It couldn’t have been two minutes since I’d closed my eyes, when I found myself being lifted out of the car. I cuddled into the strong arms and broad chest. The scent of pine trees surrounded me. Pine trees and safety. I didn’t try to open my eyes as he carried me into the house. I didn’t think I could even if I wanted to.

River deposited me on his huge bed and carefully lifted the hoody to check my side. He ran his fingertips over the tender skin and sucked in a sharp breath. It was almost healed, and I didn’t need to look. Judging by the level of discomfort, I suspected it was just in the nasty, red-purple-scarred phase.

“I need to shower,” I murmured in a voice thick with sleep.

“Love, you’re exhausted. Just sleep,” River urged, but I shook my head firmly, cracking my eyes open.

“No. I need to shower.” I couldn’t bring the lingering feeling of Simon’s hands into River’s bed with me. What I really wanted was to peel my entire skin off like a lizard and start fresh, but given that wasn’t a realistic option, a shower would suffice.

River sighed and scooped me back up. He carried me into the bathroom and sat me beside the sink while he turned the water on to warm up, then came back to me with a concerned frown marring his handsome face.

“I’ll be fine, Alpha.” I smiled weakly, and his eyes widened.

“Why did you just call me that?” His tone was weird, but I was too tired to read any further into it.

“I have no idea.” I shrugged. “Just trying out nicknames for you, and it was the first thing that popped into my head. Now get out; I need to scrub off a layer of skin.”

He stared at me for a moment longer, then kissed my cheek softly. “Cole will stay with you while we debrief. Just yell out if you need him, okay?” I nodded, then shooed him from the bathroom so I could take my shower.

Once scrubbed to the point of almost bleeding, and with fingertips shriveled to prune status, I finally got out and dressed in the freshly laundered men’s sweatpants and t-shirt that had been left on the basin for me. Back in River’s bedroom, I could see Cole’s shape stretched out along the bed, dead still as though he were asleep. It was already daylight outside, but the heavy curtains blocked all but a few strips of light from the room. It gave me just enough light to see his eyes open a crack.

I slipped in and snuggled into his warm body, but he went rigid trying to avoid my injuries.

“It’s fine; I’m almost healed,” I assured him. “It was only those scratches from the, ah, claws.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that earlier. What the shit? Some chick had claws?”

I considered the memory of her grotesquely mutated fingers. “I know, it sounds… insane. But I don’t put much past Dupree and her mad scientists anymore.”

He hummed in thought. “Why do you think it took so much longer to heal? Aus said you got shot as well and it healed in under half an hour?”

“Yeah,” I said around a yawn. Why had those gashes been so slow to heal when, by all accounts, my healing was now quicker than ever?

“It had to be something to do with her claws. Maybe they had some sort of... poison? Venom? I don’t know...”

He hummed. “What did they look like? Like... proper animal paws or something in between?”

“In between. Like a bad eighties werewolf or something, except the tips kind of looked like they’d been dipped in some sort of metal.” It was super weird to be thinking about a person’s metal-tipped, mutated hands.

“Let’s speak with Wes about it later,” Cole decided, then tucked my head under his chin. “Get some sleep, Vixen. You’ll need your strength for the reprimand you’ll be getting in the morning.”

I groaned with dread—and he chuckled, the bastard—but floated into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

River sliding into bed next to me woke me later. He planted his freezing cold feet against mine, and I yelped. Chuckling, River slid his equally cold hands over my waist and tugged me out of Cole’s embrace.

“River,” Cole muttered, cracking one eye open. “The fuck are you doing, man? You’re like a goddamn ice cube; I can feel you from here.”

“I know,” he replied smoothly, and I could almost hear the smile in his voice. “It’s why I need this hot little thing to warm me up.”

I grumbled under my breath, but his hands were starting to warm up where he touched me, so I let it slide. Cole must not have had any good arguments because he went quiet for a moment.

“How’d debrief go?” he asked finally, rolling to us. His head was on my pillow, and their warmth bracketed me.

River made a noise of frustration. “It didn’t. Director himself wants to debrief with us so is apparently going to be in touch tomorrow. In the meantime, we’re all to stay put.”

Cole made another masculine-sounding hum in his throat as he lifted a hand to lightly stroke my face. His eyes weren’t fully closed as I’d thought earlier; instead, they were open a fraction so he could watch me. The soft brush of his fingers relaxed me.

“How are the boys?” Cole continued his conversation with River, giving me more appreciation for his place as second-in-command.

“Aus is pretty bruised up, but nothing seems broken. He’ll be a hell of a sight for a few days, though, based on how dark some of those marks are already. Wesley wanted me to fetch him if Kit still hadn’t healed those cuts, and Caleb is sulking that he has to sleep alone tonight.” River’s chest vibrated with laughter, and even Cole cracked a smile.

“Poor kid.” He grinned, then leaned in and kissed me tenderly on the mouth, lingering far longer than I would have expected given I was still encased in his friend’s arms. Though stunned by the bold move, I returned the kiss and then gasped as River pressed soft kisses to the back of my neck.

“Go to sleep, you two,” River commanded as Cole broke away from our kiss and winked at me.

“Yes, sir,” we respond in unison, and River made an irritated noise. Now wasn’t the time to push him, so I took River’s hand from my waist, then threaded my fingers through his and hugged it to my chest. Cole took advantage of the gap and rested his hand over my waist so that I slipped once more into a blissful, dreamless sleep, feeling safer lying between them than I can ever remember.