By the time I’d worked my way through the thick woods to the stream, I was warm inside the puffy coat. I was ready to crouch down for a minute or two to examine the soft ground by the water. The stream, never big to begin with, was level with its banks after the recent rainfall. Though I’m not Nature Girl, I could tell that deer had been here; raccoons, too; and maybe
a dog. Or two. Or three.
That’s not good,
I thought with a hint of unease. A pack of dogs always had the potential to become dangerous. I wasn’t anywhere near savvy enough to tell how old the tracks were, but I would have expected them to look drier if they’d been made over a day ago.
There was a sound from the bushes to my left. I froze, scared to raise my face and turn in toward the right direction. I slipped my cell phone out of my pocket, looked at the bars. OUTSIDE OF AREA, read the legend on the little screen.
Crap,
I thought. That hardly began to cover it.
The sound was repeated. I decided it was a moan. Whether it had issued from man or beast, I didn’t know. I bit my lip, hard, and then I made myself stand up, very slowly and carefully. Nothing happened. No more sounds. I got a grip on myself and edged cautiously to my left. I pushed aside a big stand of laurel.
There was a man lying on the ground, in the cold wet mud. He was naked as a jaybird, but patterned in dried blood.
I approached him cautiously, because even naked, bleeding, muddy men could be mighty dangerous; maybe
especially
dangerous.
“Ah,” I said. As an opening statement, that left a lot to be desired. “Ah, do you need help?” Okay, that ranked right up there with “How do you feel?” as a stupid opening statement.
His eyes opened—tawny eyes, wild and round like an owl’s. “Get away,” he said urgently. “They may be coming back.”
“Then we’d better hurry,” I said. I had no intention of leaving an injured man in the path of whatever had injured him in the first place. “How bad are you hurt?”
“No,
run
,” he said. “It’s not long until dark.” Painfully, he stretched out a hand to grip my ankle. He definitely wanted me to pay attention.
It was really hard to listen to his words since there was a lot of bareness that kept my eyes busy. I resolutely focused my gaze above his chest. Which was covered, not too thickly, with dark brown hair. Across a broad expanse. Not that I was looking!
“Come on,” I said, kneeling beside the stranger. A mélange of prints indented the mud, indicating a lot of activity right around him. “How long have you been here?”
“A few hours,” he said, gasping as he tried to prop himself up on one elbow.
“In this cold?” Geez Louise. No wonder his skin was bluish. “We got to get you indoors,” I said. “Now.” I looked from the blood on his left shoulder to the rest of him, trying to spot other injuries.
That was a mistake. The rest of him—though visibly muddy, bloody, and cold—was really, really . . .
What was wrong with me? Here I was, looking at a complete (naked and handsome) stranger with lust, while he was scared and wounded. “Here,” I said, trying to sound resolute and determined and neutered. “Put your good arm around my neck, and we’ll get you to your knees. Then you can get up, and we can start moving.”
There were bruises all over him, but not another injury that had broken the skin, I thought. He protested several more times, but the sky was getting darker as the night drew in, and I cut him off sharply. “Get a move on,” I advised him. “We don’t want to be out here any longer than we have to be. It’s going to take the better part of an hour to get you to the house.”
The man fell silent. He finally nodded. With a lot of work, we got him to his feet. I winced when I saw how scratched and filthy they were.
“Here we go,” I said encouragingly. He took a step,
did a little wincing of his own. “What’s your name?” I said, trying to distract him from the pain of walking.
“Preston,” he said. “Preston Pardloe.”
“Where you from, Preston?” We were moving a little faster now, which was good. The woods were getting darker and darker.
“I’m from Baton Rouge,” he said. He sounded a little surprised.
“And how’d you come to be in my woods?”
“Well . . .”
I realized what his problem was. “Are you a Were, Preston?” I asked. I felt his body relax against my own. I’d known it already from his brain pattern, but I didn’t want to scare him by telling him about my little disability. Preston had a—how can I describe it?—a smoother, thicker pattern than other Weres I’d encountered, but each mind has its own texture.
