Howling Legion (Skinners, Book 2) (21 page)

Tracing her fingers down his chest, she was about to say something when she snapped her attention to his leg. “Oh no! I’m sorry,” she said as she climbed off. “Does that hurt?”

Every part of his body wanted to tell her he was fine and that she should hop aboard to pick up right where they’d left off. Well, some parts more than others. As he tried to move his leg, he grunted, “Yes. It does.”

“Let me just fix you up and we can get back to business.”

“That would be…that sounds…I mean…yes. That sounds good.”

Paige had already gotten up to head for the bathroom. When she came out, she tossed a few towels to him and said, “Clean off that wound first.”

He pressed the towel against his leg, but found that most of the blood had already hardened into a sticky crust. Rather than tear the coating off and create a gruesome mess, he wiped away as much as he could from around the wound.
When he looked up again, he was just in time to watch Paige trade her filthy T-shirt for a fresher sleeveless version.

Noticing he was watching, she walked over to him and said, “Good enough. Now hand me that turkey baster.”

In one of the top trays of the kit, he saw several long plastic tubes filled with clear liquid, sealed with plastic caps at one end and rubber bulbs at the other. “Which one?” he asked.

“The one with the stuff to keep you from turning into a Half Breed.” Since Cole hadn’t reached for any of the tubes, she added, “One of the ones marked HB. It doesn’t look like you got hurt bad enough to have a serious problem, but better safe than sorry.”

He grabbed one of those tubes and handed it to her. She popped off the cap and squirted some of the clear blue fluid onto his wound. The stuff might have looked like windshield wiper solution, but soaked in with a cool touch. Paige emptied the rest of the large baster on every open wound both she and Cole had. The treatment left them looking like they’d been in a wet T-shirt contest, which Cole didn’t mind one bit. It all soaked in or evaporated within a couple minutes.

“Now hand me the epidermic paste.”

“What?”

“The tube near the bottom of the kit.”

Cole found the tube and handed it over. He wasn’t quite sure what the stuff was and didn’t think to ask her about it, since Paige was slowly lowering herself onto her knees in front of him. She took the tube from him, popped it open, and looked up with a sly grin on her face.

“Are you ready for this?” she whispered.

“Oh God, yes.”

Reaching out with one hand to brush her fingers and thumb along the side of his wound, she asked, “Are you sure?”

Feeling a rise in the carrot patch, Cole leaned back and told her, “Go for it.”

Thanks to the numbness spreading once more through his leg, he didn’t feel it when Paige pressed her hands against the skin alongside his wound. His calm frame of mind was shot to hell when she pinched the torn skin together and covered it with the stuff from the tube. His hands dug into the
mattress and his butt lifted an inch or so up to send the rabbit right back into hiding.

“What the fu—” was all he could get out before the next wave hit him. Paige slid her hand all the way down the length of the wound, pinching it shut and sealing it with the clear, quick-drying glue. She set the tube aside a few seconds later, but the pain in his leg was a gift that kept right on giving.

She leaned forward, brushing against him while reaching for one of the syringes she’d taken from her kit. “Hold still, Cole.”

“Hold still? I can’t believe you tricked me like that!”

“Did that hurt?”

“Fuck, yes it did!”

“What about this?” she purred as she leaned forward again so her breasts rubbed against his other leg. “Is that better?”

Even though it was all he could do to pull in a breath, he replied, “A little.”

“Just think about how nice that feels.” As soon as she saw the first trace of a contented smirk drift across Cole’s face, Paige buried the syringe’s needle into a spot at the top of his wound. With a swift, crisp motion, she turned the needle under his skin so it was pointed downward and then pressed the plunger.

The healing serum flooded through Cole’s leg like ice water, to banish the numbness below his knee and replace it with a whole new kind of pain. While smaller wounds and infections were treated with thinner needles attached to smaller syringes, this one felt like a marker being shoved into his aching shin. “Damn, you’d make a good vet.”

“What made you think of that?”

“The way you distract me right before the hammer drops makes me feel like a dog getting his vaccinations.”

“Just wait until I fish out my rubber gloves.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” he warned.

