Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 303(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 303(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
A tap sounded on the door.
She froze. Ben wouldn’t knock. Who could it be?
“Ashley? It’s Zolla. Ben sent me over to help you. Can you let me in?”
He sent Zolla? She felt queasy. She didn’t even merit him coming himself? She stood up from where she’d been sitting on the edge of the bed and wobbled over to open the door.
Zolla took in the bloodied towel without surprise. He stepped through the door and closed it quickly behind him. Pulling out a chair, he pointed at it. “May I look at your wounds?”
“Where’s Ben?” she asked as she found her way to the indicated chair.
“He went after Jack.”
That made her even angrier. Clearly, she meant nothing to him—he’d pawned her off on his friend while he went for revenge. It seemed he had only been keeping her around to make the trade with his laptop. She’d been a fool to think he had any feelings for her.
Zolla tore her shirt open at the neckline to expose her shoulder.
“Hey,” she protested. “You could’ve just asked me to take it off. This is the only shirt I have at the moment, you know.”
“Yeah, I’m not going to answer to Ben for having your shirt off,” he muttered.
“Ben has no claim on me,” she said bitterly.
Zolla raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips as if to show he disagreed, but wasn’t going to argue. He inspected the punctures in her skin and then walked to the bathroom where he wet a washcloth in the sink. When he returned, he cleaned the wounds.
She drew a breath. “Why did he do this to me? Is… is this what wolves do when they have sex?”
“No. He marked you. Do you know what that means?”
She shook her head, then stopped, wincing as the pain shot across her trapezius muscle.
“I don’t think he meant to do it, but his instinct probably took over. It means he’s chosen you as his mate. When a shifter male marks his mate, a special secretion coats his teeth. You probably feel a little drugged right now?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“The secretion is embedded in your flesh and his scent remains permanently, telling other wolves you are taken by him.”
A flood of indignation soaked through her. How dare he permanently mark her? She would be scarred for life and he hadn’t even asked first. And then he’d just walked out on her and sent Zolla over like she was some mess someone else had to clean up.
“This is bullshit,” she said, twisting to glare at Zolla, as if it was his fault his pack mate was an asshole. “He just bites a chunk out of my shoulder and then disappears and sends you to clean it up? Can you get his scent out of me, because I am sure as hell not sticking around for this kind of treatment.”
Zolla had leaned in close to inspect the marks under her collarbone. “Ashley… do you always heal this fast?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” She stood up and walked to the bathroom to look in the mirror. The gashes that had been so horrible forty-five minutes before had mostly closed, the bleeding stopped.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Is this fast?”
Zolla waited for her to return. “Yes. Most humans would require multiple stitches and would still be bleeding freely, but your blood has already coagulated and the flesh is sticking together as if this wound were a day old, instead of an hour.”
She touched her shoulder, trying to understand what he was telling her.
“Do you have any shifter blood in the family?”
She gaped at him. “You mean…?” Her mind raced, instantly arriving on Grandma Jane, who had given birth to her dad out of wedlock. It had been a scandalous family secret, and her father had been raised believing Abe Bell, his stepfather, was his real father until he saw his own birth certificate when he went off to college. The line for father had been filled in as ‘unknown.’ He’d confronted his mother and she’d refused to tell him anything, other than that Abe Bell loved him as his own and that was all that mattered.
Had Grandma Jane had a fling with a shifter?
Ashley considered how her father had always bragged that neither he nor his daughters ever got sick. It was true, their mother had her share of colds and flus, but Ashley and Melissa rarely caught anything, and when they did, it was mild in comparison to other people’s.
“Maybe I do heal fast,” she said slowly, remembering times when she or Melissa thought they’d sprained something only to have the swelling and pain be gone by morning. “I think I just always thought I was lucky.”
“It would explain Ben’s fascination with you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
He waved his hands as if to ward off her temper. “I didn’t mean any offense by that. You’re gorgeous and smart, anyone can see that, it’s just that alphas don’t usually choose humans as their mates. Biology would demand they choose the strongest or most suitable female for breeding.”