AMARIS

A shadow hovered above me in the darkness.

I could tell that much through the thick haze clouding my vision and making everything swim. The features were blurred like someone had deliberately smudged them with their thumb, impossible to make out clearly no matter how hard I tried to force my eyes to focus.

Pain radiated through my body in sharp waves that made thinking difficult.

A voice cut through the ringing in my ears that sounded like bells going off inside my skull. "Amaris."

I tried to respond but my mouth would not work properly, my tongue felt thick and useless like it had swollen.

Then I saw the shift happening right in front of my eyes. Fur receding back into skin in ripples, bones cracking and reforming with sounds that should have been horrifying. The grotesque beauty of a werewolf transformation happening in reverse until a man knelt where a massive wolf had been standing.

I still could not make out his face clearly, could not identify who he was through the pain and shock radiating through my entire body and clouding my vision.

He leaned closer and his voice was almost gentle when he spoke. "Amaris, don’t worry. You are not going to die."

Thank god, I thought hazily. I am going to survive this.

"Not yet," he added, and his voice had shifted to something colder.

Then everything went black and I fell into nothing.

*****

Sounds reached me first when consciousness started creeping back.

Echoes and distant muffled voices that seemed to come from underwater or through several layers of thick fabric. I could not make out actual words, just the rhythm of conversation happening somewhere above me or beside me or maybe inside my own damaged head.

Light flickered against my closed eyelids, too bright and too harsh even through the protection of my lashes.

I tried to open my eyes but they felt like they had been glued shut, my lashes stuck together with something crusty that I suspected was dried blood.

Finally I managed to pry them open through sheer stubborn determination and immediately regretted that decision when blinding white light stabbed directly into my brain like hot needles.

I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the brightness that seemed specifically designed to torture people with head injuries.

Slowly shapes started forming out of the blur, solidifying into recognizable forms.

A masculine figure towered over me where I was lying.

Tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair that was slightly messed up like he had been running his hands through it repeatedly. Strong features that were set in an expression I had genuinely never seen on him before - something that looked almost like concern or was it relief and maybe even fear.

Alpha Corvin.

Of all the people I expected to see, he was pretty much dead last on that list.

"Alpha Corvin," I muttered, my voice coming out hoarse and scratchy like I had been screaming for hours.

"Save your energy Amaris," he responded, and his voice was gentler than I had ever heard it in any of our previous interactions. "The doctor said you were very lucky that you were strapped into your seatbelt properly."

Lucky seemed like a generous interpretation of whatever the hell had happened to me but I was not going to argue semantics right now.

"What happened?" I asked, my brain still trying desperately to piece together the disconnected fragments of memory floating around.

I tried to sit up but my body protested violently with shooting pains that radiated through my ribs and down my left arm in sharp bursts.

"Are you going to help me sit up or are you just going to stand there watching me struggle?" I demanded when he just stood there staring at me with that unreadable expression.

"I think it is advisable that you rest and sleep more," he stated in that commanding Alpha voice.

"I don’t feel that bad," I lied through my teeth, because I actually felt like I had been hit by a truck and then the truck had backed up and hit me again for good measure.

Which I supposed was not that far from the actual truth based on the pain currently radiating through every inch of my body.

He moved closer and helped me sit up, his hands surprisingly careful and steady as he anchored me against the pillows stacked behind me. One hand supported my back while the other adjusted the pillow arrangement until I was in a semi-reclined position that did not make my ribs scream quite as loudly.

I looked at him while he was this close and he glanced down at me, our eyes meeting for a brief moment that felt oddly intimate given our usual dynamic.

His hand moved to my forehead where I could feel stitches pulling at my skin uncomfortably. "Does your head hurt?"

I shook my head in automatic denial right before actually saying "No" even though it absolutely did hurt, a dull throbbing ache that pulsed in time with my heartbeat and made me want to vomit.

But admitting weakness to Alpha Corvin seemed like a terrible move.

He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear in a gesture so unexpectedly tender that I actually froze completely, my breath catching.

Who was this man and what had he done with the cold emotionally distant Alpha who had kicked me out?

"I thought I lost you there for a second," he admitted quietly, his voice rough with emotion.

I gazed at him feeling completely perplexed and disoriented because this was absolutely not computing with anything I knew about Alpha Corvin or our relationship.

Had I actually died and woken up in some bizarre alternate universe where Alpha Corvin was nice to me and showed actual human emotions? Because I genuinely was not sure what was happening right now or why he was suddenly being gentle and concerned instead of his usual cold and distant self.

Maybe I hit my head even harder than the doctors thought and was currently hallucinating this entire interaction.

I relaxed my back against the pillows and tried to make sense of this completely bizarre situation. "You never answered my question. What happened to cause the accident?"