Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

I t was like a museum for animal heads.

As Mayhem carried the wounded female into some kind of rustic great hall, he was under the watchful glass eyes of all kinds of taxidermied mammals. Deer, bears, bobcats, coyotes, moose—meese?—and other things with antlers he couldn’t name. Given the scents, which were nil, he gathered the gruesome decorations had been mounted up into the arching elevation years and years ago.

Given what had just happened out in the forest, the wild animal shit was a little too close for comfort.

At least there was a roaring fire in the river stone hearth that ran all the way up to the ceiling, and he laid her out on the tartan sofa closest to the warmth. Then he eased back.

The female was looking up at him with wide, dark blue eyes, and talk about needing medical attention. His heart was doing the cha-cha-cha in his ch-ch-chest, and his head was swimming like someone had swapped his brain out for Jell-O. She was just so beautiful, though. Her face was heart-shaped, her features delicate and perfect, her cheeks flushed from the cold in a way that made her seem healthy even though she was clearly in shock.

Plus he’d always had a thing for brunettes. Her long, dark hair was tied back and damp from the snow that had fallen in it. He imagined it loose and wavy, down her back—

“Where’s your first aid kit?”

“What’s your name?”

They both spoke at the same time, but he was the only one who seemed to have to take a moment to recover from hearing the other. Sure, they had traded a couple of words out in the storm, but it had been hard to catch any nuances over the din.

Here in the quiet, her voice made him feel like she had stroked his naked thigh . . .

Abruptly, what she’d said sank in. And as he considered the truthful answer, he wished he were a Bob. A Tom. Dick or Harry would also work.

Well—not a Dick. That was too close to what he was having a problem controlling even though she was injured, a stranger, and way too good for him—and yes, he was certain that last one was true without knowing anything about her.

And hey, he wouldn’t have hesitated if his given name wasn’t a descriptor that kinda fit.

Really fit perfectly, in truth.

“Call me Hemmy,” he heard himself reply.

The smile that tilted her lips amplified her beauty, sure as you could turn up the volume on an opera. “Like the engine.”

“Yeah, that’s it. How bad are you hurt—and where?”

“My hand’s the big problem.” She held up a bloody glove. “It’s really throbbing.”

“Okay, let’s get off—” He gritted his teeth. “I mean, can you take your—remove—”

“There’s a bathroom back in that hall? Could you go get a towel for me, please? I don’t want to bleed all over the sofa.”

“Absolutely.”

He was back in a jiffy, paying no attention to anything other than his mission. And after he returned, he held the towel under her glove as she took care of the hand job—

Wincing to himself, he edited that thought: As she removed her glove.

They both let out a sigh of relief. The cut between her thumb and forefinger was almost surgical, it was so clean, and though it had bled a lot, the injury was, in the manner of vampires, already starting to close.

“Thank God,” he said under his breath as he put the ruined ski glove on the fireplace’s footing and wrapped her hand in the towel. “But we’ve also got to check your ankle.”

With a nod, she lifted up her leg, cocked it around on the sofa—

No, not cocked. She moved it around on the sofa so she could inspect the ragged rips in the snow pants.

God, this was hard—

“Fuck.”

The female’s head came up with a snap at the curse. “No, no. I think all the Gore-Tex and layers stopped the bite. See?”

Oh, he was seeing things all right. Mostly how fucking ridiculous he was being.

Now was not the time to think about sex.

Pulling himself together, he said with an authority he didn’t have, “Let’s just get the boot off and check what’s going on.”

Hey, at least he hadn’t “tugged” himself together, okay? He could do this.

Shifting down the sofa, he measured the teeth marks on the snow pant leg and tried not to think about what they would look like in her smooth skin. And then when he went to pull up the bottom of the pant leg, she flinched and he froze.

“No, it’s okay.” She redid her ponytail like the wrenched-around tie had been pulling at her hair. “I was just expecting it to be painful.”

Mayhem stared into her eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

As she looked away, he could have sworn her flush got deeper. “Of course you won’t.”

