Killian.
It’s Killian.
I force myself to take a shaky breath, and one of Connor’s hands lifts from my face. His gaze darts to the blood all over it, and I squeeze my eyes closed again, both unable to watch as he takes in what that fucker did to me or capable of holding them open any longer.
My body sags, but Connor’s familiar strong hold keeps me upright as he examines me. And even through the fog enveloping my brain, I know what he sees.
The blood-soaked bra and panties—all that man left me in after cutting away the rest of my clothes.
My split lip.
The gash above my eye from when my captor hit me so hard the chair toppled over and I struck my head on the rough floorboards.
Cuts up and down my arms and thighs from the drag of his blade across my skin.
A deep stab in my side from when he began to get really frustrated with my refusal to name my sources or give him a way to find them…
I was completely at his mercy. He knew it. And he enjoyed toying with me, playing this game for hours, allowing me to slowly bleed out until I was finally too weak to fight him and would cave.
At least, that was his plan.
“Raven, look at me.” Connor gently shakes my face with his palm at my cheek. “Firefly, open your eyes. Don’t fall asleep.”
I struggle to do it as tears stream down my cheeks, stinging the broken and cut skin there. When I finally manage to get my heavy lids to lift, I wish I hadn’t.
The agony in Connor’s gaze is almost worse than what I’m feeling.
“What did he do to you, Firefly?”
My lips tremble so badly I struggle to get the words out, but then Connor’s strong arms are sliding around my back and under my legs and lifting me.
He clutches me to him, the smell of the mountain that I’ve come to associate with him filling my breath, somehow calming me slightly, even though my sobs won’t seem to stop. “I’ve got you, Firefly. I’m going to take you home.”
Home?
The word doesn’t fully register.
My brain turns it over but so many different, fractured images flicker through my memories that I can’t place just one.
Killian drops to his knees where my bag sits ripped open, clothes strewn across the floor from when the man searched it for anything that might have notes about my sources. He holds out a pair of shorts, but Connor shakes his head, glancing down at the cuts up and down my legs.
He inclines his head toward the back corner, near the stove, where the bag of clothes he left when he went down the mountain has also been trashed. “Grab one of my shirts from over there.”
His brother grabs a shirt and sets it on the bed, offering a tight smile. “I’ll be right outside.”
My eyelids grow heavy again, the warmth of Connor’s hold enough to lull me back toward that floaty blackness that creeps into my vision.
They droop.
The door clicks shut, and Connor lowers himself to the bed, still clutching me to him.
He gently pulls my face away from his chest. “Raven, look at me.”
I force my eyes open, wanting to see his handsome face even when it’s a struggle to stay awake, but the concern and pure rage in gaze makes me choke on another sob. “I have to get you into one of my shirts. We have to get down the mountain in case there are others.”
“No.” I shake my head, wincing with the movement, and I swallow more blood and fight a gag. “He was alone. Up here, at least.”
“Are you sure?”
