Free Deceiving the Protector by Dee Tenorio

darted from his face to the trees before returning. He was prepared for her to lash out again. For withdrawal or rejection. But the pleading twist to her lips disarmed his anger better than a bucket of icy water to the face. “No one else… please. ”
    Fuck. He hated giving in when he knew he was right. “What if you need a doctor?”
    She swallowed thickly. Resignedly. “I won’t.”
    “How do you know?”
    She shook her head and, to his shock, the resistance disappeared. Her arm relaxed in his hold, extending gingerly. “I know.”
    Her lips tightened until the corners turned white and he knew she wouldn’t say more.
    “No one else,” he agreed, grinding his teeth as he looked down at her hand and wrist. He expected discoloration, swelling, maybe. At times, he’d seen veins gone black from cell death, the limb incapable of regenerating. Sometimes they even needed removal. All he found here was smooth skin, gold from the sun, pale on the underside and palm. Her fingers curled inward, as if burned. Gingerly, he straightened them, hearing her hissed indrawn breath and forcing himself to keep going. No broken bones, nothing to indicate any kind of wound or blockage. “Flex it.”
    She shook her head.
    “I need to see if you can move it.”
    “It’ll be fine in a few hours.” She tugged and he let her go.
    “Why do I have the feeling this has nothing to do with what happened to your neck?”
    “It doesn’t matter what you feel.” The peek into her trust slammed shut with an almost audible clang, but at least she was more like the cantankerous woman he’d grown accustomed to. “You can see it’s fine. Leave me alone.”
    “Not until you show me your neck.”
    “Why?”
    “So I can tell if your body is healing normally yet.”
    “Do I sound normal to you?”
    “You sound like broken concrete in a grinder, now pull down the goddamn scarf.”
    Still holding the blade, she hooked the burgundy scarf with her pinky and dragged it down to expose her throat. The angry bruises hadn’t faded, but the streaks of burst blood vessels had disappeared. The healing had normalized, but she’d still need the protein to keep it steady. And so would he.
    He grunted his acceptance and she let go of the scarf edge. “You able to skin those rabbits with your left?”
    She nodded, her eyes flitting over the perimeter again. Not the ground. The trees.
    “What are you looking for, Lia?”
    “Nothing.” She lowered her gaze for a long second before sending him a sidelong glance. “Everything. You never know what’s out there.”
    But she did. He could see it. She knew what hunted her, but she wasn’t sharing the knowledge. Why? It was a question he longed to ask but he knew there wouldn’t be any answers. Not a real one, anyway.
    He swallowed back the irritation that she wouldn’t trust him. He had no right to it. Yet. “Hurry with the meat, I’m hungry.”
    He left her to her task, eying the trees as he went about unpacking what they’d need for cooking. Nothing rustled or moved, not when he handed her the supplies or when he gathered wood for the small cooking fire. But something was out there. It watched them—he felt it with every instinct he had. He just had to figure out why.

Chapter Six
    Lia felt pleasantly heavy as she walked, chewing absently on her toothbrush. Her right hand tingled still, the warmth of his touch having cut through the icy pain that had gone down to the bone. A swell of bitter resentment rose in her, a flavor she knew so well she was tired of it. Because the pain was all in her head. All of it. No matter how she tried, it never went away.
    Psychological containment. That was what the scientists called it. Associate enough pain with shifting and the subject will soon bind itself to a human state, so afraid of the agony that it will cripple itself to remain whole.
    She never forgot those words. She’d listened while a crowd of scientists studied her, as if she were some kind of bug under