A Cure and a Slap

Scalding hot water pounded aggressively against Graeven’s broad, muscular shoulders, cascading down his back in thick, heavy sheets. He stood completely still within the narrow confines of the hotel shower, both of his large hands pressed flat against the slick, steam-covered tile of the wall. He kept his head bowed, his chin tucked tightly to his chest, allowing the relentless spray to thoroughly soak into his hair. Through narrowed eyes, he watched the water swirling around his feet at the drain. Slowly, steadily, the dark, muddy brown sludge that had coated his body began to thin, giving way to a stark, vivid, copper-red stream.

It was the thick, unmistakable blood of tortured rogues washing from his skin.

Graeven let out a long, heavy exhale, watching the crimson spiral vanish down the rusted drain grate. He couldn't help but smile to himself, a dark, primal curling of his lips that exposed a flash of his elongated canines. He felt a profound, overwhelming sense of relief wash over him. The grueling, brutal hunt was finally over. He was clean, he was finished with the pack’s dirty work, and most importantly, he could finally go pick up his fated-mate.

The image of Kaelith flashed in his mind’s eye, brilliant and beautiful, sending a sharp, electrical jolt of anticipation straight down his spine. Thoughts of her had been intruding upon his mind with increasing, maddening frequency over the agonizingly long two days he had been gone.

Tracking the rebellious, trespassing mutts had taken an excruciating amount of intense physical labor, far more time and effort than anyone in the pack hierarchy had originally anticipated. The rogues had proven themselves to be frustratingly clever. They had meticulously covered their tracks, masking their distinct feral scent with thick layers of swamp mud, decaying pine needles, and the pungent, overwhelming musk of dead forest animals. But Graeven hadn’t earned his position as the most lethal, dominant lead warrior in his pack by being a mediocre tracker. His instincts were unmatched. His wolf was relentless.

After days of exhausting pursuit, they had finally cornered the four exhausted rogues, finding them holed up deep within a damp, isolated cave system yesterday morning.

That was when the physical interrogation began.

Graeven had to hand it to the little, miserable mutts. They possessed a stubborn, suicidal courage. They were loyal to a fault, refusing to spill a single word about their origins or their ultimate purpose on pack lands. The violence had escalated rapidly. Graeven’s wolf had taken the wheel, consumed by the visceral thrill of the violent extraction. He had brutally killed two of the rogues with his bare hands before his rational mind snapped back, making him realize just how much time had blindly slipped away in the bloody haze.

His Alpha, Valen, had been less than thrilled when he discovered Graeven had permanently silenced half of their valuable hostages. Valen’s furious scolding, however, had provided the perfect leverage. Graeven had used his Alpha's irritation to his advantage, easily convincing Valen that it was best if he temporarily stepped away from the interrogation to return to his newly found fated-mate. Valen had angrily agreed, hauling the remaining two battered, bleeding rogues back to the main pack lands where he would let Thane have a go at breaking them. Graeven felt a brief flicker of pity for the poor, doomed bastards. Thane was a master of pain, but unlike Graeven, Thane wouldn’t offer them the sweet release of death.

Long after the water running off his body had turned crystal clear, Graeven finally reached out and twisted the brass knobs, shutting off the shower. He stepped out onto the cold tile, hastily drying off before throwing on his clothes with frantic, hurried movements. He pulled on a comfortable dark hoodie, shoving one sleeve up to his elbow, and stepped into his dark denim jeans.

As he dressed, a heavy, sinking feeling of nervous guilt began to aggressively gnaw at the lining of his stomach. He knew Kaelith was going to be absolutely furious with him. Hell, he couldn't even blame her; he was intensely angry with himself. Finding your fated-mate was a sacred, monumental event, and he had vanished into the woods almost immediately after laying claim to her. The biological mate bond connecting their souls throbbed in his chest, an invisible, taut string pulling him in her direction. He desperately hoped that this ancient, instinctual bond would work its magic, naturally smoothing out her ragged, jagged emotions before she decided to completely shut him out.

