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My head slams into the concrete floor as both our bodies collapse together. A river of hot, thick blood splatter oozes across the side of my face and all down my neck. It feels like my whole left side has gone numb. I’m expecting the final gasping breath to leave my lungs any time now.
This must surely be when it happens. That moment when life officially leaves you a split second after you take the hit.
I’m waiting and waiting for that moment. The time that I’ll float off on a cold wind, and all this mortal pain will be left behind.
My body is jostled. Hands grab at me, dragging my limp form across the floor out from underneath the dead woman with blood pouring from the bullet hole in the back of her skull.
The back of her skull.
She was shot from behind.
Metal clatters onto the concrete behind me as my wrists are freed, then wrapped in a warm caress, and somewhere far away, I hear an echo of my name.
Ringing fills my ears. A face swims before me as I see a mouth moving. It’s a man’s face. He’s repeating my name, but I can’t focus. I just want to sleep. Heaviness tugs my eyelids and tries to suck me under.
Words flood into my awareness like a dull roar of the ocean. “Beautiful, look at me.” There’s a warm touch pushing blood-soaked hair away from my face. Is it my blood?
“It’s over. You’re safe…I’ve got you.”
The man holding me and cradling me looks exactly like Thorne.
But I know it’s not him.
My heart is lying dead on the floor with him in the corner of this miserable warehouse.
“Foxglove. Baby, talk to me.”
I reach a shaky hand up, touching his face. Searching for the tiny scar beside his eye that I know is going to be there. I know exactly what I’ll find beneath my fingers when I touch his brother’s identical face.
Pressing against the skin, I try to smooth the spot where I know that small imperfection must be. Although all I find is the familiar creases lining those azure blue eyes I could drown in.
“I’m here. I’m here, baby. It’s me.”
My head lolls to one side to look over at the body lying on the floor, and I see my wolf hunched over. It looks like he’s administering first aid, but it must be my muddled brain causing my eye to see things.
Raven wouldn’t waste his time on a corpse.
“You’re dead.” My lips feel cracked. Every layer of my bones ache. The shattered remnants of my heart are blown apart like the bodies all around me.
The man holding me makes a rumbly noise that I know so well. It seems so unfair that even in this state, that soft laugh is what I remember. How he’d make that sound but would hide the smile like a secret, barely allowing it to touch his lips. It’s so vivid; the sensation spreads through into my body with a gentle vibration of warmth as he holds me tight to his chest.
“Not today.” I hear that deep voice that sounds exactly like him.
All of it is too much.
“We need Doc, now.” There’s shouting and movement, although I can’t focus on any of it.
My body succumbs to the shock, and one too many knocks to my head, and as I slide into that bleak cavern of nothingness, where I don’t know what reality is anymore. I’m praying that there’s some version of this tormented scene where my three men have survived.
Because if that’s not the case, I don’t want to wake up at all.
70
When I come to in bed alone, my first fear is of still being trapped in that warehouse. The smell of blood and mildew and death clings to my nose.
Opening my eyes, however, the first thing I find is the imposing figure of Raven guarding me.
My protector sits right beside me in a chair, keeping watch from behind sunken eyes.