“Yes,” he said. “You know, then.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” I knew way more than I’d ever wanted to. Vampires had come out in the open with the advent of the Japanese-marketed synthetic blood that could sustain them, but other creatures of the night and shadows hadn’t yet taken the same giant step.
“What pack?” I asked, as we stumbled over a fallen branch and recovered. He was leaning on me heavily. I feared we’d actually tumble to the ground. We needed to pick up the pace. He did seem to be moving more easily now that his muscles had warmed up a little.
“The Deer Killer pack, from south of Baton Rouge.”
“What are you doing up here in my woods?” I asked again.
“This land is yours? I’m sorry we trespassed,” he said. His breath caught as I helped him around a devil’s walking stick. One of the thorns caught in my pink coat, and I pulled it out with difficulty.
“That’s the least of my worries,” I said. “Who attacked you?”
“The Sharp Claw pack from Monroe.”
I didn’t know any Monroe Weres.
“Why were you here?” I asked, thinking sooner or later he’d have to answer me if I kept asking.
“We were supposed to meet on neutral ground,” he said, his face tense with pain. “A werepanther from out in the country somewhere offered the land to us as a midway point, a neutral zone. Our packs have been . . . feuding. He said this would be a good place to resolve our differences.”
My brother had offered my land as a Were parley ground? The stranger and I struggled along in silence while I tried to think that through. My brother, Jason, was indeed a werepanther, though he’d become one by being bitten; his estranged wife was a born werepanther, a genetic panther. What was Jason thinking, sending such a dangerous gathering my way? Not of my welfare, that’s for sure.
Granted, we weren’t on good terms, but it was painful to think he’d actually want to do me harm. Any more than he’d already done me, that is.
A hiss of pain brought my attention back to my companion. Trying to help him more efficiently, I put my arm around his waist, and he draped his arm across my shoulder. We were able to make better time that way, to my relief. Five minutes later, I saw the light I’d left on above the back porch.
“Thank God,” I said. We began moving faster, and we reached the house just as dark fell. For a second, my companion arched and tensed, but he didn’t change. That was a relief.
Getting up the steps turned into an ordeal, but finally I got Preston into the house and seated at the kitchen table. I looked him over anxiously. This wasn’t
the first time I’d brought a bleeding and naked man into my kitchen, oddly enough. I’d found a vampire named Eric under similar circumstances. Was that not incredibly weird, even for my life? Of course, I didn’t have time to mull that over, because this man needed some attention.
I tried to look at the shoulder wound in the improved light of the kitchen, but he was so grimy it was hard to examine in detail. “Do you think you could stand to take a shower?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound like I thought he smelled or anything. Actually, he did smell a little unusual, but his scent wasn’t unpleasant.
“I think I can stay upright that long,” he said briefly.
“Okay, stay put for a second,” I said. I brought the old afghan from the back of the living room couch and arranged it around him carefully. Now it was easier to concentrate.
I hurried to the hall bathroom to turn on the shower controls, added long after the claw-footed bathtub had been installed. I leaned over to turn on the water, waited until it was hot, and got out two fresh towels. Amelia had left shampoo and crème rinse in the rack hanging from the showerhead, and there was plenty of soap. I put my hand under the water. Nice and hot.
“Okay!” I called. “I’m coming to get you!”
My unexpected visitor was looking startled when I got back to the kitchen. “For what?” he asked, and I wondered if he’d hit his head in the woods.
“For the shower. Hear the water running?” I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “I can’t see the extent of your wounds until I get you clean.”
We were up and moving again, and I thought he was walking better, as if the warmth of the house and the smoothness of the floor helped his muscles relax. He’d just left the afghan on the chair. No problem with nudity, like most Weres, I noticed. Okay, that was good, right? His thoughts were opaque to me, as Were thoughts sometimes were, but I caught flashes of anxiety.
Suddenly he leaned against me much more heavily, and I staggered into the wall. “Sorry,” he said, gasping. “Just had a twinge in my leg.”
“No problem,” I said. “It’s probably your muscles stretching.” We made it into the small bathroom, which was very old-fashioned. My own bathroom off my bedroom was more modern, but this was less personal.
But Preston didn’t seem to note the black-and-white-checkered tile. With unmistakable eagerness,
he was eyeing the hot water spraying down into the tub.
