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He had internal bleeding and so far, he hadn’t regained consciousness.
There was a time I didn’t think I could trust him, but now, I knew without a doubt, he was loyal to us. We would take care of him.
He’d never be a Monster, but he was family.
“Any change?” Vadik asked, handing me a coffee.
“No.”
“Ashley’s been given a sedative,” River said, coming into the room. “She can’t handle this at the moment. She feels responsible because she didn’t tell Emily to wait to speak to us.” He ran a hand down his face. “How is she?”
“No change,” I said. “Is Caleb dealing with the paperwork?”
“Yep,” Vadik said. “They always want to make sure they get their money, don’t they?”
“Do you think she’s going to want to stick around and marry us?” I asked. I didn’t want to speak the words out loud, but I didn’t know what else to say. I loved my woman more than anything. Had been in love with her all this time. I knew to the outside world, this was fucked up and there was no way it could work, but I said fuck them. They didn’t know us. They didn’t know what we were capable of. If I said we could make this work, then that was exactly what we were going to do. No one could stop us.
Emily belonged to us.
“I hope so,” Vadik said. “She knows how we feel about her. That’s never going to change. We all love her.”
“And our dads are out of the way. The threat to her life is over.”
“The threat in Crude Hill never ceases.”
“No, but it doesn’t matter where she goes, does it? We’re the ones who love her. Everyone else, they couldn’t protect her like we do.”
I wanted to dispute River. We hadn’t exactly done a good job in protecting her today.
“Let’s wait until she wakes up and deal with whatever she has to say when it happens,” Vadik said.
The voice of reason.
I sipped at my coffee and watched her. She looked so peaceful, but with each hour that passed, more of the bruising came out even worse than before. I couldn’t stand to see her in pain. I wanted to take it away.
There was nothing I could think of that would do that.
Seconds passed until Caleb finally arrived. “Everything has been handled.” He took the last seat. Two of us were on each side of her bed.
“What happened to the graveyard?” I asked. I had to talk or do something. I couldn’t handle this.
“I’ve arranged to have it torn down,” Caleb said. “Their bodies have already been taken care of, burned. The ashes will be left in an urn, along with Ace’s and Marshall’s.”
“We’re not keeping their ashes,” I said. “Throw them into the dirt where they belong.”
“Already plan to. I figured we could have a nice little ceremony.” Caleb smiled.
I didn’t feel like smiling. Our woman was hurt and for me, that was no matter to laugh at or rejoice. I hated it. We’d caused that.
“She’s going to wake up,” Caleb said.
“I know she’s going to wake up. What I care about is what she’s going to want to do when she does wake up. What if she doesn’t want us?” I asked. “What if she can’t stand to be around us?”
“Not going to happen,” Emily said.
At first, I didn’t even realize she’d spoken, then, along with the other three, I got to my feet and moved toward the bed. She was awake.
She offered me a smile but then winced. “My face.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I took her hand within mine, kneeling beside her bed. She turned her head toward me.
“Please don’t worry, Gael.”
“I can’t lose you.”
“You’re not going to.”
I didn’t want to put my fears into words in case they gave her an idea. That was the last thing I wanted to do. If she hadn’t thought about leaving, then I certainly didn’t want to give her the idea.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “Are they gone?”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “All you have to do is rest.”
“I can’t rest while you’re all worrying over me. I’m fine.”
“We know,” we all said in unison.
“No, I mean I’m not going to leave.” She turned her head back to me. “I heard you, and I’m not going to go anywhere. You think I don’t know the risks involved with belonging to you guys? You’re going to upset a lot of people, and I may be a target, but as I’ve told you so many times, I can’t walk away from you. What’s more, I don’t want to. This is a weird setup, but it’s our setup and I love it.”
I couldn’t help it, I got to my feet and I leaned down, kissing her lips. “Did I tell you I love you?”
“Not enough. You need to tell me every single hour of every day,” she said.