Except the fucking pants were going to make that difficult. They were downhill-ski-grade, with two layers at the bottom: the outer, which was a pain in the ass because it was stiff, and the inner, which was a pain in the ass because it had an elastic band that locked in tight to the laced-up tops of her boots. Which he could also tell were going to be a pain in the ass.

Then again, she could have been barefoot, wearing loungewear, and preloaded with Tylenol—and he still would have been wincing the whole time.

“Oh, thank God,” he murmured as he got a gander at her mid-calf laces.

Okay, that also sounded dirty. But there were no syllable substitutes.

“It’s all right, yes?” she said.

As she sat up, he leaned back so she could see. “Yup, the boot saved you.”

Man, those teeth marks in the leather upper were a horrifying dental impression if he’d ever seen one.

“So they didn’t break through,” she murmured.

“Nope, they didn’t.”

Though he’d kind of guessed that because there wasn’t a scent of blood from her leg, but he hadn’t trusted himself—because he’d so wanted her to be uninjured.

“You mind if I work on these laces?” Oh, for fuck’s sake, that sounded—

“That sounds dirty.”

As she smiled again, Mayhem stopped breathing. If she was pretty when she was serious, she positively glowed with that expression.

“What’s your name?” he said softly. “I forgot to ask.”

Because, really, it didn’t matter. When he looked into her eyes . . . nothing actually mattered.

“Mahrci.”

Now he was the one smiling. “It’s nice to meet you, Mahrci. So what puts you in this remote house in the winter?”

When she didn’t immediately answer, he hedged, “Is your mate around?”

Pleasesaynopleasesaynopleasesay—

“Oh, I’m here alone,” she said. “I mean, there’s the groundskeeper next door, of course, but otherwise, it’s just me.”

“So you’re in charge of the house?”

She looked around the space. “Oh, it’s not mine. None of this . . . is mine.”

The touch of embarrassment was totally uncalled for. He didn’t care that she was a housekeeper or a maid. That was honest work, and besides, who wanted to be with some rich, useless female who sat around eating bonbons all night and ordering things from Saks.

“Is there anyone we should call?” Just so he was perfectly clear on things. “I mean, family or a boyfriend—”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s only . . . me.”

Mayhem was aware of the tension in his shoulders easing. Yet the loneliness in her was sobering.

“Okay, well, how about we get both these boots off,” he said roughly. Because he wanted to do something, anything, for her.

“Please,” she said as she fell back into the couch and started shrugging out of her parka.

The way her body moved, so sinuous as she arched and twisted, so subtly powerful, did things to him that he had to put out of his mind.

At least focusing on all the glass eyes staring down at him and judging him helped. As did trying to improve his sloppy de-booting: His fingers, normally so sure, skipped and slipped, but eventually, he got the Merrell loosened and pulled the thing off. Her sock underneath was black, and she was wearing black long underwear.

And he refused to allow his mind to wander any further than that.

Flexing her foot, Mahrci moved things side to side. Made a circle one way. Made a circle the other.

“I really think I got away with it,” she murmured.

Then she brought her leg up and took her sock off—

Oh, God. She had gorgeous feet. And he’d never been feet-sexual before.

Pulling the layers up, she nodded. “I wasn’t sure if—well. I got lucky.”

What was lucky was that he and Apex had come up on the attack when they had. If they hadn’t, that wolf would have finished the job those coyotes had started. But there was no reason to bring any of that up—

The heavy front door swung wide, and the cold rushed in, bringing with it a swirl of flakes . . . and Apex. Who was sporting a glower like he was part of the blizzard itself.

As the male shut things behind himself, he dragged the temperature down with all his grim.

“Hiya, sunshine,” Mayhem said dryly. “Rough day at the office?”

Apex’s black stare narrowed. But then he focused on Mahrci. “You okay?”

She nodded. “My hand’s already healing.”

Mayhem looked back and forth between the male who’d brought him here . . . and the housekeeper who could keep him in this dead-head room for the rest of his natural life with just her smile if she wanted to.

“You know each other?” he asked them.