Locke moved to my side. “Everything okay?”
“Almost.”
“Your family?”
He knew about Katya. I had told him, I think. Perhaps when we had survived a long night of pain together. I could not be sure. “They are safe. Jake is on his way to them.”
“That’s good.”
I hummed my agreement. “Your children are well?”
“Well enough to give me a heart attack.” Locke watched me unfold my body from the bar stool and stretch out my leg. “The dodgy quack gave Ranger a non-opiate prescription in case you were wondering.” Locke recited the drug name. “Non-addictive. Folk’s used it before and been okay.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I know he worries about this shit too.” Locke spread his hands, coming in peace. “That people he cares about won’t take the good drugs because of him. So I thought you should know Ranger has everything he needs.”
I appreciated that, but my tolerance for being away from Ranger was about to run dry. I could not bear the thought of him waking up alone.
He’s not alone.
“Can I ask you something?”
I was halfway to the door, and anyone else, I might have walked away from them. But Locke... his lovers might have believed he’d come back to them because of me, but that I’d lived to make that happen was all him. “Anything.”
“The note you left me... it never felt right to ask someone to translate it, so I have no fuckin’ idea what it says.”
“You have it with you?”
Locke retrieved a wallet from his back pocket and thumbed out a folded scrap of paper.
I did not recognise it, but the Russian words were scrawled in a hand that was clearly mine. “I must have been feeling profound that day.”
“It’s not your shopping list then?” Locke quipped.
“No. You would like me to read it?”
Locke nodded and I studied the words again, knowing Ranger would laugh if he was in the room. “It says,I would have died without you. If I can ever help you live, you must only ask. And be old when you die, my friend. Be old.I must have really meant that if I took the trouble to say it twice.”
Grinning, Locke ventured closer and embraced me again. “Well, I feel fuckin’ old if that helps.”
“Ranger loves you.”
Locke tightened his arms around me. “I love that grumpy bastard too. Tell him that so I don’t have to suffer through him rolling his eyes and chucking shit at me.”
“I will.” Right after I told Ranger thatIloved him. And that I would forever and a day, even after we were both dead.
Emotion squeezed me tighter than even Locke’s hug. These Rebel Kings. I did not know how they survived with such big hearts. How it did not weigh them down.
“Viktor?” I pulled away from Locke as Orla spoke from the doorway, revealing the now obvious swell of her stomach and delivering news that loosened the vice around my lungs. “He’s waking up. And he’s asking for you.”
[ 32 ]
RANGER
I had no idea where I was. Just that Vik was with me and he had no shirt on. That my head was in his lap, gentle fingers stroking my face while he stared down at me so intently I felt like we were sinking through the bed.
“You are awake,” he whispered.