Eventually, Kaelith would have to come to terms with the harsh, uncompromising reality of his life. She would have to understand his violent role in the pack, the heavy responsibilities that rested on his shoulders, and the unfortunate fact that he might have to disappear into the shadows for days at a time to spill blood for his Alpha. He just deeply, fiercely hated that this brutal reality check had to happen so incredibly soon in their fragile relationship.

Graeven grabbed his keys and practically sprinted down to the hotel parking lot. He fired up his black Mustang, the powerful engine roaring to life with a deep, guttural growl that perfectly matched the impatience of his inner wolf. He drove recklessly through the city streets, his heart hammering against his ribs, until he finally pulled up to the curb directly across the street from the neon-lit dive bar where Kaelith worked.

He threw the car into park and killed the engine. Sitting in the quiet cabin, Graeven smoothed a large, calloused hand flat over the center of his chest, pressing firmly against his sternum. He closed his eyes, taking a slow, deep, shuddering breath, trying desperately to quell the raging, frantic nerves that were suddenly fluttering uncontrollably in his stomach. He was a ruthless killer, a wolf who ripped throats with his teeth, yet the mere thought of facing a tiny Kaelith had him sweating like a raw recruit.

Steeling his resolve, Graeven pushed the car door open and stepped out into the cool night air. He strode purposely across the cracked asphalt of the street toward the vibrant, flashing neon signs of the bar's entrance. Just as he approached the heavy wooden doors, a group of highly intoxicated human males came violently stumbling out onto the sidewalk. Graeven swiftly sidestepped, his supernatural reflexes kicking in just in time to avoid the rancid splash of vomit as one of the frat boys violently puked mere inches from his expensive leather shoes.

"Whoa, sorry man, my bad!" the drunk slurred, offering a hurried, pathetic apology before his friends dragged him staggering down the concrete alleyway.

Graeven ignored the disgusting display, his jaw clenching as he pushed through the swinging doors and stepped into the overwhelming sensory overload of the crowded bar. The heavy, thumping bass of the music vibrated through the floorboards. The air was thick with the suffocating stench of cheap draft beer, stale cigarette smoke, fried grease, and too much synthetic perfume. But beneath all the human filth, Graeven’s highly attuned olfactory senses immediately locked onto it—the sweet, intoxicating, utterly unique scent of Kaelith.

His sharp, predatory eyes instantly scanned the dimly lit, crowded room, cutting through the haze of the flashing strobe lights. It took only a fraction of a second to locate her.

It took even less time for his racing heart to freeze, only to immediately explode with a blinding, possessive, feral rage.

"Little fucker," Graeven hissed under his breath, his voice vibrating with lethal, murderous intent.

There, near the back of the establishment, Graeven watched as the burly, uniformed security guard—the very same pathetic human male he had explicitly, physically warned just two days ago to stay far away from his fated-mate—was carrying Kaelith’s completely limp, unconscious body in his arms. The sight made Graeven’s blood instantly boil, turning to liquid fire in his veins. The guard held her with a terrifyingly intimate familiarity. Kaelith’s beautiful head was pressed heavily against the guard's broad chest, and his thick arms were confidently cupping her beneath her knees and behind her back.

The guard was practically sprinting, speaking in panicked, frantic tones with a pale blonde woman behind the wooden counter, who was hastily ushering him toward the swinging metal doors of the back kitchen.

Graeven didn't think; he simply reacted. He stalked forward, moving with the terrifying, silent speed of an apex predator closing in on its prey. He seamlessly wove through the crowded tables, ignoring the sharp shouts of the other waitresses behind the bar as they demanded he stop and told him the back area was restricted for employees only. Graeven shoved through the heavy swinging doors without breaking his massive stride.

As he stepped through the threshold into the harsh, blinding fluorescent lights of the industrial kitchen, the voices of the humans immediately hit his sensitive ears, growing louder and more frantic with every passing second.

