Hunt Me! I Crave the Chase (Spooky Boys #3)

It was one of the first things I’d appreciated about him. He saw things most humans wouldn’t. Aware in a way I had thought only wolves were.

I sucked in a breath—stealing Jeffrey’s signature move—doing my best not to fall apart as those warm, warm hands skimmed my cheekbones and my eyes pinched shut.

“Talk to me.” Jeffrey’s voice wobbled. “Where were you? What happened? You left without a word. I’ve been…so fucking worried.”

“I…” my voice broke. I curled my arms around him, burying my face in his neck and inhaling him greedily, because I didn’t know if this would be the last time. I never did, anymore. My time was so close to up. “I…” I didn’t know what to say.

And sometimes…showing was easier.

So I reached for the hem of my shirt and lifted it, shame coloring my scent as Jeffrey stared at the bare, scarred flesh of my abdomen. Long ropey wounds severed the flesh, pink and healing, but slowly as only alpha wounds did.

“What…the fuck,” he said, voice cracking. “Is that?”

I didn’t tell him everything.

Because I couldn’t.

Some words just…wouldn’t come out.

But I did my best.

By the time I got done explaining, Jeffrey had sobered even more. His eyes were far away, and his thumbs stroked gently over my cheekbones as he processed what I’d said. “So…the moons are getting harder?” he confirmed. “And they’re just gonna get worse?”

“Yes.”

“You were gone for a week, Mutt. A week.”

“I know.”

“And these wounds…” Jeffrey fanned his hand along my torso, his scent soured with sadness. “This was you?”

“Yes.”

“They’ll go away, won’t they?” His voice cracked. “You heal. I’ve seen it.”

I knew he had his own scars, both physical and mental. I knew that his wounds had never healed the way mine would, marks on his body that would forever remind him of his dark past. And because of this, his concern for me was even more precious. He didn’t want me to have reminders of the pain I’d been through, like he did.

“They will. It will take longer,” I warned quietly. “But they will.”

“Do they hurt?”

“Not anymore.”

“But they did.”

“Yes.”

Jeffrey sucked in a breath. And then he jerked his hands from my cheeks, dragging them over the fabric that bunched around my chest, down my pecs, till he could lay them across the still healing flesh. “What could be worse than this?” he asked, and his scent was hurt-hurt-hurt.

Living without you.

That’s worse.

He slid to his knees on the cold floor, settled between my thighs, his eyes full of concern.

Like he was hurting for me.

Because he was.