Chapter 5

Cyrus's POV

Some people count sheep when they can't sleep. 

I hunt.

It was the third night in a row that sleep had refused to come, and I couldn't tell why. 

My body was tired, my mind was tired, but beneath my skin there was this itch I couldn't scratch, like something was waiting for me out there in the dark.

"Restless," my wolf, Dawn muttered through the mindlink, pacing at the back of my mind for the hundredth time. 

"You're restless."

"Thank you for the update," I replied dryly. "I hadn't noticed."

He huffed and said nothing else, which was unusual for him. 

Dawn was never quiet. 

But tonight he was watching, waiting, and I didn't have the patience to ask what for.

So I grabbed my bow and headed into the woods, and of course, Simon tagged along. 

He claimed it was because he needed the exercise. I knew it was because he didn't trust me alone out here when I was in a mood.

"On your left," Simon whispered, pointing between the trees. "Twenty feet. It's a buck."

I saw it right away. Big, healthy, with antlers that would look great on a wall. 

I crouched behind a fallen log, drew the string back, held my breath, and let go.

It would have been a perfect shot.

Would have.

Something blue shot out from the bushes at the exact second the arrow left my bow. 

It was a blur of fur and speed, and by the time my brain registered what it was, the arrow had already found its mark.

The wolf yelped.

It was a sharp, pained sound that cut through the night like a blade, and then she was rolling, tumbling sideways through the dead leaves before crashing against the base of a tree and going completely still.

The buck bolted in the opposite direction. I didn't even watch it go.

"What the hell was that?" I whispered.

"Cyrus?" Simon's voice called from behind me, but I was already walking toward the tree, my feet moving before my brain had decided anything.

I stopped a few feet away and stared.

It was…sky blue.

Okay. This had to be that stupid trend.

I'd heard about it. Young wolves in the Eastern territories dyeing their fur for aesthetic reasons, as if their wolves were some kind of accessory. 

Dawn had called it disrespectful. I'd called it a waste of money.

"Some kid's idea of a joke," I muttered to myself, annoyed. "And I just shot at her."

I crept closer, bow still in hand, and saw the arrow had barely grazed her shoulder. 

It was a shallow cut, bleeding but not deep. She'd barely been touched.

So why wasn't she moving?

"Wait," Dawn said suddenly, and the sharpness in his voice made me freeze.

Then the wolf's body began to shift.

I watched, rooted to the spot, as fur gave way to skin, and limbs lengthened, and in the place of a sky blue wolf lay a girl, curled on her side against the roots of the tree.

A very naked girl.

"Goddess," I breathed, and immediately turned my face away. 

"Okay. Okay, that's a rogue. An interesting one."

I crouched down anyway, keeping my eyes firmly on a spot of moss somewhere beside her head, and reached out to check her pulse.

"Cyrus, what are you doing down there?" Simon's voice called behind me, and I jerked my hand back like I'd touched a flame.

I stood quickly as Simon walked up, looking confused, then looking down, then looking back up at me with both eyebrows raised.

"There's an unconscious naked lady by the tree," Simon said slowly.

"No. A naked buff. Of course I can see that!” 

"Who is she?"

"I have no idea," I said. "She ran out of nowhere, right when I took the shot. The arrow barely grazed her."

Simon's gaze dropped to her shoulder, and his entire demeanour changed.

This was the other Simon. The physician. 

"She's bleeding," he said, and knelt beside her without hesitation, reaching for her arm.

"I've got this."

I hadn't meant for the word  to come out that fast, or that firm. 

Simon stopped, his hand hovering in midair, and looked up at me.

"I'll carry her," I added quickly, pulling off my jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders, tucking it close around her body. 

"You need to check if she's okay. We'll take her to the cabin."

Simon said nothing, but his eyes narrowed slightly.

I slid one arm under her knees and the other behind her back and lifted her, she was ridiculously lighter than she looked. 

The moment her skin touched mine, the world lit up.

It was like being struck by lightning. 

Sparks raced up my arms, across my chest, down my spine, every nerve in my body suddenly wide awake. 

The itch under my skin, the restlessness I'd been feeling for three nights, it all made sense in one second.

