Claws // Colby Brock

💫 39 💫

☯︎☯︎☯︎☯︎☯︎

AMIRA ANDREWS

Four. Nights.

Four whole nights.

And it still wasn't completely over.

My body was tired, my head was in a permanent state of exhaustion, and Colby was getting antsy. I didn't have any complaints about what we'd been doing the last four nights since that man had a way of bringing out a completely different side of me I'd never discovered with others. But we had other responsibilities to pay attention to, and hanging around fucking all night really didn't feel like the most productive use of our time.

I'd marked Colby four more times now, twice in the same night at one point. It helped keep me sane for a little longer while he went downstairs to get updates on what was going on with the rest of the world. All that was needed was a quick briefing and for me to heal, and we would be taking down my attacker's subfaction of Aiden's clan at their hideout. Until then, however, I was stuck in the same cycle.

Extending my hearing downstairs was too much effort so while Colby was gone, I spent most of my time alone on my phone. A couple of news reports had been catching my eye in the local area, all about missing people and peculiar deaths. Something irked me about them. Although they were probably vampire attacks and had nothing to do with us, it felt like perhaps Aiden was getting more reckless. He'd soon have other vampires hammering down on him if he continued like this, as any vampire who revealed themselves to humans was a threat to everyone. The sooner humans figured out vamps existed, the sooner werewolves would be discovered, too, and we were far easier to kill. A gunshot was a mere inconvenience for a vamp but as life-threatening to a wolf as a human.

My mind was swirling with scenarios and desolate futures for almost an hour before I felt a stabbing pain through my chest. It evolved into the same burning feeling that had been the bane of my existence for the past few nights.

Colby was there faster than I thought possible even for a vampire. He sat beside me on the bed running his thumb across my cheek with an apologetic look on his face. It wasn't his fault this was happening. In fact, I'd pushed him into having sex the first time so really it was my fault if we were to point fingers. Still, that goddamn expression lit up a fire inside of me that was different to how I felt most of the time.

I sat up, setting my phone on the side as the agony crept in at his absence. He shifted closer but didn't undress or kiss me like he usually did, still watching me through gentle blue eyes.

"What?" I asked, keeping the pain in my body from reaching my voice.

"You need rest," he replied as he leaned forward to press our foreheads together. I closed my eyes relishing in the way everything subsided from something as simple as his touch.

I tilted my head to one side. "You know exactly what I need, Colby, and rest is as far from that as you can get." I pressed my lips to his lightly, encouraging him to take the next step.

"You do need to rest, Ames. You're a lot more human than I am."

"If I could, I would," I pointed out, "but it's just not an option. This won't last much longer, it's already more manageable."

He sighed. "I know, I can feel when you're hurting." His eyes skipped around my face rapidly, refusing to settle on any single feature. I just glanced at the claw marks on his face that I couldn't even see. I wondered what it looked like to everyone else. Did it look like a badass battle scar? Or was it less obvious than that?