"How much did you give her, Junia? She fucking passed out!" the male security guard yelled, his voice cracking with pure terror as he gently lowered Kaelith’s limp form to the greasy tile floor.

"I gave her one glass! She took like two sips! It was just tequila!" the blonde woman shrieked back, her hands pulling desperately at the roots of her hair.

"Kae? Little Fox? Come on, wake up," the guard cooed softly, reaching out to gently shake Kaelith's motionless shoulder.

The sound of that intimate, affectionate nickname falling from another male’s lips was the absolute final straw. The thin, fragile thread holding Graeven’s humanity in check violently snapped. A deep, guttural, earth-shattering roar ripped itself from the depths of Graeven’s chest, the feral sound vibrating off the stainless steel appliances and making the heavy pots and pans rattle on their hooks.

The two humans instantly froze in absolute terror over Kaelith’s body. Slowly, rigidly, they spun around on the tile floor to face the doorway.

The security guard’s face immediately drained of all color, turning a sickly, ghostly shade of ash white as he recognized the massive, heavily tattooed man who had just growled at him. The blonde woman, however, clearly hadn't gotten the memo. Her pale grey eyes widened slightly before she began to unabashedly roam her gaze up and down Graeven’s imposing, muscular physique. Even through the blinding red haze of his territorial rage, Graeven’s mind clinically registered her appearance. She was conventionally pretty by human standards, with pale blonde hair, wearing tight, skimpy clothes that proudly showed off a decent figure. He vaguely remembered seeing her around the bar during the Saturdays he used to come in for quiet dinners. But in Graeven’s eyes, she was nothing. She wasn't even a fraction of a shadow compared to the breathtaking, unconscious woman lying on the floor.

"What the fuck is happening here?" Graeven demanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that promised immediate, brutal violence as he took a slow, deliberate step forward into the room.

The security guard, Torin, slowly began to edge backward across the slippery floor, raising both of his hands high in the air in a desperate gesture of surrender. "Look, dude. Look, please, it’s not what you think. We were just sitting at the bar having a drink and she just..."

Graeven moved faster than the human eye could properly process. In a terrifying blur of motion, he crossed the vast distance of the kitchen. His massive, calloused hand shot out like a striking viper, wrapping tightly around the thick column of Torin’s throat. With a violent shove, Graeven lifted the human entirely off his feet, slamming him brutally backward against the exposed brick wall of the kitchen.

Torin’s legs kicked wildly in the air, his eyes rolling upward into the back of his skull as his airway was instantly, completely crushed closed.

"What did I say about touching her?" Graeven roared, leaning in close, his breath hot against the choking man's face. "Huh? What did I fucking tell you?!"

Torin weakly clawed at Graeven’s iron-grip hand, his fingernails scraping uselessly against Graeven’s knuckles as he tried desperately to pry the fingers apart. The guard shook his head frantically, his face turning a dangerous shade of bruised purple. Through the roaring blood in his ears, Graeven could vaguely hear the blonde woman screaming something in the background, but he couldn't process the words. His focus was entirely singular. His vision had tunneled down to a pinpoint, locking entirely onto the male who had dared to put his filthy hands on his fated-mate. His skin burned, itching violently with the overwhelming, primal urge to shift into his beast form and tear the man's throat out with his teeth.

Suddenly, a terrifyingly cold, perfectly circular piece of metal pressed hard against the side of Graeven’s temple.

"Let him go right now, or I’ll pump six rounds of silver into your dome," a deep, gravelly voice warned from directly behind him.

The threat of silver triggered Graeven's deepest combat instincts. In an instant, his sharp canines fully extended from his gums, tearing through the flesh of his lower lip. His skin hummed with supernatural kinetic energy, and the chaotic, frantic world around him suddenly slowed down to a painfully sluggish crawl.

