Finding Elora

Chapter 27

ABBY

Mason tries to sit up, but Kie smoothly shoves him back to the ground.

It's an aggressive action, one that seems to hurt Mason as he flattens against the ground with a grimace. I bite the inside of my cheek, holding back a smile with everything I have.

Mason may be injured, but I'm sure his memory is intact. I doubt he'll take kindly to me visibly laughing at his pain, nor do I think he'd forget it.

"Don't move," Kie says.

He's almost finished stitching up Mason's side, the once gaping hole now closed and tied together with tiny black knots. It still looks gruesome, but at least his insides are no longer under threat of falling out.

"What exactly did she ask?" Mason asks, still staring at me.

Kie disinfects the remainder of Mason's wound before putting in the last few stitches. I lost count of how many he's done, but it's a lot. More than I think any human would survive through.

Mason's abs flex every time Kie shoves the needle through the skin, but he otherwise remains still. It doesn't seem like this is the first time he's been patched up like this, but I don't spot any other scars on his body.

Maybe shifters don't scar. Either that, or they've got some amazing scar cream I'd kill to get my hands on.

I avoid letting my gaze travel below Mason's hips, painfully ignoring how I can see his private bits in my peripheral vision. I hardly even noticed he was naked when he first collapsed on the ground, the giant bleeding wound on his side the only thing I could focus on, but now that it's closed, I'm uncomfortably aware that he's nude.

He doesn't seem shy about it, either.

"What did she ask?" Mason repeats.

He sounds annoyed that Kie didn't answer him the first time, and he's still staring at me. I try to stare back, but I almost immediately get too nervous and look away. I'm feeling a lot less confident that he will die, and I don't want to do anything to provoke him.

I doubt he'll attack me right this moment, but Mason seems like the type of person to hold a grudge.

"She asked what I know about it," Kie finally says.

And I sure as fuck regret it, too.

The question was asked in a moment of panic, and I wished to swallow the words back up the moment they came out. I don't think it's fair to question me on something I blurted out when I was about eighty percent convinced I was about to die, but that's just my personal opinion.

Mason momentarily looks away from me as Kie shifts his focus to his arm. Several other minor cuts are littering his body, but his abdomen and the one on his bicep are the worst.

Sighing, Kie grabs Mason's wrist and pulls his arm between them. Mason's gaze shifts back to me as Kie applies some disinfectant and the odd magical cream they put on my knees. I intently watch what Kie's doing, pretending to be interested in how he begins wrapping Mason's bicep with gauze.

Anything to avoid meeting Mace's frightening stare.

"What do you know about Delysum, Abby?" Mason asks.

His voice is low, eerily similar to the one he used when he and Kie ambushed me in the woods. I think it's meant to sound threatening, and it works. Goosebumps spread down my arms, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

I feel like I'm in danger.

A deep grumble pours from Mason's chest, the noise sounding like the ones that emerge from his animal form. The memory of those sharp teeth flashes through my mind, and I instinctively flinch and shrivel up.