Primal Bonds

Andrea shook off Sean’s protective hold and went to him. “Damn it, Ronan, what were you doing?”

“My job.” The amount of blood flowing down his torso would have had a human on the floor in shock. Ronan merely looked embarrassed.

Sean got to the man’s other side. “In the back, lad. Now.”

“I’m fine. It’s just a bullet. My own fault.”

“Shut it.” Sean and Andrea towed the bigger man to a door marked “Private,” and Sean more or less shoved him into the office beyond.

The office was ordinary—cluttered desk, a couple of chairs, a storage cabinet, shabby sofa, and a small safe in the wall that only the bar’s human owner was supposed to know the combination to. Andrea knew good and well that Liam and Sean knew it too.

The Sword of the Guardian leaned against the wall like an upright cross, and threads of its Fae magic floated to Andrea from across the room. Andrea had no idea whether pure Shifters could sense the sword’s magic as she, a half-Fae, half-Lupine Shifter could, but she did know that the Shifters in this Shiftertown regarded the sword, and Sean, with uncomfortable awe.

Sean pushed Ronan at a chair. “Sit.”

Ronan dropped obediently, and the flimsy chair creaked under his weight. Ronan was an Ursine—a bear Shifter—large and hard-muscled, his short but shaggy black hair always looking uncombed. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. Andrea wasn’t used to Ursines, having never met one before moving to Austin. Only Lupines had lived in her Shiftertown near Colorado Springs. But Ronan had proved to be such a sweetheart he’d quickly overcome her uneasiness.

“I can’t stay in here,” Ronan protested. “What if they come back?”

“You’re not going anywhere, my friend, until we get that bullet out of you.” Sean snatched a blanket from the sagging sofa and dropped it over Ronan’s lap. Shifters weren’t modest as a rule, but maybe Sean thought he needed to protect Andrea from a bear in his naked glory. Ronan, admittedly, was ... supersized.

“I thought I’d be away from the door maybe a minute.” Ronan’s deep black eyes filled. “What if someone had gotten hurt? Or killed? It would have been because of me.”

“No one got hurt but you, you big softie.” Sean’s voice took on that gentle note that made Andrea shiver deep inside herself. “You frightened away the bad guys before anything worse could happen.”

“If I’d been at my post, I would have blocked the door, and none of the bullets would have gotten inside.”

“And then you’d look like a cheese grater,” Sean said. “And be dust at the end of my sword. I like you, Ronan. I don’t want that.”

“Yeah?”

Andrea set down the first-aid kit she’d fetched from the cabinet and perched on the edge of the desk, her hand on Ronan’s unhurt shoulder. “I don’t want that either.”

Ronan relaxed a little under her touch—he needed touch, reassurance, all Shifters did, especially when injured or frightened. Andrea wanted to give Ronan a full hug, but she feared hurting him. She kneaded his back instead, trying to put as much comfort as she could into the caress.

Ronan grinned weakly at her. “Hey, you’re not so bad yourself, for a Fae.”

“Half Fae.”

Anyone else mentioning her Fae blood made Andrea’s anger rise, but with Ronan it had turned into friendly teasing. Ronan squeezed her fingers in his pawlike hand.

“This is going to hurt like hell, big guy,” Sean said. “So just remind yourself who you’ll have to answer to if you turn bear on me and take my head off.”

“Aw, I’d never hurt you, Sean. Even if I didn’t know Liam would rip my guts out if I did.”

“Good lad. Remember now. Andrea, hold the gauze just like that.”

Andrea positioned the wad of sterile gauze under the ragged hole in Ronan’s shoulder as Sean directed. Sean sprayed some antibacterial around the wound, reached in with the big tweezers he’d dipped in alcohol, and yanked the bullet from Ronan’s flesh.

Ronan threw his head back and roared. His face distorted, his mouth and nose lengthening to a muzzle filled with sharp teeth. Blood burst from the wound and coated first the gauze, then the clean towel Sean jammed over it. Ronan’s hands extended to razorlike claws, which closed on Sean’s wrist.

Sean pressed the towel in place, unworried. “Easy now.”

Ronan withdrew his hand, but not before a blue snake of electricity arced around his Collar, biting into his neck. He howled in pain.

Damn it. Andrea leapt to her feet, unable to stand it any longer. She batted the surprised Sean’s hands aside and pressed her palm directly to the wound. Folding herself against Ronan, she held her hand flat to his chest.

The threads of healing spiraled in her mind, diving through her fingers into Ronan’s skin, swirling until she closed her eyes to fight dizziness. She sensed the threads of Fae magic from the sword across the room drifting toward her, as though drawn by her healing touch.

Ronan’s skin knit beneath her fingers, tightening and drying, slowly becoming whole again. After a few minutes, Andrea opened her eyes. Ronan’s breath came fast, but it was healthy breathing, and the blood around the wound had dried.

Andrea drew her hand away. Ronan probed his injury, staring at it in amazement. “What the hell did you do to me, Andy-girl?”

“Nothing,” Andrea said in a light voice as she stood up. “We stopped the blood, and you heal fast, you big strong Ursine, you.”