Before the man holding the gun could even blink, let alone pull the trigger, Graeven moved. He ruthlessly smashed the back of Torin’s skull against the hard brick wall, rendering the guard instantly limp and unconscious. Dropping the unmoving body, Graeven spun on his heel. His hand shot up, violently slapping the barrel of the pistol away from his head while his other hand clamped onto the wrist of the second, larger male. With a violent, twisting wrench, Graeven snatched the heavy pistol entirely out of the man's grip. Without missing a beat, Graeven placed his palm flat against the center of the massive human’s chest and shoved him backward with terrifying, supernatural force.

The man flew backward through the air, traveling nearly ten feet before crashing violently into the heavy metal doors of an industrial oven. The thick metal dented heavily inward with a deafening crash, the sound echoing painfully throughout the kitchen.

Graeven calmly walked toward the second man, his predatory gaze locked onto his target. He knew Torin would be out cold on the floor for at least a few minutes, completely neutralized. Without ever taking his glowing eyes off the man slumped against the broken oven, Graeven smoothly and efficiently disassembled the heavy pistol with one hand. He popped the release, dropping the magazine into his palm, and ruthlessly racked the slide to eject the chambered round.

He smirked, a cruel, mocking twist of his lips. He unceremoniously dumped the loose ammunition onto the linoleum. The heavy bullets hit the floor with dull, metallic clacks, rolling harmlessly in different directions.

"Silver bullets, huh?" Graeven asked rhetorically, his eyes scanning the completely standard, cheap lead rounds scattered across the kitchen floor. He had known instantly by the sheer weight of the magazine that it wasn't silver.

The second man groaned in pain, slowly sitting up and propping his broad shoulders against the dented oven. He was older, bigger than Torin, built like a brick wall. Despite the brutal hit, the man smiled back, raising the back of his tattooed arm to nonchalantly wipe a thick smear of bright red blood from his split bottom lip.

"Got you to let go of my younger brother, didn't it?" the man challenged, his voice raspy but entirely devoid of fear.

Graeven couldn't stop the half-smirk that pulled at the corner of his mouth. He had to admit, the human possessed an impressive, suicidal level of warrior's courage. The bluff had been brilliant, exploiting the universal weakness of his kind just to save his kin.

"Hey! You absolute brutes!!" the blonde woman suddenly shrieked at the top of her lungs from the center of the room. She was kneeling protectively beside Kaelith’s deeply unconscious form. Her hands were planted firmly on her hips, and she glared up at the two massive men like a furious school teacher deeply exhausted by breaking up pathetic schoolyard fights. "Are you idiots forgetting something important down here?!"

The older man winced, grabbing onto the counter to pull himself to his feet. He cracked his bruised back with a loud pop. "Jesus. What the hell happened, Junia?"

Graeven immediately lost all interest in the men. He tossed the dismantled pieces of the gun aside and practically sprinted toward Kaelith. He dropped heavily to his knees on the hard tile, immediately reaching out to pull her incredibly fragile, limp body up from the dirty floor and securely into his wide chest. As his warm hands made contact with her skin, she let out a soft, almost imperceptible sigh, leaning naturally into his heat, but her body remained terrifyingly unresponsive, completely devoid of muscle tension, her eyes locked firmly shut. His heart clenched painfully in his chest. He gently, reverently brushed the loose, dark blonde strands of hair away from her pale face, his large palm securely cupping her soft cheek.

"I have absolutely no idea," Junia explained frantically, hovering anxiously over Graeven and Kaelith on the floor. "She was acting completely miserable, practically vibrating with anger, just eating fries at the bar. I poured her a single shot of tequila to calm her down, which I swear on my life she only drank half of. I turned my back to go wash some glasses, and the next thing I know, Torin is screaming his head off that she had suddenly just dropped like a stone and fallen completely off her stool."

"Why the hell was she so pissed off?" the older man asked, limping closer, his brow furrowed in suspicion. "Maybe some random guy at the bar came on to her while you weren't looking? Maybe they slipped a roofie into her glass when she turned away and..."

"No, that wasn't it," Junia interrupted, her voice suddenly lacing with a sharp, biting anger. She aggressively tapped her foot against the tile and crossed her arms over her chest, fixing Graeven with a piercing, deeply accusatory glare. "She was pissed because her so-called fated-mate completely ditched her."

