SADIE
Trey reaches me and lifts me into his arms, carrying me over the broken porcelain and straight to my bed.
I’m still trembling when he lowers me onto the mattress, my head stuck on the sink collapsing and the impossible fact that I somehow caused it. Then I notice the red smeared across his white shirt.
My stomach drops. "I...I got blood on you. I’m sorry."
I reach for the stain without thinking and manage to smear another streak across the white with my bleeding hand.
"Shit." I snatch it back. "Sorry. I can fix it."
"Sadie, calm down."
"Cold water. I need cold water before it dries, and then peroxide if there’s still a stain. I think. Just give me—"
His hand closes around my wrist. I try to pull away, worried I’ll only get more blood on him, but his grip is firm.
"Stay still. It’s just a shirt." He drops into a crouch, pulls the shirt over his head, then folds part of it against the cut in my palm. "Hold it there. Keep pressure on it."
I curl my fingers around the fabric and try, but my hands won’t stop shaking. Blood is already soaking through the white when I finally manage to press down properly.
"I’ll be right back," Trey says as he rises and leaves the room.
My attention drifts toward the bathroom. Water has spread across the tiles, pieces of the sink are scattered through it, and the door is cracked right where my back hit it. Looking at the damage now, with no panic or noise to distract me from it, only makes one question harder to ignore.
How did I do that?
I barely touched the sink before it collapsed, and all I did to the door was fall against it. People fall against doors all the time. They don’t crack them with their backs.
My fingers tighten around the shirt as another tremor runs through them.
What the hell is happening to me?
Trey returns with a first-aid box tucked under one arm and a small bowl in his hand. He sets both on the floor and crouches in front of me.
"I need to wash the blood off so I can see the cut properly." He reaches for my right hand. "It might sting, okay?"
I catch my bottom lip between my teeth and nod, although I’m a little scared of what his definition of might entails.
"Hold your hand over this."
I do, and he carefully peels his shirt away from my palm. Fresh blood immediately wells from the cut, and my stomach turns when the first drop falls into the bowl.
Trey, much less disturbed by the sight than I am, reaches into the box for a small bottle of saline.
The saline isn’t nearly as bad as I prepared myself for, just cool against my palm as the blood thins and runs into the bowl. It’s the gauze that gets me.
The first careful wipe makes me flinch. The next has my toes curling, and when he goes over the tender skin, I jerk away.
"Ow."
"Will you stop doing that?" he mutters, catching my hand before I can snatch it out of reach. "I can’t clean it if you keep running away from me."
"It hurts," I protest.
"And pulling away is helping how?"
My mouth closes.
He guides me back over the bowl, gentler this time. "You’ve got to endure it a little longer, okay? You’re a big girl."
"I’m a big girl," I mumble, because repeating it is easier than admitting I’m about three stings away from crying.
Somehow, I manage to stay still for the rest of it.
The stinging eventually fades enough for me to unclench my jaw, and as he starts wrapping gauze around my palm, I find myself watching his hands.
They look like they should be terrible at this, all scarred knuckles, prominent veins and faint marks I assume come from years of hockey, but his fingers are careful against my skin, loosening the gauze whenever I tense and turning my hand gently in his.
Then there’s the fact that he’s crouched between my knees, broad shoulders taking up most of my view, and I find myself wondering if an Alpha’s son has ever had much reason to kneel for anyone.
I’m still caught on that thought when his voice pulls me back.
"What happened in there?"
My gaze travels from his hands to his face, where I find him already watching me.
"I didn’t mean to break anything."
The slight crease between his brows eases. "I know."
"I barely touched the sink." I hate how defensive I sound, but I hate even more that I need to defend something I don’t understand. "I was scared, and I leaned over it, and then it just...collapsed."
"Scared of what?"
My fingers creep toward my neck.
"Something was wrong. When I looked in the mirror, there were these dark veins under my skin. They started here and went all the way up my face." I swallow. "They kept disappearing and coming back, and I honestly thought I was dreaming at first. I didn’t know what else it could be."
Trey’s gaze moves over my face and down my neck, checking the places I pointed out.
I presume he doesn’t find anything because his brows pull together in a way I don’t particularly appreciate.
"I know what I saw," I say quickly. "I’m not making this up."
"I didn’t say you were."
"You’re thinking it very loudly."
He lets out a breath. "There’s nothing on your face or neck now, Sadie, so you have to admit this is a little hard to believe."
My stomach sinks. "You don’t believe me."
"I’m trying to." He glances toward the bathroom, then briefly over me. "You’re also telling me you barely touched the sink and it collapsed, then you fell against the door and somehow broke that too."
"Yes."
He frowns again.
"Then what other explanation do you have? That I purposely smashed them?" I hold up my bandaged hand. "With what?"
"You said you thought you were dreaming."
"At first."
"How do you know you weren’t?"
I glare at him. "I pinched myself, Trey. I was awake."
"You don’t even remember what happened last night."
I go still.
Why is he bringing up last night? More importantly, what does he remember that I don’t?
"What happened last night?"
"Nothing." He scoffs.
The scoff does nothing to reassure me, and my pulse picks up.
"Trey, what did I—"
His hand closes around my ankle, cutting the question short as an unexpected sensation shoots up my leg.
His hand is warm. Way too warm, actually.
I fight the immediate urge to pull my foot away and settle for curling my toes instead.
"Relax," he mutters, turning my foot slightly. "I don’t bite."
With the amount of scolding he’s done since we met, I’m not entirely convinced.
"You’ve got a couple of shards stuck in here. I need to pull them out."
My leg tenses. "You need to what?"
"Keep your leg up."
"I can’t." I try to draw my leg back, but his hand around my ankle stops me. "Trey, I don’t think I can sit here while you pull something out of my foot."
"You can. Look at my face."
"What?"
"Look at me." He waits until I do. "Now tell me what you like about my face."
That manages to derail my panic completely.
"You..." My cheeks burn. "You want me to tell you what I like about your face?"
He nods, holding my gaze like he actually expects me to conduct a proper analysis.
Strangely, I do. It’s hard not to when he’s all I can see.
Green eyes. That’s the obvious place to start. They’re unfairly bright this close, framed by dark lashes that would probably make Lola furious on principle, with thick brows above them that make his usual scowl look intentional instead of unpleasant. My attention slips lower to the straight bridge of his nose, then the sharp line of his cheekbones and the faint shadow covering his jaw.
God, he really is handsome.
Not pretty handsome either. There’s too much sharpness to his features for that, too much about him that looks distinctly masculine and a little intimidating.
At least until my attention reaches his mouth.
His lips are full. Almost too soft compared to everything surrounding them, especially when he spends most of his time using them to scold me. I’ve never noticed how inviting they look before. Or how nice they would probably feel against mine.
Okay, that went somewhere it did not need to go.
Trey kissing me is the kind of thing that belongs safely in imagination, where impossible things are allowed to happen.
"I..." I finally attempt to give him the results of my very thorough analysis. "I like your—"
Something sharp and hot rips through my foot.
I make a sound I don’t recognize as mine. For one brief, blinding second, I see the Goddess herself.