“Ah, do you need me to leave you alone for a second before I help you into the shower?” I asked, indicating the toilet with a tip of my head.
He looked at me blankly. “Oh,” he said, finally understanding. “No, that’s all right.” So we made it to the side of the tub, which was a high one. With a lot of awkward maneuvering, Preston swung a leg over the side, and I shoved, and he was able to raise the second leg enough to climb completely in. After making sure he could stand by himself, I began to pull the shower curtain closed.
“Lady,” he said, and I stopped. He was under the stream of hot water, his hair plastered to his head, water beating on his chest and running down to drip off his . . . Okay, he’d gotten warmer everywhere.
“Yes?” I was trying not to sound like I was choking.
“What’s your name?”
“Oh! Excuse me.” I swallowed hard. “My name is Sookie. Sookie Stackhouse.” I swallowed again. “There’s the soap; there’s the shampoo. I’m going to leave the bathroom door open, okay? You just call me when you’re through, and I’ll help you out of the tub.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll yell if I need you.”
I pulled the shower curtain, not without regret. After checking that the clean towels were where Preston could easily reach them, I returned to the kitchen. I wondered if he would like coffee or hot chocolate or tea? Or maybe alcohol? I had some bourbon, and there were a couple of beers in the refrigerator. I’d ask him. Soup, he’d need some soup. I didn’t have any homemade, but I had Campbell’s Chicken Tortilla. I put the soup into a pan on the stove, got coffee ready to go, and boiled some water in case he opted for the chocolate or tea. I was practically vibrating with purpose.
When Preston emerged from the bathroom, his bottom half was wrapped in a large blue bath towel of Amelia’s. Believe me, it had never looked so good. Preston had draped a towel around his neck to catch the drips from his hair, and it covered his shoulder wound. He winced a little as he walked, and I knew his feet must be sore. I’d gotten some men’s socks by mistake on my last trip to Wal-Mart, so I got them from my drawer and handed them to Preston, who’d resumed his seat at the table. He looked at them very carefully, to my puzzlement.
“You need to put on some socks,” I said, wondering
if he paused because he thought he was wearing some other man’s garments. “They’re mine,” I said reassuringly. “Your feet must be tender.”
“Yes,” said Preston, and rather slowly, he bent to put them on.
“You need help?” I was pouring the soup in a bowl.
“No, thank you,” he said, his face hidden by his thick dark hair as he bent to the task. “What smells so good?”
“I heated some soup for you,” I said. “You want coffee or tea or . . .”
“Tea, please,” he said.
I never drank tea myself, but Amelia had some. I looked through her selection, hoping none of these blends would turn him into a frog or anything. Amelia’s magic had had unexpected results in the past.
Surely anything marked LIPTON was okay? I dunked the tea bag into the scalding water and hoped for the best.
Preston ate the soup carefully. Maybe I’d gotten it too hot. He spooned it into his mouth like he’d never had soup before. Maybe his mama had always served homemade. I felt a little embarrassed. I was staring at him, because I sure didn’t have anything better to look at. He looked up and met my eyes.
Whoa. Things were moving too fast here. “So, how’d
you get hurt?” I asked. “Was there a skirmish? How come your pack left you?”
“There was a fight,” he said. “Negotiations didn’t work.” He looked a little doubtful and distressed. “Somehow, in the dark, they left me.”
“Do you think they’re coming back to get you?”
He finished his soup, and I put his tea down by his hand. “Either my own pack or the Monroe one,” he said grimly.
That didn’t sound good. “Okay, you better let me see your wounds now,” I said. The sooner I knew his fitness level, the sooner I could decide what to do. Preston removed the towel from around his neck, and I bent to look at the wound. It was almost healed.
“When were you hurt?” I asked.
“Toward dawn.” His huge tawny eyes met mine. “I lay there for hours.”
“But . . .” Suddenly I wondered if I’d been entirely intelligent, bringing a stranger into my home. I knew it wasn’t wise to let Preston know I had doubts about his story. The wound had looked jagged and ugly when I’d found him in the woods. Yet now that he came into the house, it healed in a matter of minutes? What was up? Weres healed fast, but not instantly.