A Little Green Magic (The Little Coven #1) - Isabel Wroth Page 0,97

causing further damage to her or anyone else, Uriah looked at his hands.

Well, they were more paws than hands, which was good. Prickly Pear had been some of his most favorite treats, and bears were experts at picking berries off thorny bushes. He clacked his claws together before carefully reaching out to slowly pull the pieces away.

“That's great, Uriah,” Juliet praised.

He grunted in answer, tossing the pieces away, hating the blood that coated his claws. Ivy's blood. His mate's blood. There were a few thorns that stubbornly clung to her flesh, and with a grimace of regret, the redhead carefully extracted them one by one.

“We have to set the bone now, and it's going to hurt like hell. Ivy might wake up screaming, but we have to do it to help her.”

Uriah waved his hand for them to just get on with it and stop talking to him like he was slow. He got the picture. The lion gave a snide grin, wiggling his fingers at his own face.

“I hate to say it, buddy, but she won't be screaming cause her leg hurts. It'll be ‘cause she's terrified of that whole business happening with your face. Think you might wanna take a deep breath and get your shit together, huh?”

His face. Right. Uriah shut out the sounds and smells of everyone else, focusing on Ivy. On breathing in the beautiful smell of his mate deep into his lungs. He heard someone counting, and knew when they reached three, his mate would feel inescapable agony.

The asshole lion was right. She didn't need to wake up and see a monster looming over her.

Go to sleep, Bear. You’ll scare her.

The bear grumbled, but retreated, hesitating only for a second when the redhead jerked on Ivy's leg to set the bone with a hideous squelch. Ivy came awake with a wild scream that made Uriah feel like his insides had been scraped to ribbons.

She would have thrashed and kicked if not for the redhead holding her legs in place and Uriah's arms cuddling her as close as he could.

Ivy twisted to wrap her arms around him, holding on so tight he could feel her shaking. Her tears soaked his throat, and over and over, she whispered, “You're here. You're here.”

“I am. I am here. It's alright, shhh.” Confused why Ivy would be more worried about him than the pain in her leg, Uriah looked to the other women around him.

The only one not nearly unconscious from exhaustion was the other blonde. He knew her name. Didn't he? He knew all of these people, but he couldn't remember how or where he knew them from.

The redhead wanted Ivy's attention, but Uriah didn't want her to do anything but stay right where she was. Uriah must have been making threatening grumbles because Ivy went from desperately clinging to him to combing her fingers through his hair in soothing strokes.

Ivy tipped her head back to look up at him, smiling even though there were tears in her eyes. Her lips pressed softly to his, a sweet, far too brief kiss that left him aching.

“I'm alright. It doesn't hurt that bad anymore.”

“Doesn't hurt,” Uriah echoed, wanting to find a soft, safe den to take her away to. Away from pain and blood, where he could spend hours with her lips on his skin. Where he could give her pleasure to drown out the pain of what she'd suffered today.

He saw concern in her expression as she searched his face, voices faded in and out as he focused on her, memorizing the elegant slope of her cheeks. The mischievous tilt of her nose. The pattern of freckles on her skin. How her rosy lips wrapped around each word she spoke.

“Uriah? Are you alright?”

He grinned at her stupidly, just because he loved the way she said his name. He twirled a lock of hair around his finger. “I never thought you'd be this beautiful, mate.”

Ivy framed his face in her hands, her thumbs moving back and forth across the skin just beneath his eyes.

She was worried, he could smell it, and those lips that belonged only to him called for another male. Brother or not, the seething jealousy was an immediate burn.

“Ilex, why is my man acting like he's never seen me before?”

“An unexpected side effect of the Evlinkuin. I swear to you it was unintentional, and it should wear off soon. I was thinking only of saving his life.”

A trickle of tears rolled down her cheeks, her lips gave