I felt like a child being buckled into a car seat the way Luca manhandled me into the passenger seat of his truck.


    Wordlessly, he reached across me and buckled me up before mming the car door shut to walk around to the driver’s side. I sat quietly as he started the truck and drove off, gently cradling my right hand against my stomach and covering it with my left.


    The back of my hand was throbbing, especially around myst two knuckles. My fingers were numb and I could barely move them.


    I knew it was likely broken.


    I held back tears as the adrenaline levels in my body began to lower and allowed me to fully experience the shooting pain in my hand.


    An awkward few minutes passed by before we pulled up to the gate in front of his house and drove down his driveway. As soon as the truck was parked in Luca’s garage, I reached down and unbuckled my seatbelt, getting out of the car as soon as I had


    done so.


    I could hear Luca calling after me as I walked quickly across the breezeway, through the side door and into the house. I made it into the living room, almost to the staircase when Luca mmed the side door shut behind him as he came in.


    “Stop.”


    Hearing his low, sternmand, my feet froze in their tracks. My mouth gaped in shock at his tone as I turned to look at him.


    “Do not use your Alpha tone on me ever again,” I warned him.


    Before he could say anything else, Luca noticed that I had tucked my injured hand under my left arm.


    As he walked towards me slowly, I gulped, knowing that I’d been caught.


    “Let me see your hand,” he said.


    I clenched my jaw, making no effort to move. Luca reached out and grabbed my elbow, gently pulling my arm towards him. Not wishing to cause anymore pain to my hand, I released my arm to fall into his grasp.


    He let out a slow breath as he saw the swollen knuckles that were tinged pink. As Luca slowly turned my hand over in his, I realized how much


    bigger his hands were than mine. I also noticed how much my hand was shaking, but I wasn’t quite sure if I could narrow down the cause of that to just one thing.


    “Can you bend your fingers?” He asked me.


    I shook my head, having already tried.


    Still holding my injured hand, Luca reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone with his other hand. He dialed a number quickly before putting the phone up to his ear.


    “I need you over at my house as soon as you can get here,” he said.


    I heard incoherent mumbling on the other line before Luca continued: “Just get here when you can.”


    He hung up the phone before giving the person on the other side of the call a chance to respond.


    “I need to shower,” I said, pulling my hand from his grasp.


    He let me go and I turned to walk upstairs.


    After managing to shower the best I could with one hand, I changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants. I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere else anytime soon.


    I wasn’t even sure I wanted to leave the house again.


    As I was walking down the stairs, I heard an unfamiliar voice.


    “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you I don’t make house calls,” she said.


    “And yet here you are,” Luca replied.


    Luca was standing in the dining room with a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties, her full-figure adorned by navy scrubs.


    The hair framing her pale face was gray, the rest a dark brte Red-rimmed sses sat perched on her freckled nose.N?velDrama.Org copyrighted ? content.


    “Carrie, this is Dr. Marianne Witt. She came over to look at your hand,” Luca said.


    I smiled at her briefly before she gestured for me to take a seat at the table where a tackle box with a first aid sticker stered on the side sat.


    I did so, trying not to flinch away as she reached for my arm. Inspecting my ever-so swollen knuckles and fingers, she hummed.


    “Likely a boxer’s fracture. Did you punch a wall or him?” Dr. Witt asked, nodding in Luca’s direction.


    “Close.” I told her.


    “I clocked another asshole who kidnapped six girls.”


    She stopped and looked down at me over the rim of her sses.


    “That was you?”


    I nodded.


    “I take it back,” she said, standing upright.


    “I do make house calls, for you at least.”


    “You heard about it?” I asked her.


    She sighed and nodded, gently guiding me to ce my hand on the table.


    “Robert brought them to my office,” she said.


    “They were being attended to by a few of my nurses when Alpha Ronan called me.”


    It made me want tough the way she referred to Luca as though he wasn’t standing right there, watching her.


    “Are the girls okay?” I asked


    Dr. Witt nodded, despite her crestfallen expression.


    “Back to you, though,” she said, pushing her sses up on top of her head.


    “I’Il need you toe into my office tomorrow to get an X-ray so I can confirm my suspicions and figure out exactly which metacarpal is fractured and to what extent. My rmendation until then would be to ice it and to keep usage to the bare minimum.”


    She wrapped my hand tightly before pulling a pill bottle out of her box.


    “Take two of these every four to six hours as needed and I’Il see you tomorrow.”


    I nodded, taking the bottle from her with my good hand.


    “Thank you.”