“Were you hurt anywhere else?” she asked.

“Feels like I was hurt everywhere else, but it’s not too bad.” That was a lie, but he could see the wound on his leg was bleeding less than a few seconds ago.

“Normally, that’d be a bit too much serum for such a short amount of time, but you were hurt enough to burn most of it off. If you have trouble sleeping, take this,” she said while handing him one of the smaller syringes. “Now, do me.”

“I thought I’d ease back into it a bit more, but…” Paige turned her back to Cole and held out the tube of skin sealant she’d just used on him. He took it and sat on the bed behind her.

Peeling her shirt off and holding it against her front, she said, “There’s a few cuts on my back I couldn’t reach. Pinch them shut and cover them with that stuff. Then give me an injection from that small syringe. I don’t need much.”

Cole took his time working on her. There were plenty of scratches, bumps, and bruises, but nothing half as bad as the set of three slashes that ran all the way across her ribs and wrapped around to stop abruptly near her spine. “Looks like something got to you,” he told her. “Your vest caught some of it, though. You ready?”

“Just do what I told you.”

There was a little bit of stuff in the turkey baster, so he added that to what she’d already drizzled over the cut. The process of sealing the wound wasn’t much different than using a glue stick to put a few pieces of leather together. Since Paige didn’t even squirm, he got it done with a minimum of fuss. Placing his hand on the darkened yet smooth skin of her ribs, he asked, “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Yeah. I may have busted a few when my shoulder was knocked out of joint.”

“Should I wrap it up or something?”

She looked back at him, wincing less than when she’d been steering the car down I-35. “They
were
busted, Cole. By now they’re probably just bruised. I knocked my shoulder back in place during the fight and it’s just a little sore now.”

“Damn, you’re tougher than I thought.”

“True, but it’s not all because of good genes and a perfect diet.”

Cole chuckled and placed his hand on her ribs again to verify what she’d told him. He was no doctor, but her ribs
felt smooth and rounded just like they’re supposed to. The rest of her felt much the same way.

“A few more doses of that serum and you’ll toughen up,” she told him. “Just remember to take it only as you get hurt so your body uses it right away. After a while your system makes enough to heal a lot of wounds on its own. You won’t be able to shake off a bullet, but you won’t have to crawl to a hospital after every fight.”

“How about you shoot me up with that stuff before the fight?” Cole asked. “Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

“Sure, if you want to become an addict. Trust me, more than a few Skinners have learned that lesson the hard way. That feels nice.”

“That’s what all the junkies say.”

“No, what you’re doing with your hands. That feels nice.”

With his hands so close to Paige’s bare skin, he’d reflexively begun to rub her sides and work his way around until his fingertips brushed along the edges of her stomach. The rush of moving his hands up a little higher until he felt the bottom of her breasts against his thumbs was just as good as when he’d felt up Karen McKeag back in the eleventh grade. The big difference came when Paige rested her head back against his shoulder instead of jumping like she’d stuck her toe in the cigarette lighter of his dad’s hatchback.

“I’m feeling dirty,” she whispered.

Cole started to chew on her ear, but paused so he could ask, “Is this another test to see if I’ll let my guard down?”

“You already passed that one. This is a test to see how badly you want to take a shower with me.”

Before he could think of a cool response to that, the phone on the bedside table jangled loudly.

Paige sighed and said, “It’s probably Daniels.” She reached over, picked up the receiver and snapped, “This’d better be good…Excuse me?” She straightened up and gripped the phone tight enough to turn her knuckles white. “I won’t put a deposit down for anything else. Isn’t my cash good enough?” Just when it seemed she couldn’t get any madder, she said, “No, I won’t be making any calls. I won’t even be using this phone…What?
You called me!”
She slammed the receiver
back onto its cradle, flipped her hair over her shoulders, and forced a smile onto her face. “Where were we?”

When the phone rang again, Cole lunged for it before Paige could knock it through a wall. “What?” he snarled.

This time it was Daniels. “I need something from one of Paige’s cases. It’s vital.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“Just one more thing and this ink may be ready for testing.”

“Call back in an hour.”