Graeven visibly flinched at the harsh, undeniable truth of the accusation. He slowly dragged his eyes up from Kaelith's face to look at the furious bartender. "I got caught up with highly important business," he gritted out, the excuse tasting like cheap ash on his tongue.

"Business?" the older man snorted, letting out a harsh, incredulous laugh. "Coming from a guy who somehow landed a fated-mate as jumpy and incredibly wily as this one? Bro, you're going to have to come up with a much better excuse than that."

Graeven felt a heavy stone drop into his stomach. He had a sickening feeling that the actual truth would go over far worse than a vague lie about business. How the hell was he supposed to look into the eyes of his beautiful, terrified rogue fated-mate and tell her that he had spent the last forty-eight hours violently hunting down her own kind, ripping them apart, and torturing them in a muddy cave?

Pushing the horrific thoughts aside, Graeven directed his full, undivided attention back down to Kaelith, allowing his sharp eyes to rapidly assess every inch of her condition. Even pale and unconscious, she was just as breathtakingly beautiful as his wolf remembered. Her dark blonde, almost brownish hair flowed in thick, unruly waves completely past her delicate shoulders. Her skin was slightly tanned, adorned with a gorgeous smattering of tiny freckles heavily dotting the bridge of her nose, her neck, and diving deep into the exposed skin of her chest. His mind briefly, inappropriately wondered if those beautiful freckles continued all the way down the rest of her hidden body.

He noticed her eyes. Was she still wearing that damn, irritating colored contact lens that purposely covered up her rare, beautiful gift?

Needing to check her pupillary response, Graeven carefully, gently placed his thumb against her left cheekbone and slowly lifted her eyelid.

A vicious, terrifying snarl instantly ripped through his throat, the sound tearing through the kitchen like a chainsaw.

It wasn’t the fake, boring brown contact lens that violently angered him. It was the horrifying, unnatural sight of the thick, dark, pitch-black lines deeply etching their way outward from her pupils. The blackness was spreading aggressively across the whites of her eyes, looking exactly like the creeping, venomous legs of a crushed spiderweb.

Above his head, he heard Junia let out a horrified gasp, while the older man viciously cursed under his breath.

Acting entirely on primal instinct, Graeven bent his head further down. He pressed his face close to hers and boldly touched his lips directly to Kaelith's. He quickly, efficiently ran his wet tongue over the delicate seam of her plush, slightly parted lips. The moment the microscopic residue hit his taste buds, Graeven violently jerked his head back, his jaw locking tight as a sharp, deeply bitter, burning sensation aggressively coated the roof of his mouth.

"Wolfsbane," Graeven growled, his voice dropping an octave, radiating a terrifying, murderous aura that chilled the entire room. "She's been poisoned."

"Poisoned?!" Torin gasped from his crumpled spot by the wall. The younger man had apparently groggily come-to in the past couple of minutes, clutching the back of his throbbing head. His eyes went wide with sheer, unadulterated panic. "Titus, oh my god, did he just say fucking Wolfsbane?!"

"Yeah, kid, he did," the older man, Titus, answered grimly, keeping his dark eyes fixed firmly on the alarmingly limp body cradled safely in Graeven’s massive arms.

Torin scrambled onto his knees, hyperventilating as he clawed at his own throat. "Oh my god! I drank the rest! When she passed out, I grabbed her glass to see if it tasted funny, and I drank most of her tequila! Does that mean I’m going to..."

"Relax, you absolute dipshit," Titus argued, rolling his eyes in profound exasperation. "If you had ingested a lethal dose of whatever supernatural bullshit that is, you'd already look exactly like her, passed out on the floor, instead of whining about it. You're fine."

Graeven didn't have time for the humans' bickering. His mate was dying in his arms. He violently dug into the pocket of his jeans and ripped his key fob out. He tossed the heavy metal keys across the room, perfectly hitting Torin directly in the center of his chest.