    Nodding, Dr. Witt put away her things and Luca walked her to the door.


    I lightly traced the bandage that was wrapped around my aching hand before standing up to find water so I could take the first dose of medication. As soon as I was finished swallowing the pills, I looked over to see Luca standing in the dining room with


    his arms crossed, staring at me.


    “Can I help you?” I asked before putting my cup into the sink.


    “You wanna tell me what the fuck you were thinking?”


    I drew in a deep breath.


    Here we go.


    “I suppose I wasn’t thinking,” I retorted, turning back to look at him.


    “Quite obviously,” he said pointedly.


    “Do you realize what could have happened if I hadn’te looking for you after it started to rain?”


    “How did you find me?” I asked him.


    “There are security cameras everywhere. I called Lincoln to see if he knew where you were and he was able to find you.”


    “So you were able to find me with the security cameras but not those six girls?” I asked.


    “They weren’t running down the side of the road in a bright pink tank top,” he replied.


    “Besides, those girls weren’t supposed to be within the gates.”


    “How the hell did that man get them past your not-so-guarded prison walls?” I asked.


    “Robert told me those girls were all from parts of the pack outside the gates. He had to get them in somehow.”


    “I’m having Lincoln look through footage for his truck to see what we missed,” he assured me.


    “But that isn’t what I’m talking about right now so stop trying to deflect.”


    I rolled my eyes as Luca continued.


    “Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again,” he said.


    “If you see something weird or suspicious,e and tell me and I will handle it.”


    “Obviously if I had known there were cameras I wouldn’t have followed him,” I said, growing angry.


    “How was I supposed to know that?”


    “And you just thought that you could take him on all by yourself after seeing he had already overtaken a girl your size once before?” Luca asked incredulously, ignoring my question.


    When I didn’t answer, he shook his head.


    “Has it urred to you what would have happened if I hadn’t gotten there in time?” Luca asked, walking towards me.


    He let out a shallow breath.


    “My heart is still racing,” he admitted.


    We were silent for a few moments.


    “Thank you for showing up when you did,” I said finally.


    “I’d do it again,” Luca sighed, “but please don’t make me.”


    I drew in a deep breath as he turned to walk away. He had made it to the staircase, about to head down to the lower level when I spoke again.


    “So are we going back to not talking to each other for a few days now?” I asked, not able to ignore the elephant in the room


    Luca turned back to me.


    “Don’t start that shit with me,” he said.


    “You’re the one who moved back upstairs.”


    “You’re the one who leaves early andes backte. I wouldn’t have seen you even if I wasn’t upstairs,” I countered.


    “I have things to do.”


    I shook my head in disbelief.


    “As do I. Yet, I’m forced to sit on my ass in this house all by myself, all day,” I countered.


    When he neglected toment further, I continued.


    “Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of our lives?” I asked.


    “We’re just going to be housemates because you’re too busy to spend time with me?”


    “Things will be different once you’re inducted,” Luca assured me.


    “Oh!” I said, faking glee.


    “Because then we’ll be able to fuck and so you’ll juste back when you’re ready to getid and leave me here alone once you’re satisfied. Sounds like a truly fulfilling rtionship.”


    I tried to storm past him, but Luca caught me by my upper arm and pinned my back against the wall, my toes barely touching the floor.


    “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he said defensively.


    I was at a loss for words-partially because the wind had been knocked out of me and partially because I was oddly aroused by Luca’s show of frustration.


    “This past week has been torture,” he said.


    “I can’t be around you without thinking about you naked and–”


    Luca stopped himself, allowing my imagination to pick up where he’d left off. I felt my cheeks burn, my ability to formte a coherent sentence reduced even more so.


    “A month is a long fucking time to wait, considering most people don’t wait a day,” Luca admitted, his breath fanning across my face.


    “Then let me go home,” I argued.


    Luca’s jaw clenched.


    “Try to leave,” he challenged.


    “You won’t get so far as the gate.”


    With that said, he let go of me and my feet returned to the ground. Luca walked away and descended the staircase to the basement. A heavy footfall echoed with each step.


    A few minutes went by before I took a deep inhale, realizing I had been holding my breath. I stood there for a few moments longer, trying to clear the fog that had settled over my mind.


    My eyebrows furrowed as I tried my hardest to figure out the feeling that had ovee me.


    Was I angry? Relieved? Sad?


    Aroused?


    I couldn’t tell.


    I also couldn’t understand why he was being so irrational. Why couldn’t he let me go home for a while?


    These thoughts tumbled in my mind likeundry in a dryer.


    They tortured me for the rest of the day.