Selene and Deme held on, lowering him back to the mattress. Once there, they stood back and flexed their arms and shoulders.
Selene took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m sure you have to get back to Cal. I can take it from here.”
Deme crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not leaving you alone with him.”
“Yes, you are. If I need your help, I’ll call you. I have you on speed dial.”
“Selene, be serious. You don’t know him and what he’s capable of.”
“I told you. I can sense he won’t hurt me. Trust me, Deme. I need you to leave me and go check on the woman who was attacked earlier.”
“He could be her attacker.” Deme’s brows rose and her gaze captured Selene’s. “Your sense of spirit has been wrong before, hasn’t it?”
Selene shook her head. “Never. And no, he didn’t attack the woman.” She knew beyond a doubt this man wasn’t the girl’s attacker.
“Still, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you with him.” Deme’s cell phone buzzed and she pulled it from her back pocket. “Hey, Cal. What’s happening?” She listened for a minute, her gaze going from Selene to the man on the bed and back to Selene. “Okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She clicked the off button.
Selene’s brows rose. “Cal wants you at the hospital to question the woman, doesn’t he?”
Her sister nodded. “He’d like you to be there, too.”
Before Deme could finish the last word, Selene was shaking her head. “I’m not leaving him. His wounds must be treated.”
“He’s unconscious. We could take him to the hospital with us and let the professionals fix him up.”
Selene stared down at the man’s pale face. “Even if I wanted to, we couldn’t get him back up the stairs.”
“The woman regained consciousness. I need to get there before they knock her out completely.”
“Go. I’ll be fine.” Selene didn’t wait for her sister to leave—she started gathering supplies to clean and bandage the man’s shoulder.
“Well, then, I’ll check back here when I’m done at the hospital.”
“No need. I tell you, I’ll be fine.”
Deme snorted. “I’ll be here.” She touched her sister’s arm. “Be careful, and whatever you do, don’t trust him. You’re my sister and I care about you. I don’t want you to be the next woman in the hospital, or dead.”
Selene took Deme’s hand and squeezed it. “Then trust me. I know what I’m doing,”
“Fair enough.” With one last pointed stare, Deme left.
As the door closed behind her sister, Selene filled a bowl with hot water and set to work cleaning the wound.
She dabbed at the dried, caked blood all around the jagged, ripped skin, careful not to cause him more pain. But the effort was hopeless. She’d have to scrub to get the dirt and grime off. She applied more pressure, anxious to get the river water off and treat him for infection with one of her mother’s poultices made of the dried herbs she kept in her pantry.
After she’d cleaned the skin surrounding the injury, she took a breath and, with a fresh, clean cloth, attacked the wound itself.
Her first dab was hesitant and as gentle as she could be and still get it clean.
The man, whose hair was drying to a tawny gold, jerked with each touch. As she worked toward the center of the jagged, torn skin, his chest rumbled, his body tensed, the muscles in his arms seemed to grow.
Selene tried to hurry but she didn’t want to be careless and hurt him further. Her next touch set him off.
He flinched away and a bellow erupted from his throat. His back arched off the bed and his arms and legs writhed against the sheets.
Selene jumped back, tripped over his pile of clothing and fell hard on her butt.
The man rolled to his side, away from her, twisting and jerking, his skin stretching taut over bulging muscles. Thick golden hair sprouted from the skin covering his back, arms and neck. His hair grew longer, thicker and coarser around his head.
The man’s back arched again and he roared, falling to the floor on the opposite side of the bed from where Selene sat on the floor in stunned silence.
As soon as he hit the ground, another roar echoed off the walls of the small bedroom and knocked sense back into Selene. She pushed to her feet and threw herself across the bed.
If he continued to thrash around, his wound would start to bleed again.
“Stop it,” she yelled. “Whatever’s happening to you, stop it now.” Selene’s heart raced as she stared down at the back of an animal that appeared to be half human, half lion. “What are you?”
He roared again, his back bowing upward.
Selene fell back on the bed, knowing that deep inside, this man was in pain, and the pain wouldn’t get better until the injury was tended to. Pushing back her fear, she forced her voice to be calm while she shook inside. “If you don’t get back in the bed and lie still, you could die. And I’ll be damned if you die on my watch.”
The beast’s body stilled, the only movement the heaving of his chest as he breathed in and out, his thick, hairy skin twitching.
Taking a deep breath, Selene slid off the bed and crouched on the floor beside the huge creature, touching his uninjured shoulder. “Please. Let me help you.”
He flinched away from her.
“You might as well let me help you. I know your secret now. We’re past the awkward part. I know why you don’t want to go to a hospital. But that doesn’t mean your wound can’t be treated here.” She touched him again.
This time he didn’t withdraw.
Taking that as acquiescence, Selene urged him to roll over onto his back.
He laid still, his eyes those of a lion, staring up into hers, unblinking. The hairs on his naked body receded back into his skin, the huge bulk of his lionish muscles reduced to those of a bodybuilding hulk of a human.
Selene reached for his hand, her own shaking. “Come. Get back in the bed where I can clean that wound.”
His eyelids fluttered.
She tugged on his uninjured arm. “I can’t do it for you and you’re not staying on the floor.”
He let her help him back into the bed, where he lay completely naked, his skin returning to normal.
Selene’s breath caught in her throat as her gaze ran from his toned calves up to thick thighs to the juncture of his legs, where a thick, hard erection, bigger than any Selene had ever witnessed in her limited sexual experiences, jutted upward. As she ran the sheet over his body, she forced her gaze up to his head. The angles in his face eased from the animal he’d become back to the handsome, clean-skinned complexion of the man she’d rescued from beneath the bridge.
Once settled, he lay as still as death, his face pale, his breathing shallow and uneven.
Selene collapsed on the chair beside him, her heart racing, her confidence in the world she’d known shaken even more. What had she gotten herself into? This man obviously wasn’t human. Selene laughed shakily. Deme would be livid if she knew what she had in her apartment.
Selene shook her head, staring at the man lying so innocently against her clean white sheets.
What the hell was he?