The Walls of Jericho

Repercussions

Damien’s eyes flick back and forth between Channing and me as we leave his office and step into the windowed hallway.

“You look like you’re watching a ping pong game,” I mutter.

My comment earns me a bland look from Damien. “I felt like I was watching a ping pong game. There was more tension in that little room than there was during the Cold War.”

That might be an over exaggeration, but I still feel a smidge embarrassed. I may not have started the intense fight Damien just witnessed, but I didn’t have to participate. Yes, I had to stand up for myself but not quite so spitefully.

Then again, Channing did essentially tell me I was his prisoner. Which reminds me of the Daniels family that Avernus is holding prisoner. “What’s going to happen to Charles Daniels and his family?”

“Nothing that will hurt them. They’re going through processing.” Channing takes my hand, reassuring me.

“What’s ‘processing’?”

He gives a wishy-washy shrug of his shoulders. “Something like the Witness Protection Program.”

“On steroids,” Damien adds. “Speaking of things medical, Dr. Lyall says to get Jericho back to the infirmary immediately. Can I have my office back now?”

Channing nods. “I need a key issued too, please.”

Pausing with his hand on the doorknob, Damien peers at him as if the statement was spoken in another language. “For who?”

“Jericho. And without arguing, Damien. It’s not open for discussion and you can relay the same message to Ferdi.”

“No thanks. He’s scary.” Damien zips into his office as if he’s afraid we’ll follow him in. “I’ll bring it by the infirmary as soon as it’s ready.”

With his large hand wrapped around mine, Channing leads me down the hallway. “Come on. Let’s get you back so Dr. Lyall can take a look at you before she declares me mentally unfit.”

“Pretty sure she doesn’t need me for that.”

“Savage, Jericho,” he says in a bored sigh.

“I didn’t say you were the only one.” I give his hand a little squeeze with mine. “Maybe she’ll put us in padded cells next to each other.”

“That’s romantic,” he chuckles.

“What can I say? With me, you get the total girlfriend package.”

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he says with the same mild sarcasm.

Channing holds the door for me to wheel this annoying IV pole through it and into the next monotonous gray hallway of the Avernus labyrinth. “How many years did it take you guys to build this place?”

“Some of the tunnels were already here,” he replied, deep in his own thoughts. “Sea caves carved out of the bluffs that we expanded as we needed and finished. To reach this point, I’d guess about twenty years.”

“’Finished’,” I snort. “Would it kill you to put some pictures on the wall? Maybe get rid of the ugly tile?” I stole a glance at his handsome profile, surprised to find his eyes skimming the long bland walls with a defeated resignation. “What’s that look for?”

Shrugging, he glanced at me briefly. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. Nearly everyone who lives down here decorates their personal quarters to suit their tastes. I don’t think anybody thought we’d be here this long.”

“Do they never leave?”

“Of course they do,” he states evenly. “It’s required, but even if it wasn’t, wolves aren’t meant to live underground.”

“Where do they go if they’re not here?”

“Wherever they want. Avernus operates all over the world.” He glances down at me. “Where would you take a vacation? Or live if you could choose anywhere you wanted? I may be a wolf but I doubt we’re that much different.”

I doubt it too, but I’m not going to say that to him. This is already happening way too fast. Or at least it is to me. I suppose if he’s one-hundred thirty-two years old it probably doesn’t feel ‘fast’. I’m tempted to ask.

Then again, I might not want to know.

“I’ve been in Crossroads for the last eighty years. Pretty much anywhere sounds good.” Which seems really weird to say since I'm physically only twenty-one.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Channing laughs, opening a door to our right.

I recognize this area only because Dr. Lyall is standing in the hallway. She’s waiting outside a door, presumably the one to my room. Both of her hands are stuffed in her lab coat pockets and she’s tapping one foot impatiently.

When her exasperated glare lands on Channing, then skims me from head to toe, both of us arrive at the selfsame conclusion quickly.

I spare a quick glance at him, since he appears to be the object of Dr. Lyall’s ire. “If you live that long,” I whisper out of the side of my mouth.

He snorts at my humor. “It’s sweet of you to be worried for my wellbeing,” he whispers back, his voice saturated with amusement. “You needn’t be concerned.”

“Alpha,” Dr. Lyall snaps. “Miss Jinks is supposed to be resting so she can heal. Not traipsing around with you on a private tour.”

Advancing slowly, he replies in a maddeningly rational tone. “I’ve provided for that.” Channing glances back at me. “She’s been well fed—in fact, I was just taking her to the kitchen to fix her dinner—and I made certain she rested most of the morning and afternoon. Now that I think about it, she hasn’t needed the morphine since this morning.”

The mere mention of what went on this morning is enough to stir up a slew of strangely agitating sensations that are both darkly passionate and dangerously high-strung. With that singular comment, he’s caused such an inner turmoil that I don’t know where to begin to regain my composure.