"I need someone to run out to my car parked directly across the street," Graeven barked, his tone leaving absolutely no room for argument or hesitation. "It's the black Mustang. There is a heavy black duffel bag locked in the trunk. Bring it to me right fucking now."

"I got it! I'm on it!" Torin exclaimed, scrambling clumsily to his feet. Without thinking about the absurdity of taking orders from the man who had just nearly crushed his windpipe, Torin snatched the keys off the floor and bolted out the kitchen doors in a dead sprint.

The heavy doors swung shut, leaving a tense, suffocating silence in their wake.

"So... let me get this straight. You’re Little Fox’s elusive fated-mate, huh?" Junia asked, her voice laced with heavy skepticism. She forcefully cocked her hip out, crossing her arms again to deeply study him. Her sharp grey eyes immediately drifted downward, intensely locking onto the intricate, tribal pack tattoos running aggressively up Graeven's exposed forearm.

Noticing her stare, Graeven quickly, defensively reached over and roughly pulled the fabric of his hoodie sleeve down to thoroughly cover the ink. He didn't need the human asking questions about pack markings.

"Yes. She is absolutely mine," Graeven agreed, his voice a low, possessive rumble that vibrated through Kaelith's limp body.

"Well, I’m Junia. I'm Kaelith's best friend," she stated, tilting her chin up defiantly, refusing to be intimidated by his size. "And you, buddy, have some serious, massive explaining to do about where you've been."

"Not to you, I don't," Graeven answered in a cold, clipped tone, completely dismissing her authority. The sheer arrogance of his response surprisingly caused the corners of Junia's mouth to twitch upward into a very slight, reluctant smile.

"Regardless of your attitude, you should have been here," Junia added, her voice dropping its aggressive edge, replaced entirely by a soft, profound sadness as she looked down at her unconscious friend. "She desperately, badly needs protection."

Those words struck a dark, terrifying chord deep within Graeven’s mind. His eyes snapped up, locking onto the bartender with intense, burning urgency. "Protection from what, exactly? Do you know who did this to her? Do you know where she originally ran from? Who the Alpha of her old pack was?"

Junia slowly shook her head, her face falling. "No. Nothing. She absolutely refuses to tell us a single thing about her past. She's a total ghost. I literally picked her up walking on the side of a deserted highway in the middle of nowhere Idaho. If anyone ever asks about her life before here, she just strictly says that her life truly started the exact day she moved to Silverlake. But..." Junia trailed off, biting her lip nervously as she glanced over at Titus for backup.

Titus sighed heavily, stepping forward to lean his large frame against the metal prep table. He nodded grimly. "She constantly looks over her shoulder, man. All the time. She’s incredibly jumpy, completely terrified of loud noises. And she has a massive, deep-seated fear of any men touching her without warning. Based on how she acts, we could easily guess that she’s not running from some abstract, random bad situation. She is running from *someone*. A specific person. And based on how deeply terrified she is, she clearly knows that whoever he is, he has the money, the power, and the resources to eventually find her."

Graeven’s blood ran completely ice cold. A new, terrifyingly dark wave of protective fury violently washed over him. Someone infinitely powerful was actively hunting *his* fated-mate. And that someone had just managed to slip a lethal dose of Wolfsbane into her drink right under his nose.

Before Graeven could aggressively demand any further, specific details about her paranoia, the heavy metal door to the back hallway violently slammed open. Torin practically dove into the room, chest heaving, loudly panting for air as he desperately gripped the heavy black straps of Graeven’s tactical duffel bag. He skidded across the tile and unceremoniously dropped the heavy bag directly onto the floor next to Graeven's knee.

Graeven wasted absolutely no time. Using his one free hand, he aggressively ripped the heavy zipper open and frantically rummaged around inside the dark interior. He completely ignored the wide, incredibly curious, and slightly horrified looks of the three humans as they shamelessly leaned in, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the bizarre, supernatural contents hidden within his bag.

