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He doesn’t say anything, but helps me out of bed after seeing that I’m awake. Carefully and diligently, he examines my bandaged ribs, then gives me painkillers with a glass of water. Someone had already dressed me in one of their t-shirts and some sleep shorts while I was passed out. My skin seems cleaned up, no longer a bloodstained mess.
I suspect that has also been my wolf’s doing.
Now, he’s got my hand wrapped tight, enclosed beneath his palm and inked fingers, leading me to the large deck area overlooking the forest. Silently understanding that I need to see with my own eyes whatever cruelty this day has chosen to deliver.
I pad on bare feet through the house, allowing him to guide me and potentially shield me from whatever grotesque reality might await.
Everything is quiet, but I’ve been aware of a constant shuffle of comings and goings since last night. Voices and murmurings at my bedside as I drifted in and out of fitful nightmares.
Once the cool morning air hits my face, I immediately burst into tears.
My Viking is sitting out here surrounded by the gray mist of pre-dawn. He’s battered as all hell, with his right arm in a sling and a swathe of purple bruising, cuts, and swelling down the side of his face and bare chest. The side that took the brunt of the impact from when we were run off the road.
“Oh, god. Oh, god, you’re alive.” There’s nothing that can stop me from going to him. And Raven lets me, allowing my fingers to slip through his.
“Go easy on me, baby girl.” He winces through a smile. There’s a split on his lip, and I can tell he’s hazy with pain. “I’ve never been happier to see your beautiful face.”
All I want to do is throw myself at him, but I have to be content with stroking his forehead, and I place a soft kiss against his jaw, finding a spot that looks free of damage.
“Are you ok?” I pull back, and my brows crease as the state of him becomes more apparent up close.
“Thanks to these two assholes, I’m fucking fantastic.” He uses the hand not currently immobilized to brush a thumb over my lips. My eyelids flutter closed at how divine that minuscule point of contact feels. There’s heaven wrapped in the glide of the pad of his thumb over my mouth. I could reach out and touch the sky itself, feeling him warm and safe before me.
“I’m so sorry.” That’s all I can fathom to say. It’s such a pathetically small word in the face of all this. Everything they’ve been through is because of me. Because of my family.
“Foxglove, you have nothing to be sorry for.” Warm palms glide up my arms, and I shiver a little, feeling Thorne’s presence at my back.
It wasn’t a dream.
Thorne. He’s alive.
Straightening up, I turn and drink in the sight of him. He’s wearing one of those soft long-sleeve t-shirts and sweats, and as my gaze tilts up to meet his blue eyes. Immediately, my bottom lip trembles.
“Hey…shh…it’s ok.” His strong arms pull me against his chest, making sure to carefully avoid my ribs, surrounding me with his scent and strength and steady thud of his heart.
“You were dead. Am I going insane? Nothing makes sense.” I speak into his chest.
The way he’s rubbing slow glides up and down my spine is drugging. My fingers cling to the soft cotton of his top.
“It’s complicated to explain. Are you sure you want to go into all of that right now?”
I nod against his shirt, taking a deep lungful of the scent of him. The warmth of him feeling like a miracle I thought I was forever going to be left struggling to live without.
“Please. Tell me everything. No more secrets.”
He makes a noise and tenses a little.
“It’s fine, Thorne. It’s time you told the whole thing.” Ky’s voice drifts over from where he’s still seated.
He takes a steadying breath.
“The plan had always been to work toward a way to get Giana’s confessions recorded. She wanted the Noire inheritance and to seize control more than anything. Hawke and I needed the footage to be able to show the council of the Anguis. It was the only way they could finally see what has been going on under their noses for years.
“The Anguis have turned a blind eye for too long, and we needed the evidence of not only the fact Giana was still alive, but that she’d been orchestrating shit for years out of the shadows. But it took the allure of capturing you for her to finally come out of hiding long enough that we could strike.”
“Me?” My hazy brain is slow to absorb his words.
“She’s been violently jealous of you for years, and seeing you paraded around as the Noire House heir, and with us, was what finally made her snap. If it wasn’t for you, we never would have been able to secure the footage we needed.”