After a pause, Daniels grumbled, “Fine.”

Cole slapped the phone down and found Paige lying on the bed with her legs pulled up against her chest and her arms wrapped around her knees. “Looks like you’re awaiting corporal punishment,” he mused.

“Would you be upset if I didn’t want to do this anymore?”

“You mean…do
me
anymore?”

She slowly looked up at him with eyes that were sorrier than those countless times she’d cracked him in the head or hit him below the belt during their sparring matches. The rest of her looked about ready to collapse. “Yes, but I don’t want you to think—”

Cole shook his head and held up his hand. Without another word, he walked around the bed, settled in behind her and draped an arm over her shoulder. Paige’s body felt warm and softer than he’d imagined she could be. Letting out a contented sigh, she relaxed so completely that he could feel her steely muscles conform to him.

“That feels nice,” she purred.

“Yeah. It really does.”

Cole awoke suddenly as memories of blood, fangs, and claws assaulted his brain. The quick flashes were like a slap on the inside of his face and brought his head straight up. Beside him, Paige shifted and rolled onto her back, and he saw that she’d gotten dressed while he was asleep. The room was still lit by the cheap fixture hanging near the bed, and her eyes clenched shut reflexively against the glare. The prospect of drifting back to sleep was an inviting one, but his system was already moving too fast for that to happen.

Of course, there was some help nearby.

The little syringe was on the bedside table near the clunky old phone. Cole reached for it and justified its use with ease. Paige knew best, and she’d said he could have one more dose. Then again, there wasn’t much call for it any longer. He was stiff and sore, but those sensations had soaked into his body like a coat of black and blue paint. When he flexed his leg, he resented feeling nothing more than the first aid glue tugging at his skin. The serum had already done its job. There was no good reason to have any more.

Still, if he closed his eyes, he could vividly remember the cool flow of the injection as the serum dimmed his lights while the healing took place. He imagined his senses would be dulled even more if he took the serum now. Without allotting too much of it to a wound, he could just lay back and drift away.

“Jesus,” he sighed as he set the syringe down.

The thought that he’d almost injected a serum mixed with an extract from Nymar blood just to get some sleep made him sick. Rather than dwell on it, he put the syringe back into Paige’s kit and rubbed his face. Not only was he covered in a crust of dirt, grime, sweat, and blood, but his senses were sharp enough to feel every last bit of it. Since he knew that getting back to sleep right away was an impossibility, he grabbed some spare clothes from his bag and took a shower.

Water flowed over his body in an uneven stream. The pressure was marginal, the massager setting didn’t work, and the temperature never strayed far from the lukewarm range, but just getting rid of all that filth made him feel like a new man. He toweled off, threw on some clothes that were somewhat cleaner than the ones he’d left behind, and walked back to the bed. Paige had curled into a ball and looked too comfortable to be disturbed.

He went to his phone and found a text message waiting for him. It was from MEG, and all it said was: CALL WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE. He went to the window to get a stronger signal, tapped the icon to dial the callback number, and waited through a few rings.

“Yeah?” Stu grunted.

“Is that how you answer the official MEG Branch 40 line?” Cole asked.

“It is when it’s just past four in the morning.”

“I got your message. What’s up?”

He couldn’t be sure, but Cole swore he heard a keyboard get kicked around just before an empty soda can rattled against the floor. “Have you checked any news sites?” Stu breathlessly asked. “Or watched TV? Turned on a radio?”

Cole answered, “No,” and was amazed by it. After spending so many years with a computer monitor in front of him, he’d always been connected to current events. Thanks to the little notes that popped up in the corner of his screen, he’d also known when a celebrity had a baby or which annoying asshole got voted off of which reality show.

“For being media stars, you guys are so out of touch,” Stu mused.

“Hold on, I’ll switch you to speaker.” With that, Cole tapped a few buttons and opened the Internet browser on his phone. He scrolled down a little to find the local headlines and saw no fewer than three different stories ranging from LOCALS KILLED BY ROAMING PIT BULLS to FIREFIGHTERS MAKE GRISLY DISCOVERY AT CAMPGROUND.