His fingers finally brushed against the familiar, thick canvas material of his emergency medical kit. He yanked it out, violently undoing the thick paracord tie that held it securely together, and seamlessly flung the kit out so it unrolled completely across Kaelith’s limp stomach. His long fingers frantically ran over the thick elastic loops, bypassing the adrenaline and the liquid silver, until his eyes locked onto the specific, thick glass syringe he desperately needed.

He ripped the glass vial free. Without a second thought, he clamped his teeth down onto the hard plastic cap protecting the needle, biting it tightly, and violently jerked his head to the side, spitting the cap onto the floor. Gripping the syringe firmly, he aggressively jammed the thick, terrifyingly long needle straight through Kaelith's denim jeans, burying it deep into the thick meat of her outer thigh, and firmly slammed the plunger all the way down, flooding her system with the milky antidote.

Kaelith reacted instantly. Her body violently jerked off the floor, her back painfully arching in a rigid, unnatural bow. A sharp, desperately loud gasp for air violently tore from her lungs, echoing piercingly off the kitchen walls. Both of her hands flew upward, her fingers instinctively curling inward, tightly fisting into the thick fabric of Graeven's t-shirt like a drowning woman clinging to a life raft.

Her eyes flew wide open. Graeven held his breath, leaning in closely as he watched the horrifying, thick black veins rapidly reverse their course. The dark, venomous spiderwebs aggressively receded backward, entirely melting away from her vibrant blue irises until her eyes were completely clear and bright once more.

The people standing around him let out massive, collective sighs of profound relief, the heavy tension instantly draining from the room.

Kaelith blinked rapidly, her gaze darting wildly around the room before her eyes finally locked onto his face. Her delicate brows immediately furrowed together in a deep expression of utter confusion.

"Graeven?" Kaelith whispered, her voice incredibly weak, dry, and raspy from the chemical burn.

"I'm right here," Graeven responded immediately, his deep voice thick with overwhelming, raw emotion as he leaned down closer, profoundly relieved that she was breathing, that she knew exactly who he was.

"You're here," Kaelith repeated, her voice sounding incredibly groggy, as if she were desperately trying to process the reality of his face.

Kaelith slowly, shakily raised her small hand up toward his face. Graeven instinctively closed his eyes and leaned into the movement, entirely bracing his body for the soft, warm, forgiving caress of his mate's fingers against his skin. He expected tears. He expected relief.

Instead, Kaelith slapped him.

*Hard.*

The brutal, cracking sound of her palm violently connecting with his cheekbone echoed like a gunshot throughout the absolute silence of the kitchen. The sheer, unexpected force of the blow was staggering. Graeven’s head violently whipped completely to the side, his jaw clicking shut in profound, utter shock.

Immediately, several muffled, highly inappropriate giggles broke out from the humans standing across the room, frantically trying to cover their mouths to hide their amusement.

Graeven slowly, numbly turned his head back around to look down at her. He found Kaelith aggressively glaring directly up at him, her beautiful eyes burning with a sudden, deeply intense flash of pure, unadulterated venom.

"Asshole," Kaelith muttered bitterly under her breath, a final, spiteful curse directed straight at his soul.

The tremendous physical effort of delivering the blow had completely entirely drained whatever tiny reserve of adrenaline the antidote had provided. The moment the insult left her lips, her eyelids rapidly fluttered, closing tightly as her body once again went completely limp, heavily sinking back into the safety of Graeven's arms in a deep, forced sleep.

Graeven remained perfectly frozen on the floor, staring blankly down at her beautiful, peaceful sleeping face. His mouth was left gaping open in absolute, profound shock. He had to use every ounce of his legendary iron willpower to fight the immense, overwhelming urge to reach up and embarrassingly rub his burning, incredibly raw cheek.

Titus let out a deep, dry, rumbling chuckle, completely shattering the stunned, awkward silence of the kitchen.

"Like I said," the massive human muttered, shaking his head with a wide, highly amused grin. "Wily."