"Mine," Dawn whispered, almost reverently.

No.

No, no, no.

"Mine!" Dawn said again, louder, and I could feel his tail wagging like a fool in the back of my head. 

"Cyrus, mate!"

"I heard you, damn it! " I hissed under my breath.

"You okay?" Simon asked, watching me carefully.

"Fine."

And that's when she moved. 

She shifted in my arms and let out a soft, tired sound, and then she nuzzled her face into my chest, as if she'd been looking for exactly that spot her entire life.

Simon coughed. It sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

"Not a bloody word," I warned him.

"I didn't say anything."

"Your face is saying a lot."

"That's just my face," he said, grinning. "It's very expressive."

I ignored him, and ignored Dawn, who was practically singing in my head, and walked back through the trees with a stranger in my arms and my heart doing things it had no business doing.

The cabin was a ten minute walk away. It felt like ten hours.

Every step, she shifted a little closer. 

Every step, Dawn grew a little louder. And every step I told myself the same thing over and over again: It doesn't change anything.

By the time we made it inside, I was almost convincing myself.

"Put her in my room," Simon said, heading for his medical bag. "On the bed."

I did as I was told. But the moment I laid her down and my arms were empty, I felt it.

The loss.

It felt hollow and ridiculous. I'd been holding her for fifteen minutes. I didn't even know her name.

She shivered on the mattress, her lips tinged slightly blue, and Simon, who had come in behind me, frowned.

"She's freezing," he said, heading for the wardrobe. 

"Let me get her a short and a hoodie, and then I'll check her wounds."

He pulled out a hoodie, and a short, and was already moving toward the bed when I stepped in front of him.

"I've got it."

For the second time in ten minutes, Simon went very still.

He looked at me for a long moment. Then at the girl. Then back at me, with a knowing look that made me want to punch something.

His face actually. 

"Whatever you say, Alpha," he said, handing me the clothes with all the sarcasm he could fit into two words. 

"But be quick. She needs to be checked soon."

He stepped out and closed the door behind him.

I stood there for a second, hating myself.

Simon was a physician. This was his job. He'd dressed more patients than I could count, and I'd never once thought twice about it. 

But the idea of someone else's hands on her, anyone's hands, had made something in me snarl like an animal.

"That's what mates do," Dawn said smugly.

"Shut up."

I looked down at the sleeping girl, then at my hands, and remembered the sparks. 

If I touched her skin again, I would feel it again. 

Every single time.

My eyes landed on a box on Simon's dresser. Surgical gloves.

It was a terrible idea. 

I knew it was a terrible idea. But I was a man who liked control, and right now I had none, so I pulled on a pair.

I started with the hoodie. 

Eyes on the ceiling, I guided her arms through the sleeves as gently as I could, pulling it over her head, tugging it down to cover her. Then I reached for the short Simon had picked, and stopped.

It was too small. It was tight in all the wrong places.

I tossed it aside and dug through the wardrobe until I found a pair of grey sweatpants with a drawstring waist, and worked those onto her one leg at a time, looking anywhere but at her.

And the gloves?

They made it worse.

Somehow, with only a thin layer of latex between us, the sparks seemed to concentrate, like a current forced through a smaller wire. 

By the time I pulled the sweatpants up and finished, my hands were trembling.

Trembling. Me.

I stepped back, pulled the gloves off, and threw them in the bin like they'd personally offended me. 

Then I looked at her one last time.

She looked small there. Pale, and tired, with bruises along her arms, and a split above her eyebrow that had already started to heal. 

There were marks on her body that weren't from the arrow. Old ones scars and bruises. 

Dawn was whining low in my head, and for once I couldn't tell him to shut up.

I walked out of the room and found Simon leaning casually against the hallway wall, arms folded.

"Done?" he asked.

"She's dressed. You can check her now."

"Thank you for allowing me," he said, with a polite nod. "Where are you going?"

"I need air."

"It's the middle of the night."

"Then it's the best time for it."

I grabbed my keys from the table and left before he could say another word.

I drove all the way back to the Pack house with both hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, as if letting go would send me right back to that cabin.