Channing and Dr. Lyall had been locked in a tense stare-down, but abruptly he cedes that battle and he turns my way instead. His nostrils flare as he scents, and the slow burn of the white-blue whorls starts up in the depths of his deep blue eyes. The purely predatory way he looks at me is beyond arousing.

Sucking in my bottom lip, I try to hide my blushing cheeks by intently studying the boring gray wall on my opposite side. I'm immensely grateful when Dr. Lyall takes control of the conversation.

“Is that correct? You haven’t needed the morphine all day?” she asks.

Without turning my face, I flick my eyes her direction and nod.

“If you’d kindly step into your room, I’d like to examine your injuries again, Jericho.” She gestures towards my hospital room door. In a mildly annoyed tone, she adds, “Alpha, since you’re here, I might just as well check my son’s handiwork too. His medical notes mention eighty-eight stitches.”

Stitches! Oh my God. From where the dragon caught him with its tail. How had I missed that!? “Who’s your son?” I blurt, mortified at my ignorance. Doing as she directs, I make my way into my room.

“One of Channing's best friends. Damien is my son,” Dr. Lyall tells me as I climb up on the hospital bed.

I realize Channing wasn’t kidding—it really is a vinyl-covered cement slab of sheer uncomfortableness, even dressed in bedcovers. Especially compared to the bed in his room, which was like sleeping on a summer cloud.

“Remarkable. The bruise on the side of your face looks much better.”

“Damien!?” I glance from her to Channing as she passively moves my arm, then prods along my cracked ribs carefully. “He’s competent to put in stitches?”

“He is,” Dr. Lyall replies disinterestedly. “His first education was as a doctor. Piddling around on those computers all day is a waste of his intellect. But I’m just his mother. What would I know?” she grumbles. “Extraordinary. You have no tenderness at all. Would you mind if I lift your shirt?”

Channing’s brows flick up in sudden concern and he eases quietly from his spot near the door to one where he can look at my exposed flesh too. Dr. Lyall’s cool fingers slide along my exposed ribs as I hold my raised shirt to keep it covering my breast.

“The bruises are almost gone here too.” She peers into my face as if seeing me for the first time. “I’d like to get another X-ray of your chest, Jericho. If you’re doing alright without the morphine, I’ll have the nurse remove the IV and we’ll put you on oral pain management.”

“Would you stop looking at me like that?” I hiss at Channing where he leans against the wall, his eyes moving leisurely over my exposed flesh.

He smiles at my remark.

The lazy mocking alpha voice makes me blush furiously and yank my shirt down.

“Alpha. Take a seat here, please.” Dr. Lyall indicates the rolling chair. When he’s seated, she tugs lightly at the seams of his t-shirt on his shoulders. “Take this off, please.”

Channing’s eyes lock on mine, and it’s as if I’m hypnotized. There’s no doubt that this shedding of clothing has led to some steamy contemplations on both our parts. A subtle smirk blooms on his face as he tucks his hands into the t-shirt’s neck and tugs it over his head.

So God-awful slowly that even I’m ready to climb off this concrete slab of a hospital bed and yank that thing off as those divine abs of his are revealed. Rippling bulging mouthwatering ridge after lickable ridge. A persistent tingling had been building since he riveted his eyes on me out in the hallway, but now, my desire is all but throbbing inside me.

Biting my lip, I blush furiously again.

There’s no sense denying I was just thinking that exact thought.

Soon. I promise.>

“This is the strangest thing,” Dr. Lyall mutters, more to herself than either of us as her patients. She pats Channing’s shoulder, but doesn’t look up from her study of his back. “The wound’s closed. These need to come out.”

Pivoting, she presses the call button near the door to summon the nurse. When the call is answered a moment later, Dr. Lyall gives quick orders for the medical tools to remove Channing’s stitches and for the nurse to remove my IV.

It takes much longer for Dr. Lyall to remove all of Channing’s stitches than it does the nurse to remove my IV. Once I’m free of the monstrous thing, I scoot off the bed and move where I can see his muscular back and the long pinkish scar where the dragon sliced into him with its fearsome tail spike.

As Dr. Lyall works, snipping the stitches, then pulling them out with tweezers by their knots, I get to study Channing’s perfection.

He’s singularly gorgeous, with thick hair and faultlessly carved features, and despite Dr. Lyall’s ministrations, his muscular body lounges, relaxed, graceful and poised. Only his eyes give away what’s inside of him, their deep blue gleaming with white-blue whorls about his dilated pupils.  

