Page 8 of Vampire Pack

"We could go out for a long dinner," Mal suggested. "Paige and I already ate, but he might give up on trying to help with your injuries before we get back."

"He's never given up before," Paige pointed out. "And his methods do help her recover."

She was right.

King would wait on the porch all night if he had to. His intensity was one of the things that made him fucking irresistible to me, even when I knew it was a bad idea.

"I don't think I'm in good enough shape to survive dinner at a restaurant, anyway." I tilted my forehead to the side, resting it against the window and closing my eyes.

"The pain is that bad?" Paige asked.

"Yeah."

"Fuck. Did you let the medical team take a look?" she asked.

"Of course she didn't. She insists on trying to look tough," Mallory said. "Maybe you should let him bite you tonight, Car."

"I think I'll have to." The words weren't grudging, even though I was still slightly mad at him. Technically, he'd been biting me regularly for multiple years. We had even filled out paperwork that made me his official blood source.

The rest of the drive home was short.

After we parked, Mallory hooked her arm in mine and dragged me toward the porch of our large, modern, ground-floor apartment. There were perks to being a professional athlete, even if I forgot about them on a lot of our game days.

Now that the season had started, those games would be taking place almost every other day for multiple months.

Our apartment building backed the forest, which made it expensive, given that half of our city's population was werewolves. Paige and I didn't mind the splurge. Mallory felt bad that she couldn't match our rent contribution, but we had bullied her into not apologizing for that years ago.

She loved her job, and got to work in the arts, so she was happy.

Paige was one of the top or principal dancers at the largest professional ballet company in the country, and had been a known name in the industry for about ten years.

All three of us met in college, and were in our late twenties. I'd finished four years of college hockey while getting a degree in recreational management, before being drafted five years earlier. Mal had gone for art, and ended up with a job making theater sets. Paige had studied dance, while also working fulltime for her ballet company. Luckily, her company rarely travelled.

We made it into the house, and Paige gestured to my shoulder. "Mind if I look?"

"Yeah, tell me how bad it is. King didn't turn me around to check out the whole thing, so I need to know how he's going to react when he sees it."

I tugged the bra over my head.

Like I said, nudity was a nonissue for werewolves. Particularly among my friends and I. We had packed up during our freshman year at Soulmate University, the college we all attended. After almost a decade together, we were closer than family.

Human pop culture didn't really understand vampires and werewolves. A lot of humans were under the impression that all wolf packs had alphas, which was just wrong.

Alpha was the label used for a werewolf who couldn't control their emotions or instincts. Alphas tended to be dangerous. Vampires who couldn't control themselves in a similar manner were called rabid, and were even more deadly.

"Fuck," Paige murmured. Her fingers pressed my skin, and I swore. Loudly. "You really need to see a doctor. Being the only woman on the team doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of your injuries."

"It means that I can't freak out about small issues, or they're going to think I'm a wimp."

"That's bullshit. This isn't small. You were basically hit by two flying boulders." Mallory stepped up next to Paige, so she could check out my shoulder, too. "Geez. Can you even lift your arm?"

I tried.

Had to clench my teeth to hold back a noise of pain, when I did. It didn't even rise all the way before the pain was too much to keep going.

"Yep. Perfectly fine," I gritted out. My eyes burned as I lowered my arm back down.

"We need to take her to the ER," Paige told Mal.