No, Leighton. Absolutely no licking your dark bonded omega.
Kiara sat her ass down on the bed tentatively, like she was still worried about getting it messy. She was covered in far more bruises and cuts than I was comfortable with her having, but none were actively bleeding except for her torn up feet.
I grabbed alcohol wipes, bandages, and tweezers from my ensuite bathroom and came back to the bed to kneel in front of her.
Her eyes went wide and she reached a hand out for the supplies. “I’ll do it,” she said. “You should check on Ambrose.”
Maybe that was what Ishoulddo, but she was my claimed omega now. Feeling her hurting was sending slivers through my soul, and I couldn’t handle it. Ambrose was going to live—Jasper had assured me of that the second he stepped into the kitchen. There was nothing I could do for him while the doctor worked, but plenty I could do for her.
“Give me your foot.”
That was a command, and she was forced to listen, leaning back so I could take her foot in my hand. The skin was dirty and burnt, blisters forming from when she’d walked for blocks on the hot cement. A couple of rocks had sliced her and a couple slivers were embedded in the more sensitive parts of her foot.
I got to work.
Every time she flinched, I growled. It was pure instinct.
It was a long and painstaking process, but I cleaned her feet up and bandaged them, knowing she would be tender for a few days. Then I moved on to the other wounds littering her skin.
There was nothing I could do about her bruises and Jasper would be checking the damage to her throat, but there were cuts along her thigh and sternum, the places she’d been clutching desperately since she arrived. “Is this where you kept the knife?” I asked.
I wiped the wound with the alcohol, trying to ignore how close to her I was. The sweet scent of her core was calling to me, but that was off limits. Just like licking her was off limits.
“Yes,” she said.
Her voice was raspy and I told myself it was because of the damage to her throat and not because of arousal. I was lying and I knew it. Her arousal was heavy in the coconut chocolate perfuming up my room and calling to me through the bond we now shared.
“Why did you hurt yourself to keep the knife with you?” I asked.
“It’s… safety,” she admitted.
“What will you do if I take it away?”
Her arousal soured and she stiffened. I knew she was holding the knife behind her back. She couldn’t use it on me, so I wasn’t worried despite her history of being erratic.
“Please don’t,” she said, her voice small.
I sighed. “You know, if you’d gone out and gotten a dark bond from some random alpha, they wouldn’t give a shit about your requests. You wouldn’t be able to stop them from taking your knife and whatever else they wanted from you.”
Her body trembled as I moved up to her sternum. The way her breasts rested blocked most of my access to her injuries, unless I wanted to get handsy with her. I peered up at her. “I’m going to clean these wounds too.”
She brought her hands up and lifted the squishy flesh that I was desperate to bury my face in. I tried to focus on my task, getting it done as fast as possible so we could separate. Some distance would be better for both of us.
“Are you going to take it?” she asked as I finished up.
“Not unless you stab someone else.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, then coughed. “I didn’t want to. I thought it was the only choice and would work to get you to dark bond me.”
I barked a laugh, standing up and going over to the bag of new clothes. “It was far from your only choice, dove. But I guess it did work in the end.” I tossed her the bag and she caught it. “Get dressed and come out to the living room again. You can shower later. We’ve got a lot of things to talk about first.”
She nodded, and I strode from the ensuite, trying to force myself to stop thinking about her as ‘dove.’
TEN
KIARA
I should have been prepared for anything after being dark bonded, but the prospect of my knife being taken had my brain threatening to shut down.