“Alright, Alpha,” Dr. Lyall comments with a flourish removing the last stitch. She swipes an antiseptic soaked gauze across the long scar several times. “You’re good to go. I’ll arrange for an X-ray later this evening, after you’ve fed Miss Jinks something to eat. The both of you—,” she comes around from behind him, deliberately stepping between us and interrupting the line of sight, “—will need to be taking it easy. Especially her.”

Blushing furiously, I cover my face with my palm, peeking out through my fingers.

Channing gives a muffled grunt of disapproval when Dr. Lyall shuffles her position so she’s still physically blocking me from his sight. When he stands, tugging his t-shirt along his arms, she lays a restraining hand on his forearm.

“I mean it, Channing,” she tells him with motherly firmness. “I’m a doctor, a mated female and somebody’s mom. I know exactly what carnal biochemistry is in play here. I can’t stop you, but I do caution you: take care of her if you want to keep her around.”

“Take care of my mate. Got it, doc.” Ducking around Dr. Lyall quickly, Channing grabs my wrist. With a goofy grin, he drags me out of the room behind him. 

**

“How do you like your burger cooked?” Channing asks, carefully forming a hefty patty between his hands. “Medium?”

From a barstool on the opposite side of the kitchen’s granite countertop island, I snort derisively. “No. Gross. Well done, please. This is the most protein I’ve eaten in a day my whole life. It that all you wolves eat? Meat?”

He drops the patty on a plate, then picks up the next divided glob of uncooked ground beef and starts forming it into a patty. “No. There are potato wedges in the oven. If you’re nice, I’ll even slice a tomato and wash some lettuce for you to top your burger.”

“How about you throw them both together in a nice salad with some ground pepper and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and we’ll call it good.”

“Nope.” He drops the second patty on the plate, then forms a third, then a fourth before washing his hands. “You need your strength. For healing.”

There’s no doubt by the inflection in his voice that healing is the farthest thing from his mind.

“Are you eating all that?” I point to the plate covered in thick hamburger patties. “Because I won’t.”

“Habit,” he replies with a grin. Choosing a few spices from a generously stocked cupboard, he seasons the burgers. “Ferdi’s usually here at mealtimes. Damien will drag in here later. When he gets bored playing with his electronic toys.”

“You do all the cooking then?” Given I don’t really cook at all, this adds another delightful element to Channing’s already significant appeal.

“Typically. Damien makes a decent Korean barbeque on occasion.”

“Speaking of Damien. Is he really a doctor?”

The burgers drop onto the grill one at a time with a sizzling hiss. “Technically, yes. He went to med school because that’s what his mom wanted him to do. Obviously, he’s always loved programing and electronics, which is where he prefers to work.”

I shake my head in disbelief. I knew Damien was smart, but wow. "Do wolves always heal as fast as you do?”

Channing looks up from his position beside the grill, a long-handled metal spatula in hand. “It’s accelerated. Goes along with the high metabolism that makes us so warm. This is atypical though. Even for a wolf. Especially for a wound from a dragon. I’m chalking it up to proximity to you since you heal that fast.”

“I don’t heal this fast normally either.” At least I don’t think I do. Generally, I’m pretty meticulous about not hurting myself in the first place. Aside from when I came into this tiny premature body, I’ve never had some kind of accident that required this much medical care.

“Huh. Weird.” He flips three of the burgers, letting the fourth—the one for me—cook a little longer. “Maybe it’s because we’re paired.”

“We’re not a couple.”

He grins. “We are now.”

“Uh-uh.” I shake my head to reinforce my position. “At best, we’re a one-night stand. Or—a one-morning stand.”

Don’t push me, Jericho.> His eyes hold mine with salacious interest. “I’ll turn the oven and the grill off and change that right now,” he threatens.

“Mind your manners. Get back to cooking. Besides, you still owe me food, an explanation for your earlier completely unmitigated asshole behavior in Damien’s office. And a key.”

His eyes flick up to meet mine, clearly stung by my deliberate accent of the last word.

“Food’s in progress. The explanation probably won’t amount to much more than what I’ve already told you, but here goes. You aren’t the reason Avernus is in Crossroads, Jericho. In fact, at one point, before you contacted us, Mia was a target.”

“Avernus is here to kill a dragon.”

“Right. You’re—well, you’re kind of a complication. A rogue element.” He didn’t really like the expression on my face when he supplied that piece of information, so he tries to rush on. “You’ve proven valuable. Plus, now, you’re with me—us. Avernus,” he adds quickly.

I have no idea why, but tears threaten. I blink them away, determined to maintain the outward appearance of composure, even if inside I’m roiling and tormented. It shouldn’t matter that I’m a complication. Or that I’m with or not with Channing. Yet somehow it does.

“So your real goal with that whole nasty scene in Damien’s office was because it’s your job as Alpha to see that the job of killing the dragon gets done.”

“There’s a lot to my job, but yeah. It all kind of distills down into that.”

"Good to know," I reply resignedly.