Marked In Flesh (The Others #4) - Anne Bishop Page 0,15
hard to be good and not cut, but . . .
“Need it,” she muttered, all her thoughts focused on the drawing taking shape on the paper. “Need that shade.”
When the color began to flow, she tossed the razor aside, dipped her fingers into the color, and continued drawing.
• • •
The scent of blood snapped Jackson Wolfgard out of a sound sleep moments before Hope screamed. Scrambling to his feet, he leaped for the bedroom door, aware that his mate, Grace, was right behind him. The Wolves who had slept on the porch or on the ground surrounding the cabin were awake and howling an alarm—or getting the pups away from potential danger.
Still shifting to human as he shoved the door open and stepped into the room, Jackson vaguely remembered some rule about adult males in human form not appearing unclothed in front of female puppies or juveniles, but he wasn’t concerned about human rules, not when Hope was staring at the drawing pad on the floor and blood from a deep slice in her left forearm dripped onto the paper and the sheet bunched up beneath it.
“Oh, Hope.” Grace sounded heartbroken.
Jackson wasn’t heartbroken; he was furious. And very frightened. The blood of the cassandra sangue was a danger to Others and humans alike. After taking in Hope, he’d heard that some of the terra indigene called the girls Namid’s creation, both wondrous and terrible.
Until now, he hadn’t thought of Hope as something terrible.
several Wolves called, using the terra indigene’s form of communication.
he ordered.
The girl herself didn’t smell like prey. None of the blood prophets did. But Hope’s blood! He’d never smelled anything quite like it, and he craved a taste of it.
Fear fueled his fury as he covered the distance between the doorway and the swaying girl. He swept up the razor she’d tossed aside. He was about to drop it on the desk when he noticed another drawing with Meg Corbyn’s name written in the bottom right corner. He set the razor away from the drawing, then turned to the girl.
Grace pulled off Hope’s nightshirt and pressed the wadded cloth against the wound, leaving the girl wearing nothing but panties.
“I needed the color,” Hope said, staring at the floor. “I needed . . .”
Jackson smacked the top of Hope’s head, eliciting a snarl from Grace. It wasn’t a hard smack, but it snapped the girl back from whatever she was seeing enough to focus on him.
“You have big teeth,” Hope whispered.
“They’re big so you’ll feel them when I bite you,” he growled, leaning closer. He wasn’t sure if there were other parts of him that wouldn’t pass for human. He didn’t care.
“Jackson,” Grace warned. She hesitated.
He waited until Grace hustled Hope into the bathroom. Then he went to the window and opened the shutters, relieved to breathe in untainted air. Wolf faces peered at him through the screen.
The faces disappeared. This terra indigene settlement didn’t own any horses or burros. When the Others needed such creatures, they rented them, along with the humans who would handle them. But they did have a small wagon that could be pulled by up to three individuals in human form and was mostly used when the Others went down to purchase human-made merchandise. It was big enough to hold Grace and Hope.
Taking a last deep breath, Jackson turned back to the room. Some blood on the sheet, but not as much as he’d thought when he first saw Hope standing there with blood dripping down her arm. Most of the blood was on the drawing, although he would check all the pages carefully to make sure there wasn’t a speck of blood on the rest of the paper.
She’d been doing so well since she’d come to live with them. She’d said she wanted to live. Hadn’t they done everything they could to help her do exactly that? So why . . . ?