“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of that, too,” she said.
Then, before he could ask her what she was doing, Shea laid her hand over his forehead. The throbbing in his tender eyes, the ache in his mouth, the ringing in his ears that still hadn’t gone away… as a pleasant warmth began to fill his body, Adam realized that she was healing him again.
Again.
More of his memories came to the surface. Gasping on his last breaths, all of his final regrets weighing on him as he knew that death was coming for him, an angel with dark curls and bright purple eyes had suddenly appeared.
She saved his life.
But he was dead.
Wasn’t he?
“Okay,” Shea said a few seconds later. “That’s the best I can do without pushing myself. You should be able to stand the hospital lights now. Colton had them dimmed since we’re in a mixed wing, but they can’t go any lower. When he comes back with the sunglasses, you’ll be alright. Until then, at least you can see.”
She was right. Whatever she did to him, when Adam re-opened his eyes one last time, it was still bright—but it wasn’t some kind of supernova exploding in front of him like before.
He blinked slowly, trying to earn his sight back, ignoring the standard hospital decor—the blank television, the IV stand with a dark bag hooked up to it, and the empty, uncomfortable visitor’s chair—before he found her nibbling nervously on her finger.
Shea hovered at the edge of his bed. She was wearing a robe, dark bruises under her witch’s eyes; purple on purple, he noticed. Her black curls were tamed with a clip, revealing a pretty noticeable bite on her neck.
Adam felt a rush of disgust and anger roar through him. He struggled to pull himself up before spitting out a curse. “Fuck. All that and the bastard got you anyway?”
Her olive-toned complexion paled as Adam shouted at her. She didn’t move away from the bed, though she did lift her hand to her throat. “Julian didn’t do this to me.”
“Yeah?” He’d gone into the Nightwalker’s lair, not caring if he died if it meant that he took the leader out with him. For a second, when he saw her bite, his stomach clenched because he thought everything that happened—the attack, and… and the blood—had been in vain. But she was there, and he was alive, and— “Then who?”
“Me,” grumbled Wolfe. He was scowling as he strode back into the room, clutching a bulging bag in his hands. He reached inside, pulling out a pair of cheap, plastic sunglasses. He tossed it to Adam. “Don’t snap at my mate. You get a pass because of what happened, but don’t push it.”
Like before with Wolfe’s fury, he could tell that the shifter meant what he said. There was a growl underlining his unsaid threat that had Adam deciding to back down.
Besides, Wolfe brought him the glasses. It gave him an excuse to look away from the mated pair.
Whatever Shea had done to him, it wasn’t so excruciating to keep his eyes open wide beneath the fluorescents. Still, he couldn’t stop squinting—and something warned him about being the least bit vulnerable, even around these two.
With a muttered, “Thanks,” he picked the sunglasses up as carefully as he possibly could and slipped them on.
Damn, if that didn’t make it so much easier to focus on what was going on around him.
“If you break that one, I got a couple of back-ups,” Wolfe told him, showing off the bag. “Looks like you were doing pretty good without ‘em, though. Shea? Care to explain.”
“I barely tapped into my well,” she said, a touch of defiance to her tone. “He needed to see, Colt.”
“Yeah. Noticing my mark? We learned the hard way, bud. When it comes to certain Para quirks, as strong as my mate’s healing is, there are limits to what she can do. Even if she wanted to erase it, she can’t do a thing about my mark. And when it comes to what happened to you…”
“Colton.”
“Someone’s gotta tell him,” Wolfe said firmly. “I mean, I know Ants have a thick skull sometimes, but if he hasn’t figured it out by now, it’s because he doesn’t want to believe he’s been turned.”
Turned.
The word echoed in his head, like a drumbeat against his skull.
Turned.
Julian standing over him, his claw slicing down the length of his forearm. The blood welling along the deep cut, oozing down his pale skin, dripping into the silver cup. Rafe tilting his head back, prying open his mouth as the Nightwalker leader tipped the contents down his throat—
“No. No way. I can’t be—”