Chapter 313
Ellie’s POV
I was running before I even realized I’d started moving.
The crowd around the gazebo was already gathering, people shouting and pointing. I shoved past them, my heart pounding so hard I could barely hear anything else over the sound of my blood rushing through my ears.
“Move,” I said, pushing through. “Move!”
I dropped to my knees beside Dominic. He was on his back, eyes closed, the other man sprawled half on top of him. The banner was tangled around both of them.
“Dominic,” I said. I patted his cheeks. “Dominic, can you hear me?”
His eyes fluttered open. He groaned.
Relief flooded through me so fast I felt dizzy. “You’re okay,” I said. “You’re okay.”
“Not… really,” he muttered. He tried to sit up and winced.
“Don’t move,” I said, pushing him back down. “Just stay still.”
Someone had already called for an ambulance. I could hear the sirens in the distance. The other man was conscious too, clutching his wrist and saying some very colorful words that had the parents in the crowd covering their kids’ ears.
“Is he alright?” Dominic asked, nodding toward him.
“I think his wrist is broken,” I said.
“Better than his head,” Dominic muttered.
I looked down at him. There were scratches all over his face and arms, dirt smudged across his cheek. His shirt was torn at the shoulder, the skin raw from the impact.
“You’re an idiot,” I said.
He smiled weakly. “Yeah. I know.”
The ambulance arrived a few minutes later. The EMTs loaded the other man onto a stretcher first, then came over to check on Dominic. They helped him sit up, asking him questions about pain levels and whether he thought he had hit his head.
“I’m fine,” Dominic kept saying. “Really. I’m fine.”
“We still need to check you over,” one of the EMTs said. She gestured to the back of the ambulance. “Can you walk?”
Dominic nodded and got to his feet with some help. I followed as they led him to the ambulance and had him sit on the edge.
I stood off to the side, arms folded, watching as they shined a light in his eyes and checked his vitals. One of them cleaned the worst of the scratches on his arm with an antiseptic wipe.
“You’re lucky,” the EMT said. “No concussion or broken bones. You’re going to be sore for a few days, though.”
“I’ve had worse,” Dominic said, shooting me a very pointed look.
They wrapped a bandage around his forearm where one of the deeper scratches was and told him to ice his shoulder when he got home. Then they packed up and left, taking the other man with them.
We didn’t talk much on the drive home. Dominic leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. I kept glancing at him out of the corner of my eye, as if he might suddenly stop breathing. As if I literally hadn’t stabbed him in the ribs just a few months ago.
1/3
+30 Bonus
When we got back to the house, I parked and turned off the engine.
“I’m getting you cleaned up properly,” I said.
“I’m fine.”
“Those scratches need to be disinfected,” I said. I knew the EMTs had already done it, but… Dammit. I wanted to do it myself. I blamed it on my healer training, but we both knew it was about something else entirely.
He opened his mouth like he was going to argue, then smiled faintly and said, “Okay.”
I led him inside and up to my room. He sat on the edge of my bed while I went to the bathroom and grabbed the first aid kit from under the sink. When I came back, he was still sitting there, staring at me. I set the kit on the nightstand and opened it, pulling out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some cotton pads.
“This might sting,” I said.
“I can handle it.”
I sat beside him and tilted his face toward me. The scratches weren’t deep, but there were a lot of them. I poured some of the peroxide onto a cotton pad and dabbed it gently against the first one, pressing it hard to make sure it got in.
Dontinic hissed through his teeth.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s fine.”
I worked in silence, cleaning each scratch carefully. He sat still, watching me. I could feel his eyes on my face, but I didn’t look
“Thank you,” he said after a while.
I paused, the cotton pad still pressed against his cheek. “You scared the hell out of me,” I said quietly.
He smiled wryly. “What’s this?” he asked. “The stoic Ellie suddenly cares about me?”
We looked at each other for a moment. I shook my head and went back to cleaning the scratches. “I’m training to be a healer,” 1 pointed out. “It’s not personal.”
“Right…” He toyed with a loose thread on my bedspread as I moved to his left arm to start cleaning the scratches there.
I rolled my eyes, but my own lips were twitching despite my best efforts.
“I meant what I said this morning,” he said, watching as I worked. “About wanting to do another sleepover.”
I didn’t answer.
“I had fun last night,” he went on. “I know you did too.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“Why not?”
I set the cotton pad down and looked at him. “Because it was one night, Dominic. One night where we got along. That doesn’t change anything.”
“It could,” he said.
“It won’t.”
He reached out and caught my wrist, stopping me from picking up another cotton pad. “Why are you so convinced of that?”
2/3
+30 Bonus
I looked down at his hand on my wrist. “Because I know how this ends.”
“How?”
I pulled my hand away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Dominic was quiet for a moment. Then, softer now, he said, “I don’t want to lose you.”
My chest tightened. “You never had me.”
“That’s not true.”
I stood and turned away, putting the supplies back in the first aid kit. “You should rest,” I said. “The EMTs said—”
Before I could finish, Dominic stood and caught my hand. He pulled me back toward him, and I stumbled, falling against his
chest
“Dominic-”
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me down onto his lap as he sat back on the bed. I tried to push away, but his grip tightened.
“I never had you,” he murmured. His finger trailed over my neck, right where the mate mark sat beneath the skin. “And yet…”
“You’re delirious.” I pushed at his chest.
“Maybe I am.” He cupped my chin in his hand, tilting my face up toward his. “Maybe I’m delirious all those times when I can sense you care, when I sense you enjoy my company. And if I am, then maybe I don’t want to fix it, because it’s the only time I ever feel content in life.”
Before I could answer, he leaned in and kissed me.
I stiffened, eyes going wide. Every instinct was screaming at me to shove him away and break the kiss.
But, yet again, those instincts were beaten out by a much deeper and more primal one. My wolf purred contentedly, the mate bond went white hot, and before I knew what I was doing, I was curling my fingers into his shirt and letting him pull me back against the mattress.
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