow. He was fucking beautiful, and I couldn’t stop staring.
“Shadow,” I whispered, my thumb stroking over his cheekbone. “Time to get up.”
He rolled to his side, my hand now trapped between his cheek and the ground. His arm reached out, coming close to resting on my thigh before it stopped and jerked back.
“Ugh,” he grunted, eyes now blinking awake. “I’m stiff as a fucking board.” His head lifted and I slipped my hand out.
“How do you feel, aside from that?” I watched him roll up to sitting, one of his hands skimming over the cheek I just touched, before he pulled his hair forward to cover it.
“Fine, I think.”
“Can I see?”
He turned his back to me, allowing me to lift his clean shirt up to his shoulder blades to examine the wounds. I frowned and huffed out a breath. They didn’t look good. The flesh puffed out and looked discolored between the stitches I made last night. Infection was setting in, but there wasn’t much I could do until we got back to the bikes.
“Do you feel weird at all?” I fished my small bottle of alcohol from my kit and poured it over the wounds. “Nauseous? Too cold or too hot?”
“No, I don’t think so. It itches a little back there, but I can’t even reach them.”
“Good.” I pulled his shirt down, resisting the urge to skim my hands over the many scars on his back. “Don’t rub up on anything to scratch them. They’re infected, but I don’t have antibiotics to give you until later.”
“I’ll be fine. Thank you, Mari.”
I sighed and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. It was easy to fuss and fret over him, but when not staring down the face of his trauma, he was so stoically calm. “I know you will. And you know what?”
“Huh?”
“I like it when you call me Mari.”
It was another three-hour, bumpy, off-road drive, going around the Blakeworth city before we reached the barn where the bikes were stored. I half expected them to be stolen, all our belongings looted, but everything was as we left it.
Shadow, however, continued to look worse.
He was pale and sweating, moving slowly as he walked his bike out of the barn. I had agreed to ride back with Larkan, but now that feeling returned, the urgency to never leave the scarred man’s side.
“Shadow?” I approached him warily. “Are you sure you can ride?”
“Don’t have much of a choice, do I?” he grunted, struggling to get his cut over his elbows.
“Here, let me.”
His arms stilled at his sides while I grabbed the soft leather, pulling it over one massive bicep to rest at his shoulder, and then the other.
“Thank you.”
I took the opportunity to touch his face, his eyes half-closing at the contact. It would have been sweet, even intimate, if his skin didn’t burn against my palms.
“Shadow,” I gasped, pressing a hand to his forehead. “You have a fever. Let me—”