We had to move into the bedroom for the stitches, and they each took one of my upper arms, because the room was tilting by then. As was the bed. I lay on top of the thin bedspread and my towel gaped open over my left hip and thigh. I started to close it, then remembered I couldn’t use my arms yet. So I left it open.

No one seemed to mind.

Marc stretched my left arm out on another clean towel. I couldn’t feel it by then, and was starting to wonder if he’d cut the whole damn thing off. “Faythe, I need you to hold still.”

Was I moving? “And I need you not to kill him.” My head rolled on the mattress and Jace slanted into view on my other side, oddly tilted, though he sat on the mattress next to me. “And you not to kill him.”

“Damn it…” Marc whispered. Then, “Faythe, you’re drunk. Just shut up and hold still.”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Jace snapped, scooting closer to my head.

“How much did you give her?”

“Enough so that she won’t feel much of this.”

“I’m seriousss,” I insisted, raising my head to look at Marc. “You guys should be friends. You have so much in common.”

That time Jace cursed, and Marc glanced up sharply. “He’s right, Faythe.” Jace slid off the bed onto his knees on the floor, eyeing me from inches away. He was trying to tell me something, but his eyes didn’t match his words. “Just go to sleep. When you wake up, you’ll be all sewn up and ready to Shift.”

I tried to go to sleep, but my arm wasn’t as numb as I’d thought, and the needle hurt. “Will I be able to fight when you’re done?” I asked, rolling my head to face Marc again.

“I think so. You’ll just need time to rest and finish healing, even after you Shift.”

Jace made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat. “She’s only got three hours.”

Marc frowned and looked up from the neat stitches he was sewing in a jagged line down my arm. “Why?”

“Oops.” I laughed, and Marc pinned my upper arm with one hand to keep me still. “Forgot to tell him that part.”

Twenty-Four

“What the hell is she talking about?” Marc demanded, glaring across me at Jace.

“Sew while you yell,” I insisted, and when Marc made no move to comply, I tried to poke him with my free hand. But Jace gently forced that arm back onto the mattress, and I stopped struggling when pain shot through my still-broken wrist.

“You’re going to hurt yourself, Faythe. Just hold still.” He rubbed my shoulder, and Marc bristled. “She’d be easier to reason with if you hadn’t gotten her drunk,” he snapped.

“She’s never easy to reason with.” Jace grinned at me. Then he met Marc’s glare and his brows dipped so that their scowls matched. “I hate seeing her in pain.”